Advice on OS (1 Viewer)

[zorg2000k]

Hi,

Finally bought a Pinnacle PCTV DUAL SAT PRO 4000I PCI and will be moving away from my Sky, grudge the monthly fees.

I will be rebuilding my media PC which I have been playing around with Media Portal on it Very cool coding

My question is about what will be the best OS for Media Portal along with the Pinnacle TV card.

I have full versions of both Windows XP and Windows Vista Ultimate. I will be using Media Portal with the TV-Server.

Any help or links would be great.

Should have said that i am hoping to be able to get free-sat with BBC HD and ITV HD, all going well

 

[SpudR]

There are MANY threads on this - it comes down to YOU CHOOSE!

 

[Spragleknas]

Hi zorg2000k (or zorg2M? ) - welcome to the forum.

Please take a second to read the sticky in this section --> https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/newcomers-forum-240/useful-posts-50062/
You'll find relevant threads there.

 

[etheesdad]

for what its worth Ive run it in vista 32 bit and xp 32 bit and it worked fine in both. In Vista I found it easier to set up as less 'requirements' need installing before putting MP on. Vista has EVR which some people prefer to VMR9 for the video rendering, but perceived benefits of this I guess would depend on what you are playing back on. To use EVR in Vista you need to run Aero so necessary to have sufficient hardware to do that. Ive not seen much success in Forums of running EVR in XP but there's posts about that argue it can be done.

Vista has dx10 which is arguably an improvement over dx9 if the machine will be running games as well as HTPC stuff.

Right now Im using XP and am happy with it. From where Im sitting its much of a muchness, but as mentioned above, there's a lot of discussion on this subject in the forums, and a variety of opinions if you'd care to take a look.

Good luck with it.

 

[Vimes]

In my experience I managed to get Vista 32 up and going with MP with no problems whatsoever. Everything worked great. With XP had a problem with my Vista MCE remote and getting the drivers sorted out (no drivers needed for Vista or Windows 7). In the end I gave up with XP just for that reason.!

Running Windows 7 and just using the codec pack here...

Shark007.net - Windows 7 Codecs

...works a treat, although I have the Power DVD 8 H264 codec installed as well for my TV when watching HD channels via the Pinnacle card.

Vista 64 was a BIG no no for me as there are not any drivers for my Pinnacle card that prevent it from either crashing with BSOD's or just a black picture on the screen when the TV is selected, due to a bug when you have 4GB of RAM when using Vista 64.

So the bottom line for me is that I'm using Windows 7 but Vista 32 worked a treat, it just feels that W7 is more responsive and quicker to use but that can be a little academic if all you need it for is to run MP.

I got DXVA running well on all of the above as well as the optical SPdif out to my amp, passing DTS and DD.

 

[zorg2000k]

Thanks for all the replies.

Going to give Vista 32bit a go.

Here's hoping all goes well