Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

mrees — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 04:07:44 GMT

Im really not impressed AT ALL.

Im using Vista at the moment due to my persistance in attempting to get things working.

The interface in Vista is horrible.

Yes I think there are some small advancements in Vista.

The look of it (colours etc) is more pleasing to the eye.

The build in MPEG2 decoder is good to see.

And the ease of adding in extenders seems to be nicely done.

Mind you none of these advancements are hardly leaps and bounds. I personally dont see any stability difference. My 05 system's (2) are Rock Solid, so anything less reliable that that will be noticed soon Im sure.

Unfortunately though the bad far outweight the good.

Not very useful interface, particularly if you have a large media collection. It just gets too daunting.

I have over 25,000 photos, 30,000 MP3's, 900 xvid files and over a TB of recorded TV. Navigating through large collections of media is nothing short of a nightmare.I dont care what anyone says in regards to the side pan, I dont think it works (16x9 or otherise). No matter how large your display. MCE05 was simple and easy, just as a PVR interface should be. IT would be nice if they could introduce a interface that was totaly customisable if the user required it. That way users could switch back to a similar interface to 05 if that was their preference.

The More info DELETE function has gone! I cant believe they did this. Now I cant delete a folder on the system when its empty. I have to dig out the keyboard. I mean... CMON guys, what was the thought behind that? Was that extra command weighing MCE down that much that it had to be removed?

Caller ID removed... WHY?

MSN Messenger Removed... WHY?

Play DVD moved to the TV + Movies menu... why?

Menu items combined... WHY?

More importantly, the collaberation of My Pictures and My Music together. Thats the WORST thing Ive seen. Now all my photos in my music folders are indexed and seen in my slideshows. Cmon guys... surely you can give us OPTIONS to turn these damn features on or off. Include them, fine... but done restrict us to using them the way you think suits the general audience. Listen to the users.. havent we been faithful enough and using the interface long enough that we should be considered when designing the next system?

Vista is 10 steps backwards in my opinion.. Its caused countless hours of pain attempting to get things back to the way 05 used to handle things. Maybe if you were a new MCE user, Vista would be fine. But its a migration nightmare. Especially with the Album Artwork covers. It just doesnt work like it did in 05.

Will I upgrade...? Well as I mentioned above, I ufortunately already have... however I will keep my dual boot system in place until the next edition if MCE is released as I just know its only a matter of time before I switch back to 05 for the rest of Vista's existance.

Lets just hope they listen to us next time around... I can only hope

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Brian LHommedieu — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:56:33 GMT

Not soon! On 12/31/2006 Vista lost my dual Tuners, and would not correct itself. I spent a day going back to MCE 2005 (not an easy feat after entrusting your entire system to Vista - We will leave that nightmare trying to install a clean MCE 2005 on a drive that had Vista for another time)

Remote Record will not work on VIsta , according to MSFT tech support.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Johnny — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:30:23 GMT

I tried the beta version of Windows Vista and absolutely loved the new OS. The Media Center on Vista is great. I had to switch back to xp mce 2005 because of lack of drivers, but as soon as HP comes out with my printer driver and Epson with my scanner driver, I will switch rigt away. Directv hd cable box does not work very well with my media center 2005. I have issues with the guide, recording wrong channels.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Mike — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:34:22 GMT

There are two main problems with my installation of Vista Media Center (over the existing shortcomings of Windows Media Center 2005):

1) There is virtually no DD/DTS pass-through support available from any of the major sound cards/VMC.

2) After about 20-25 minutes of watching an HDTV recording (using the firewire recording application), I start to get video judder. In most cases it does not affect audio at all. Not sure of the cause yet, but makes it pretty useless for everyday use.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

WhoMe — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:11:35 GMT

In a word, NO !

I live in the Netherlands, Vista offers NO nett new functionality of MCE 2005.

You want me to upgrade to Vista? You want me to stop running Media Portal and switch back to MCE? Then listen to everyone..

1) DVB is the .eu standard for digital! DVB-S and DVB-C support needs to be added

2) Fix the EPG, it sucks for people living in the .eu. Its incosistent and patchy at best

3) Did I already say DVB-S and DVB-C ?

4) When I press the record button 15 minutes into a program and the first 15 minutes are already in the buffer, what on earth makes you think I want to delete the first 15 minutes? Add it to the recorded content!

5) Did I already say DVB-S and DVB-C ?

6) Scanning for channels changes in the background causes issues with the channel listing (make an option to disable background channels)

7) Support Multiple audio stream PIDs

8) Support Teletext in DVB

9) errm support DVB-S and DVB-C

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

UK User — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 11:02:57 GMT

Nope. Vista complete mess with MCE. No real improvement over 2005 unless u want cablecard in USA.

1. No Record Whats In the Buffer if program already started when you press RECORD

2. No Over The Air EPG if no broadband connected. Over the air EPG far more reliable and updated than the broadband one! (For UK freeview DVB-T)

3. No DVB-S (satellite) support in UK

4. No MHEG engine for digital teletext/interactive services in UK/Europe/Australia

5. No crossfade function ON/OFF - back to Media Player for that

6. Bugs in Media Player 11 with cover art being replaced (see Chris Lainers blog for loads of people complaning about this and program managers were told of this on betas!)

