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Windows Media Center. XP or Win7?

Kelemvor

Kelemvor

Lifer
I want to replace my aging PC I have running my media PC. I currently use SageTV but all I use it for is the pretty interface to play back video files. I rarely actually use it to record anything.

Anyhow, the PC I have to take it's place is a Dell Optiplex GX620. It's a P4 3.4 with 2gigs of Ram and a 2TB hard drive. I'm wondering if I'd be better off installing XP's MCE or 7 and using the Media Center in that. I figure XP will probably be faster since it's an older machine but I don't know if there's any fancy features in 7's Media Center that would make me want to go that route.

Anyone use both and have any opinions?

Again, it's really just be for a pretty interface to navigate through my video files (sub folders and things) and to then play back the AVI files.

Thanks.
 
A P4 isn't going to be blazing fast with Win7, however Win7 MCE is lightyears ahead of XP MCE. You should be fine with SD recording and playback, but HD may be marginal without the help of a GPU that can offload MPEG-2.
 
LIke I said, the recording that I do will be pretty much non-existant unless there's a show that I can't find to download online. My tuner card is SD only so HD anything isn't anything for me to worry about.

I doubt I'll ever use channel guides, I won't watch live TV through it to do replays and things, I will maybe record a couple shows a year for some special circumstances.

On my media PC, I use TED and uTOrrent running in the background and they get me all my TV shows automatically. I then just use MCE to give me a pretty menu on the screen to make playing them back easier.

I think I'll start with Win7 and see how it goes.
 
Kelemvor said:
I then just use MCE to give me a pretty menu on the screen to make playing them back easier.

I think I'll start with Win7 and see how it goes.
Click to expand...

If you are mostly interested in making it pretty you may want to look into the mediabrowser plugin for Win7 MC.
 
Windows 7 by far. I'm running Win 7 on a Acer netbook and it works just fine watching movies, burning dvds etc...
 
That media Browser thing looks pretty neat but there's no info on how it works and what all it can do. It says to visit our features and wiki sections but I can't find either of those sections on the site.

I haven't used Win7 MCE before so I don't know what ti does by default and what this plugin is adding to the mix. I guess I'll just have to see what I can find. 🙂
 
It works by you installing it and making some minor configuration settings (like media location) and it makes it pretty. It lets you customize the view of your library like lists or a cover flow type animation. If you have meta data (backgrounds, actor list, genre, synopsis) with your library it will display all that info. Just look at the gallery to see some examples. As for the wiki just open up the support option on the main page and it will link you to the knowledge base and the forum, you should be able to get any questions answered between the two.

You can manually get the metadata using a tool like metabrowser or mediabrowser can di it for you but it has some assumptions as to the folder structure and file naming convention which you will need to make sure you are following. All of that info is in the KB.
 
TheKub said:
If you are mostly interested in making it pretty you may want to look into the mediabrowser plugin for Win7 MC.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: for Media Browser.

Once you have it all configured, it is absolutely amazing. I use it in conjunction with Media Center Master, which pulls all the metadata for me and stores it locally.
 
Media Center master looks interesting. It has Torrent searching built in? I currently use TED for that (www.ted.nu). Maybe I can lose that program if MCM handles that well.
 
Kelemvor said:
Media Center master looks interesting. It has Torrent searching built in? I currently use TED for that (www.ted.nu). Maybe I can lose that program if MCM handles that well.
Click to expand...

I personally have not used the torrent searching feature however it's described as a "Built-in, fully-automated episode torrenting from multiple sources. Keep your T.V. series updated through the internet for free."

Seems pretty handy to me. What I really like about MCM is that it grabs multiple backdrops, theatrical trailers and all actor info(including thumbnails) automatically and saves it locally...just make sure you have your movies/tv shows saved in individual folders as that's where it will place all the metadata. If you don't have them like this already, there are actually a few programs that can automatically do this for you. Saves a lot of time.

...just remembered the program - FileToFolder.
 
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win 7 media center with that app that switches to hulu desktop and xbmc.

xbmc with NAVI-X will find you lots of interesting videos.

720p is fine for most people matter of fact its hard to browse youtube at 1080p on a 42" from 7 feet away text is too small.
 
may I STRONGLY recommend XBMC?
If you're doing little to no recording, and its 99% playback, then XBMC is your only route. Take it from a fellow Badger!
 
XBMC is supported on a variety of operating systems and as a media browser I enjoy it. I use Sabayon 5.2 (Linux for those that do not know) for my media center PC with XBMC.

-MrCaffeineX
 
If you had to choose between XP or Win7, do the XP. Your comprimise will be hardware-related if you're still on P4, so it's your performance benefit to hit up XP. Cheaper, not to mention, otherwise do the free stuff other's have mentioned.

Win7 MCE will be hella laggy... you will hate it on a P4 core.

When your processor is working, it will better focus on your media and not the OS. Think about skipping frames on 1080p. My old core duo latop barely did anything fancy with Vista/Win7 MCE.
 
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Kelemvor said:
I thought XMBC was XBox Media Center. I guess I'll have to go look at that one.
Click to expand...

It is... er was... only on Xbox1. Ironically the XBox development has since ceased and it is exclusively for NIX, Windows and MacOS.

You wont find a more full featured, customizable, easy to use HTPC. You can mess around with a XBMC Live "install" off a CD/USB stick if you like. But I'd suggest just installing on a Windows machine you have lying around and toy with it that way. I love love LOVE the library feature.

Add in SABNZBd and SickBeard and you have mode video than you can watch.
 
Well, looks like my copy of Win7 doesn't like me to activate it so back to XP I go. Although that MediaBrowser program was sweeeeeet. Have plenty of keys for XP though. I'll check out XBMC and see what I can make it do.

As long as it has a pretty interface for me to see my movies, that's all I need.

Thanks.
 
Kelemvor said:
Well, looks like my copy of Win7 doesn't like me to activate it so back to XP I go. Although that MediaBrowser program was sweeeeeet. Have plenty of keys for XP though. I'll check out XBMC and see what I can make it do.

As long as it has a pretty interface for me to see my movies, that's all I need.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

http://xbmc.org/skins/
giggity
You should try out the "library" function too that scrapes themoviedb.com/imdb/etc for the details, fanart and the like for your movies. Adds a whole new level to browsing.
 
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