Windows 7 media center environment

[James Bond]

I'm setting up a new media center PC within the next couple weeks and was wondering if W7 would be a waste of time or not.

How far will the patches go? All the way up to release? Will I be able to buy W7 at release time and transition smoothly into retail?

This is mostly for fun, not because I want the most stable media center box around

 

[stlcardinals]

It is a beta, they may or may not enable upgrading from the beta to the next version (either beta 2 or release canidate 1). Hence, you might not be able to use recorded shows from beta 1 in beta 2, etc.

Just remember it's a beta. It's going to have some bugs in it.

If it's just for fun, install it and have fun with it.

 

[BD2003]

I've been using it. The new media center is much improved IMO, but the OS itself is overall a little wacky. Perhaps its my hardware (W7 is the only OS Ive ever installed on it), but I cant get it to go to sleep without disabling the ability of my usb remote to wake it back up. There's little oddities here or there, but overall its been pretty smooth.

Just make sure you go with 32bit for now at least, as the 64bit media center is missing quite a few things like internet tv.

 

[sportage]

I'm finding win7 to be the perfect media pc os.
Win7 installed my Hauppauge 1600 digital ota tv card, and
win7 media center found it and works hand in hand, without
any hassles. Media center has not froze for died once in win7,
unlike vista where it often froze up or choked to death.
Still testing, but so far all is going well in win7 and media center.
MUCH better performance than in vista. This win7 media pc just might
be reliable, for a change.

 

[Hyperlite]

Media center is pretty, but it's just too cumbersome for my usage. Operations that take me a few seconds in songbird take many times longer in media center. This is just for music playback though. If i had a large, frequently used video library or i was using it for true media center purposes, i'm sure it would have it's merits.

 

[BD2003]

Yeah, its definitely not for music. If youre not using it on a HDTV with a remote, its going to seem more than a bit cumbersome.

 

[TheInternal]

I'm running 64 bit Windows 7, and have been liking the new version of media center for the most part. Cleaner/more logical display overlays, and the internet TV element is interesting.

There are two main glitches I've encountered so far. Despite windows sound setup, and media center setup succesfully noticing and testing my 5.1 speakers, for some reason media player and media center won't use my rear speakers in music or tv playback. I'm using a creative labs sound blaster audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro at the moment. Media Center won't register both of my analog TV tuners either (the Hauppauge WinPVR - 500 MCE), despite both tuners showing up fine in device manager (only one tuner is registering in media center).

Despite what a previous poster said, yes, you can use the internet tv feature in 64 bit Windows 7, though I don't see a way to add additional internet TV (such as Hulu).

Overall, it seems pretty stable, if not a bit unfriendly to my soundcard and tv tuner.