7. More Bugs with media Player 11 with track numbers shown as zero when they are blank instead of just not showing them.

8. No Internet Radio like webmedia

9. Yet more bugs in Media Player 11 when synchronising content to portable device. If library is 320mbps MP3 and set to convert library to 192K WMA and Mp11 loses fact that its synced before (ie WMP XML missing), bad code results in CONVERTING message for every track but when it goes to copy you get "Already On Device" now why cant the programmer do their job properly and put the "Is it already on device anyway" check at beginning ! grrrrrrrr!

10. No fix for wake from standby to update the EPG but the internet connection isnt available - pop up message stops machine going back into standby

11. No playlists for Videos

12. No MCE integrated Messenger Client (though romoured to be a separate download later)

13. Cover Art blown up too big and makes pictures look pixelated UNLIKE MCE 2005 which was just right.

14. No updated DVD authoring including picking basic menu templates within MCE itself

15. No web browser built into MCE itself just selected portal.

16. No ability to lock MCE so you cant exit to explorer without credentials (needed for living room type PC's)

17. No integrated Zune type music store.

18. No integration with free pop videos like zone.

19. No Xbox360 update to the XEX file to allow streaming of other codecs such as divx and quicktime

20. Media Player 11 STILL loses meta data like publisher when you rescan a folder or new user account scans library folder for first time. Not embedding data properly STILL.

21. Still cant fast forward and rewind a CD in MCE

22. Still no basic editor in MCE to edit commercials out

23. Still no meta data editor for video files and music files in MCE.

24. Still no signal strength indicator for DVB-T

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Mark — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 00:14:44 GMT

No way will I touch it until at least SP1. Maybe not even then, unless there are a lot of DX10 games I cant do without.

This is just my standard proceedure for any windows OS.

I am looking around at some of the other offerings from the open source community, if they look to be more stable then MCE is out completely. It seems every couple of patches new problems crop up that need fixing, the one Im fighting now is the occasional video stutter in live TV. The only thing that changed was security patches... sigh...

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

chrisl — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:03:59 GMT

I wouldn't wait for the OCUR (CableCARD Reader) to be available retail, I doubt it will ever happen.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Michael Rock — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:00:38 GMT

Vista holds the promise that all of us media center fanatics have fantasized about for quite some time...HD and CableCard Support. The day I can plug in my cable and use my computer to receive ALL if the information on the cable plant will be a fine one indeed. For now I am using SageTV with a few of the Hauppuage extenders and am relatively happy (They work great, minus the HD support). I am extremely tempted to run out and empty my wallet on brand new processors, memory, etc to support the upgrade to Vista, but the smarter, wiser consumer in me thinks that things will not go as planned or work as advertised. I will be waiting until the hardware support is available (ie..I can go and and buy a tuner with CableCard support!), and the software functionality is proven...

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Thomas Lee — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:24:35 GMT

No.

It's averaging 1 blue screen every few hours. Simply not stable enough.

My advice is to wait for SP1.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Shannon J Hager — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:06:53 GMT

I will, if I find a CableCARD-equipped system that is priced right. I prefer the Vista

UI to XP/MCE 2005, so even though there isn't really anything new at all to be gained from Vista MC, I would still want to upgrade.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

chrisl — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 13:34:24 GMT

Here are my thoughts

http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2006/10/16/180756.aspx

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Mark G — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00:53:55 GMT

yep. I will, the day my movies 3.0 (native vista) is released.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

chrisl — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:44:04 GMT

It's not so much that the upgrade is not worth it, rather that the product is not what it should be. I'll try and write a full post on it, but I just have mixed feelings about it. Media Center is almost 4 years old, we should have features like DVD streamings, and "Softsled". After all, what's the point of having easy access to my media when I can't have access to all of it? If you look at how Microsoft even tries to sell Media Center, as a system where you can "find, play, and manage all your digital entertainment on your PC" seems like of strage that I have to walk around my home to find the DVD I'm looking for, when it's "all" supposed to be done on my PC.

Yes, CableCARD support is HUGE. Native HD support. This is the first PC application to have it, and could be the only. It's also huge that we get to stream to Extenders, something that TiVo seems to be having CableLabs issues with.

Yes, OS security is very important and I'm very interested in learning and seeing the improvements that have been made (I've really only explored Media Center in the betas). I'm interest in IT security as some may know, so the fact that Microsoft has yet again stepped up security is something I will be exploring and welcome for home use.

Yes, new only comes to Vista. Part of my problem with this is that old isn't supported in Vista. While this my be expected to some in an upgrade, I think Microsoft should have done better for those who spent $300 a piece on v1 Extenders only to have them killed now. Even with me counting on v2 Extenders costing much less then $300, it's hard to justify some peoples upgrade to Vista when there +$600 worth of Extenders will no longer work.

Overall, I kind of feel like too much as put into "cool hip things" in Vista and useful feature development was kind of put to the side. Again, I have not played with Vista fully, I've mostly only used Media Center. But some of the "breakthrough" features that get all the press really just suck. Aero, Flip 3D, Live thumbnails, etc. All "cool", but all worthless IMHO.

