Anyone tried XP MEdia Centre Edition???

[Fanum]

Any good???

Worth the bandwidth????

I'm thinking of sticking it on my old PC and using it for TV (It's already got a decent PCTV card in) films and music......there's a decent sound system hanging off it as well

Sounds like it might be good, but anyone actually using it????

 

[Fanum]

Hmmm.....decisions decisions...I've just got a copy of Vista BEta 2 ......maybe I'll give that a poke .....

Hmmmm..............

 

[Mucky Helmetier]

Any good???

Worth the bandwidth????

I'm thinking of sticking it on my old PC and using it for TV (It's already got a decent PCTV card in) films and music......there's a decent sound system hanging off it as well

Sounds like it might be good, but anyone actually using it????

Tried it for a couple of months it is OK but a bit too unreliable for everyday use, we work closely with Microsoft and their Engineering dept recommendation was to wait for the next gen of software!

 

[ovenpaa]

Just given my PC with media edition on it to my son as I never used it. The O/S is OK but prefers high end graphics and sound cards, and from memory refused to give me all of the enhancements with my original cards.

 

[rc mad]

I have a computer setup soley as a media centre, its invaluble for music and dvds, i have over 130 albums and 100 dvds on hard drives connected to the media pc (i have around a terabyte of storage on the pc / network tho )

If i want to watch a movie its a click (or a remote control) away, same goes for music. I think it really comes into its own with the tv recording function, i hardly watch tv anymore, i simply set up media centre to record the program or series and watch it later.

the os is fairly stable, longest uptime i had was just over two weeks, a power cut was the only thing that cut that short

The only real problem is the fact that the os is so damn picky about which hardware you use, mainly the graphics card and the tv tuner card. Best bet is to head over to microshaft and get the compatile vendors list.

 

[fatty]

M8 of mine built a pc using 2 tuner cards and used ms media center and it works great. Full epg, time shift recordings, watch one channel while recording another ect. You have to get a tv card that is ms media center compatable, and get up to date drivers for them as well as the graphic card. Some graphic cards have drivers to use with "normal" xp but other drivers for the same card for use under media center, eg ati.

 

[Fanum]

Hmmm...cheers for that.

The new machine has four tuners in it but I don't want to run a hooky OS on it......I've just reinstalled another totally legit XP on the old one as well so I'll stick with that until Vista comes I think


Hmmm....dual boot Linux though...............................