Vista Media Center TV Pack 2008

[lsandini]

Hello everyone,

As MP continues to evolve, so do other solutions too. Not for free though, but here what I have come across.

Vista Media Center lacks many features that HTPC users need, but what made it useless for me was the lack of support for DVB subtites (a pain in the ass here in Finland), the lack of support for pay-TV, and the lack of integration of a BD/HD-DVD player.

Well sit down, since things are changing. As you might have read elsewhere, OEM systems with Ultimate and Home Premium versions of Vista will soon receive the new version of MCE, an update called "Fiji" until it was revealed in July 2008. This new release is available in x86 and x64 systems, and some of you will find it lying in the dark corners of the internet already. Vista Media Center TV Pack 2008 is the official name you should look for.

Whether this will be available as a Windows Update upgrade is not sure, but IMHO it should.

The integration of a BD/HDDVD player though requires a 3rd party application, and Arcoft's TotalMedia Theatre seems to do this already. Add a few plugins like Mymovies and Vista MCE starts to become an interesting option fro basic users. The geek factor is way under Mediaportal's though

This is said with all respect to Mediaportal and its developers, I just thought someone could be interested in the news.

Lorenzo

[KayDiefenthal]

the vmce tv pack has some big problems

no dvbc native support
no paytv
no hdtv was in the beta aviable is now removed :-(

is to become over the oem bundeld with a new pc
no way over ms update or for older oem systems

not every dvb s card habe support to the new interfaces
Knc DigitalEverywehere Hauppauge Pinnacle (oem) drivers works
the rest must wait for new drivers

[TheMerovingian]

This pack will not be officially downloadable. See here

[pilehave]

Well, history just repeating itself. MS taking a shit on all users with this. MCE is a beta-product that never should have reached the market. Vista Media Center TV Pack 2008 repairs a few of the problems but is a LONG way from a finished product. I would prefer almost ANY other solution over this unfinished and unsatisfying product.

DVBViewer, Meedio and MediaPortal! has all the features missing from MCE. No wonder people won't pay for their lousy software...

[Paranoid Delusion]

Well i took the jump and downloaded it for Vista Ultimate32, it will install on a currently configured system.

First thing in comparison to original mce once you had gone through the Wizard, try reconfiguring your channel list, its a total nightmare in comparison to either the original mce or mediaportal.
Second they still insist on showing every available location for videos when i enter my videos, this includes music\picture\HDD's etc, I do not want this and there seems no easy way of stopping it from happening.

Also cpu use has gone from 7-8% with mce processes running to 30%, one of the main culprits seems to be a media center network component (i'll add the name later as booted into xp atm) which does seem to hover around the 17% mark, what is it doing!!

Anyway after a couple of hours playing with it, besides tuning improvements for atsc & qam, also the new recording format .WTV
which no editing software supports, not even M$'s own, cannot see any reason to update, in fact quite the oposite.