Chris

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

dnr — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:23:08 GMT

Chris - I am also very shocked that your bottom line is that Vista is not worth it. This is for several reasons:

1. HDTV support - CableCard on Vista MCE is the only reasonable way to join the 21st century. If for no other reason (in the US) this would mandate Vista MCE for anyone who wants to receive (other than attenna based) real HDTV on a device than is really functional. The type of devices put out by Scientific Atlanta, et al are really not acceptable to people who are serious about DVRs. For me devices like TiVo are just not adequate.

2. Security - If for no other reason alone, I would adopt Visa and thus MCE. Microsoft has made a relatively secure operating system and I would adopt it for my entire home network (six systems) for that reason alone.

3. Anything new will come in Vista/MCE. Whether is be better Xbox support, more extendors, other media type support or HD/DVD, how could you not go to Vista.

For me, it seems like that anyone who is even remotely serious about media capability would instantly adopt Vista.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

TravisP — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 09:55:06 GMT

Chris that sort of pisses me off that someone like you (meant in a good way) would come out and say that all you can see of benefit is for CableCARD for the US. I think you have just convinced me to switch from MCE to another product, because I was already feeling that Microsoft couldn't care less for markets outside of the US, other than lip service versions, and now the only benefit of upgrading (that you can see) would be for US users who want CableCARD support. Sucks Extremely Much.

And I understand you have pointed out in your last comment 'for DVR use', but it is not like we are using MCE for anything else... watching DVDS on TV? The free DVD player available at Argos could do that.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

chrisl — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:36:54 GMT

Hi J,

The only reasons I see Vista as an improvement over MCE 2005 for DVR use if CableCARD (and later DIRECTV support which we don't know details on yet).

I see Vista as one-step forward (at least for US users) and two steps backwards. The MCE 2005 UI was an award winning UI (yes, it really own a design award!). You don't mess with success IMHO. Small tweaks and upgrades should be there, but the UI overhaul is overdone.

IMHO too much effort was put into "new and un-needed" instead of working on what current users have been saying needs to change/be added/be removed.

Microsoft has--err--had the ability to take control the tomorrows--err--todays living room. This doesn't appear to be happening anymore. CableCARD support is key, but so is listening to your current consumer base.

Chris

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

J Manghera — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:28:32 GMT

I may eventually switch to vista after microsoft stops support and forces me to switch, but I cannot justify telling my family to move over to vista right now, just so daddy can play some mcml games.

Lets get straight down to business, my family uses MCE 2005 for its DVR capabilities. Our current machine is a DIY project that is built to handle recording of over 20+ shows a week.

The question I ask to you Mr. Lanier (please this is a legitimate question) "How does switching to vista improve over MCE 2005 when it comes to DVR?"

From my (admitidly biased) view it doesnt improve that much over what we have now. We still cannot hit record and record things that are already in the tv buffer. The DVR-MS file format still eats up Gigs of hard drive space. Not enough filters for TV shows, I'd love to be able to tag tv shows such as Monday Night Football, CSI as "Dads TV" and be able to filter them quickly for playback when I get around to watching them.

Another small example, with Vista there is still no picture-in-picture support. I mean really now come on, Media Center is running on a PC there is no shortage of horsepower, with multiple tuners MCE should have the capability to split screen as many tuners as the machine has.

I could keep writing missing features for hours, but it wouldnt serve any purpose other than helping me vent... All in all it seems that the media center team spent so much time improving the user experience that they lost sight on innovating the way people use media center! And thats probably the biggest reason why I'm not compelled to make the switch.

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

captain_caveman2k — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:54:27 GMT

No way... The desktop machine is more likely to get a Vista upgrade than the MCE machine at the moment - especially as Vista looks great as an everyday OS.

Unfortunately, there are no "must have" features in Vista MCE for the European market and only CableCard support, that I can see, for the US market.

The "Now and Next" mini guide is nice but certainly not worth the upgrade price and as for the complicated UI - well... what can one say about this? Yep - sure it looks pretty, and overall, I love the look of the new UI but the horizontial navigation is horrid. As such, I think Microsoft have just killed MCE's place in the living room. MCE2005 is so intuitive, so simple to use... MCE2005 even gets wife approval and the kids love it.

The Vista release could have been such a great opportunity for Microsoft to improve on this, yet it seems that they have tried to make MCE more usable as a 2" foot client when used as a regular "windowed" appplication rather than implement some of the much needed features and concentrate on the 10" UI that has been MCE's bread and butter. If I want to use a 2" application I'll use Media Player!

David Fleischman, one of the eHome team developers, quoted back in August that "I've also been 'dark' working on some new features for MCE. We still have a few surprises up our sleeves" - well... I really wish they would announce what they are as RC2 is out and there's nothing pushing me down the upgrade route yet. Softsled is probably the only thing that would force me to upgrade at present so let's keep our fingers crossed that this is on the horizon ;-)

re: Will You Switch to Vista Media Center?

Martin — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:42:13 GMT

Not until logitech comes with 64bit driver for my wheel...