Best OS for MP: MCE2005 vs WinXP Pro? (1 Viewer)

[ziphnor]

Hi,

Im going to setup a HTPC at my parents house tomorrow. My father has a leftover WinXP pro license and i have a MCE2005 one. Which one makes the best foundation for an MP install? The obvious choice would be XP since i dont need the MediaCenter in MCE but on the other hand i understand that for example the dual DVB fix is installed right away along with various other nice things.

So which one is preferable?

 

[NLS]

Win XP

SO much LESS troublesome when you need drivers etc.

plus the trick is so simple anyway

 

[NickName]

Funnily enough, they are actually the same thing.
Turn on the desktop version to have it displayed on your desktop wallpaper for proof.
Save the following 3 lines as a .reg file (sans quotes) and double click the saved .reg file to load it. Next boot will show on your desktop what you are running.

"Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"PaintDesktopVersion"=dword:00000001"

Note: I suppose technically there is a difference in that one comes with Media Center 2005 but other then that all the supplied apps are the same AFAIK.
It's kinda cool that it's cheaper to buy MCE 2005 at the PC markets then XP Pro. Cheap XP pro anyone? Hehehe.
It confused me when I installed MCE 2005 and it asked me for the XP Pro CD...

Regards,

Nick Name.

 

[mPod]

Although it's the same operating system, there are some small differences indeed.

• They use the same drivers. No different versions needed in most cases. If a manufacturer offers special MCE drivers, they are just optimized for Media Center usage, they don't generally affect other applications.
  
• Windows Update for MCE2005 flavoured XP Prof. offers some (internal) enhancements for e.g. the BDA stack. This is the technology used for digital TV cards. But you can even copy those updated files to an ordinary XP Prof. You need them if you wanna use more than 1 DVB card in MediaPortal or any other HTPC application that uses BDA.
  
• MCE2005 is slightly limited when it comes to network connections. E.g. you cannot join domains (which you hardly have anyway) and doesn't safe login credentials for shares. (Or only for 1 share, don't remember correctly)

About network & MCE2005 see this Microsoft FAQ:

Taken from: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/faq.mspx

Can I connect a new PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to a work network or domain?
While you can access network resources on a work network or a domain, you cannot join a Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC to the domain. PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 are designed specifically for home use. Windows XP Professional features, specifically Domain Join and Cached Credentials (Credentials Manager for logons) are not included. As a result, you will be prompted for your logon user name and password to access network resources after you reboot or log back on to the PC. In addition, file shares or network resources that are set to require a domain-joined PC for access will not be available. Remote Desktop and Encrypting File System support are still included.

So to put it all in a nutshell:

• MCE2005 and XP Prof. are basically the same
• MCE2005 offers some updated multimedia stuff (which you can also copy manually to an XP Prof... "mpeg2data.ax" and "PsisDecd.dll"... See this article in our wiki FAQ)
• MCE2005 is somewhat limited in network usage, quite similar to XP Home
• MCE2005 offers 1 nicer windows desktop theme

My experience from the past: I was running MCE2005 for some time but went back to XP Professional, cause this is also my dev PC and I got fed up with the limited network stuff (saving login credentials for shares).

Result: It doesn't really matter what you are using, MP doesn't care about it, as long as you exchange the above 2 DLLs. And that only if you are using digital TV cards.

 

[ziphnor]

The HTPC will have 1 dual DVB-T tuner, 1 analogue tuner and one DVB-S tuner

I just wanted to make sure that there were no further enhancements in MCE apart from the DVB multi tuner fix.

For example, i personally had some problems with black crush(problems caused by difference in TV color space and PC colorspace), and read here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=703131&highlight=black+crush

That this could be solved by using MCE2005(the OS, not necessarily the Media Center app included).

This HTPC will be completely dedicated to the task so maybe i should just install MCE.

 

[NLS]

I am not sure how MCE solves black crush.

I just raised my gama.

Maybe a calibrated color space profile could help?

 

[mPod]

The MCE flavoured XP wouldn't solve it. Maybe the MCE application itself, but definately not the OS.

If at all, the graphics driver could solve that, I guess.

 

[ziphnor]

The MCE flavoured XP wouldn't solve it. Maybe the MCE application itself, but definately not the OS.

If at all, the graphics driver could solve that, I guess.

Thats what i thought as well, but at AVS they seem pretty insistent on it:

"2. Use Windows Media Center. This operating system outputs the correct colorspace for everything. I have not tried this method but many people have confirmed that black crush is resolved with MCE."

I guess i might as well use the MCE license, since the limited networking wont matter.

 

[ziphnor]

I am not sure how MCE solves black crush.

I just raised my gama.

Maybe a calibrated color space profile could help?

If you raise gamma, wont you just get 'white crush' instead?

 

[NLS]

No I don't think so.

When you raise gamma, you raise the low more than the high (or better, "before" the high).

In any case, in the graph it showed that I now see much more colours that were dead in darkness.