Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005: Feature and Performance Investigation
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 12, 2004 12:19 PM EST- Posted in
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Final Words
Media Center Edition continues to be the coolest looking highest performance PVR/DVR (with a fast enough system) out there on the market today. The interface continues to be clearly ahead of the competition even with companies like SnapStream closing in on them. The navigation through the beautiful 10' UI is as natural as you can get; the learning curve on the Media Center interface is probably the easiest there has ever been in any Microsoft OS, which is extremely important for success in the consumer space. From a product standpoint, Microsoft has built the foundation for perfection with Media Center Edition, and the 2005 version simply adds a 2nd floor to the building.
The problems with Media Center Edition continue to be the same ones that have plagued it all of its short lived life: 1) cost, and 2) stability.
The cost issue is simple, a PC costs far more than a set top PVR like a Tivo. The only way to justify the cost is to do what most businesses do when they buy something expensive, use it for as many things as possible to get your money's worth. In the case of a Media Center PC, the idea would be to use the Media Center PC not only as your PVR but also as your main computer. There are problems with this arrangement, not only that you need a fairly high performance system but also that you can't have someone watching TV while you're using the computer to do work without the use of a Media Center Extender, which is another expenditure.
The Media Center PC continues to thus be a good proposition for college students or other people living in closed quarters where there isn't enough room for a TV alongside a PC. It will be interesting to see how well Media Center Extenders are priced, as they will finally allow for the MCE PC to break out of the dorm room and into the home.
The stability issue is one that can be controlled to an extent, but is much more difficult to control if the MCE PC is also being used as an everyday work/school/play PC. The best bet is to control the stability as much as possible through the use of MCE certified drivers, MCE certified hardware, and avoiding things like aggressive memory timings and most definitely overclocking. While your system may be perfectly stable in every other application, MCE changes the playing field considerably.
In the end, MCE continues to be a niche product, but if you have the means, then its definitely one worth going for.
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martydee - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
Does anyone know if a PVR card with a hardware DVD DECODER (such as the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350) is compatible with Windows MCE? And would a hardware decoder give any real benefits to the system over the software equivilent (i.e. nVidia DVD decoder)?louisb - Thursday, January 13, 2005 - link
mulminute - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
My biggest use is sending music and photos to entertainment center,. Should I use MC 2004 or wait for 2005mulminute - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
My biggest use is sending music and photos to entertainment center,. Should I use MC 2004 or wait for 2005CZroe - Sunday, October 17, 2004 - link
"Windows MCE will never be any use for people serious about video until it allows you to select what codecs you want to use for encoding from all the DirectShow codecs installed on your system. Having to use the proprietary MS stuff with all their DRM garbage is unsuitable."You're clearly one seriously misinformed individual. MCE isn't an interface to multiple video formats and types and simply wonld not function correctly if it were.
Understand this: An MCE PC has one or more TV tuners and video capture cards in it and they will function exactly like any other PC with that hardware. If you want to record in the format of your choice with an XP MCE PC, no one is stopping you. Fire up your application of choice, select your codec and complain to the software maker that they don't have their own integrated EPG and automatic scheduling capabilities. Honestly, how would you expect EVERY format to support embedded CC and on the fly sequence removal? How could you expect hardware encoding support for any directshow enabled codec? You can't just throw a pre-encoded MPEG2 stream from the hardware into any encoder and expect real time results.
glennpratt - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Definately go to www.thegreenbutton.com/community I'm in the US so I don't know much about getting EPG and what not in Australia, but there are a bunch of people from around the world there. The first page load is excruciatingly slow on the site, but once you on its OK.tantryl - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Quick question that again I haven't seen addressed that much. On the Best/Better etc. quailty settings, what is the average MB/hour ratio?How many hours could you store on your average 200GB (191 real GB)?
tantryl - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Thanks glenn.I'm in Australia so TiVo or the like is not currently an option (although I've heard rumours it'll be here within another year). The main problem with it is the program guide.
Australia is officially supported by MCE2005, and I'm very interested in just what that means. So far it looks like no Australia specific music or movie internet services are supported, but I can't find anything to say definately either way. I'm so desperate I'm even considering ringing up Microsoft and going through the quagmire that is customer relations there. But the good thing is, I'm fairly certain (although again, not seen it in writing yet) that the program guide system will work. We only have 5 free-to-air channels and a couple of pay-tv subscription services (that are really the same service packaged differently) so it shouldn't be too hard for them to keep up to date.
Looking at the performance I'm not seeing a hugley compelling reason to go any higher than a Sempron 3100+ although that might be something that would change once I actually get my hands on it and experience it.
Hmmmm. All interesting stuff.
glennpratt - Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - link
jamawass - There is an IR blaster connected to the remote USB reciever. There are two ports on it, but the old remote only came with one blaster, the new one which is actually cheaper then the old one comes with two.http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
If you have one you'll understand (or a linux based competitor). The flexibility is awesome (just think about it, it's a whole computer. Not only do you have all the flexibilty advanteges of MCE, you have a full blown OS underneath) compared to a Tivo. It's also MUCH MUCH faster then a Tivo.
As for stability, it all depends on the computer you build it on. You can't tell it's a PC if all you have is the remote. Mine has run for nearly a year, nonstop. You can even put it in S3 (Suspend to ram) and it will still wake up and record when it has to, just like Tivo.
Really, HTPC serves a very different market then Tivo. It has a million more uses then Tivo + DVD Recorder.
For me I have an old high end CRT data projector in my living room, and the cheapest thing I could connect to it when I first got it was a computer. Haven't looked back, even as transcoders have gotten much better and cheaper.
jamawass - Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - link
How does mce control digital cable boxes for scheduled recordings? Does the remote have a built in IR blaster?