For over a year I've been bouncing back and forth between different versions of windows on the Entertainment system trying to find a version of media center that did it all. Seeing we now have non stop rain I thought I'd fix it for good.
MCE 2005, the xp version needed so many patches, codecs, updates and decoders installed it always took half a day to install the machine and still the volume control on the remote didn't work nor could I get 5 channel sound from the digital TV. It would crash occasionally and blamed xvid in the error report.
Vista was quicker to install untill the service pack added an hour to that install. It had dvd decoders built in but still needed XVid etc and would still crash occasionally due to xvid compatability issues, normally right in the middle of an action scene.
Windows 7 has it all built in, however the MS mpeg4 decoders are pretty rank and a lot of the videos looked like a slide show. Also it has trouble reading files from network sources.
MediaPortal Runs on XP Pro SP3 amounst others, and is almost bullet proof. It even supports the Windows MCE remote control and it's free. I guess you'd want to have a decent TV card like a Hauppauge instead of a yumchar to get TV working, but I'm impressed.
After a year of pulling hair I finally have a stable reliable media center that shows my Pics, Videos and Digital TV plus it plays my MP3's and even gives us local weather predictions on the flat screen. Magic .....
[edit]
A media center PC replaces the dvd/blueray player, cd player, set top box, dvr recorder and adds more. A typical unit includes the PC in a case like a piece of stereo gear, an AMP, a TV and a foxtel box. It can replace the cable box in other countries however here, you need a gsm algorithum on a smart card to decode the channels and there is no pc card to do that for such a small market. Thanks Telstra ....
