Holy Crap, Windows Media Center is AMAZING!

[Shawn]

Well I got Vista RC1 all up and running and have been testing out Window Media Center and it is amazing! It is 1000000x better than the WinTV crap that Hauppauge created. At first I was upset that WinTV wouldn't work properly in Vista but now I am happy that it doesn't.

I know WinXP Media Center Edition has been out for a while now but I never had the chance to check it out. For those of you who haven't had a chance to play with it it's basically like Tivo. It has all the program listings and you just select what you want to record. You can set it to record all new episodes, etc.

I can also now watch shows that have already started recording from the beginning, set it to automatically start recording 1min early and end a 1min later, view the complete tv guide, see what network i'm on, what's on at the channel i'm watching, a complete description of the episode, closed captioning support, fast foward and rewind, and a bunch of other stuff that Hauppauge's own software didn't support.

But perhaps the best advantage over WinTV is that it's actually STABLE. WinTV would always crash randomly and I would end up not being able to watch the end of a show or sometimes it wouldn't even record at all!

 

[Sphexi]

SageTV FTW.

 

[Goosemaster]

1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
SageTV FTW.

What's so special about SageTV? Looks expensive to me. Vista is free until July 07. 😛

 

[mzkhadir]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

thats what MS does, makes it simple for people to work with.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

thats what MS does, makes it simple for people to work with.

nah...nah...you got it wrong....the featureset is simple😛


The others, such as myth, are not that un-user-friendly, but even then, MCE looks more polished, even though it is qutie limited.

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

thats what MS does, makes it simple for people to work with.

nah...nah...you got it wrong....the featureset is simple😛


The others, such as myth, are not that un-user-friendly, but even then, MCE looks more polished, even though it is qutie limited.

How is it limited? It seems to do everything I need it to. Infact, I just realized that it has a burn to DVD feature. Pretty neat.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Shawn

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

thats what MS does, makes it simple for people to work with.

nah...nah...you got it wrong....the featureset is simple😛


The others, such as myth, are not that un-user-friendly, but even then, MCE looks more polished, even though it is qutie limited.

How is it limited? It seems to do everything I need it to. Infact, I just realized that it has a burn to DVD feature. Pretty neat.

Don't get me wrong, MCE has great features like DVD buring, great HD support (OTA) and will appearantly get great Cable card supprot, but thigns such as remtoe recording, i automatic transcoding, commercial skipping and more, while available as hacks and addons, are simple not in its defautl repetoire

 

[AntisociaL]

I have used it and I still prefer GB-PVR.
Its free and has all the features of MCE that I use.

 

[imported_KuJaX]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Shawn

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

thats what MS does, makes it simple for people to work with.

nah...nah...you got it wrong....the featureset is simple😛


The others, such as myth, are not that un-user-friendly, but even then, MCE looks more polished, even though it is qutie limited.

How is it limited? It seems to do everything I need it to. Infact, I just realized that it has a burn to DVD feature. Pretty neat.

Don't get me wrong, MCE has great features like DVD buring, great HD support (OTA) and will appearantly get great Cable card supprot, but thigns such as remtoe recording, i automatic transcoding, commercial skipping and more, while available as hacks and addons, are simple not in its defautl repetoire

What would you recommend that has the below features that MCE doesn't have?

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: KuJaX

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Shawn

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

thats what MS does, makes it simple for people to work with.

nah...nah...you got it wrong....the featureset is simple😛


The others, such as myth, are not that un-user-friendly, but even then, MCE looks more polished, even though it is qutie limited.

How is it limited? It seems to do everything I need it to. Infact, I just realized that it has a burn to DVD feature. Pretty neat.

Don't get me wrong, MCE has great features like DVD buring, great HD support (OTA) and will appearantly get great Cable card supprot, but thigns such as remtoe recording, i automatic transcoding, commercial skipping and more, while available as hacks and addons, are simple not in its defautl repetoire

What would you recommend that has the below features that MCE doesn't have?

I use beyond tv, but the other are winning me over

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Don't get me wrong, MCE has great features like DVD buring, great HD support (OTA) and will appearantly get great Cable card supprot, but thigns such as remtoe recording, i automatic transcoding, commercial skipping and more, while available as hacks and addons, are simple not in its defautl repetoire

but those don't send media to my xbox360 🙂

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Don't get me wrong, MCE has great features like DVD buring, great HD support (OTA) and will appearantly get great Cable card supprot, but thigns such as remtoe recording, i automatic transcoding, commercial skipping and more, while available as hacks and addons, are simple not in its defautl repetoire

but those don't send media to my xbox360 🙂

you can setup a network share.


btw, I wouldn't stat that as a drawback sicne there are a sizeable amoutn of people who do not have a 360

 

[silverpig]

Mythtv FTW! 🙂

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Mythtv FTW! 🙂

QFT
Hey, a sighting from the 'ol "wasted" days, LOL!

 

[mugs]

Who the hell uses the WinTV software that Hauppauge cards come with? 😕

I've played with several diferent HTPC software options, and for the price (free) I really like GB-PVR.

 

[scrawnypaleguy]

Beyond TV does everything I want it to, and I didn't have to install a new OS to use it.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

what about HDTV support with Vista?

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: mugs
Who the hell uses the WinTV software that Hauppauge cards come with? 😕

I've played with several diferent HTPC software options, and for the price (free) I really like GB-PVR.

Didn't really even realize I had so many other options.

 

[daniel1113]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
what about HDTV support with Vista?

Works great with my FusionHDTV 5 gold card.

 

[hellokeith]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
SageTV FTW.

SageTV FTW x2

Unlimited SD & HD tuners. Also has media extenders, internet placeshifting, free lifetime upgrades, active developer community with free development SDK.

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

myth TV takes a hell of along time to set up, though.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
1. BTW ahs been doign this for quite some time

2.meedio, myth, sage, and others ahve had great interface as well.


That said, media center, while many tiems the simplest, still feels more robust than beyondtv🙁

myth TV takes a hell of along time to set up, though.

teh knoppix version is pretty simple.

 

[WT]

GBPVR, as was posted already, works well for me. Now all I gotta do is get a cable line to my new location in the den. Since we moved a while back I have had to rely on the cable co. DVR ... annoying to say the least.

 

[dman]

Anyone have any good utils or tips to remove commercials from mpeg files without loosing audio synch and spending hours transcoding? I understand there's some limitations with editing MPEG files directly, just curious if there's any tried and proven utils since I last looked into this about 6mo's ago.