My Network Project

JBOD++

2009-07-10T16:21:00.001-04:00

The 5-Bay SATA drive enclosure is up and running with a new 1.5TB hard drive. The storage pool (aka JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks)) now looks like this:

The setup was very much plug and play except for one small snag. The eSATA port on the back of my HP Media Smart WHS only supports 4-Bay SATA drive enclosures and not 5-Bays. So the top bay on this puppy is going to go to waste in the near term. I decided to keep it because the restocking fee and shipping cost would really offset the savings of buying a new 4-bay. Also I am impatient and don’t want to wait for that whole return/replace process to play out.

My WHS has a new friend

2009-07-08T13:34:00.001-04:00

I have an HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server that has become the cornerstone of my family’s home network and my Windows Media Center setup. The home server has four drive bays which I have filled with the following drives: 500GB (included/system), 500GB (taken from Media Center PC), 1TB, 1.5TB for a total of 3.5TB’s. Just an FYI, just because a drive is listed as 500GB or 1TB you do not actually get that amount of space in reality. So my 3.5TB’s is actually realized as 3.18 TB’s.

Amazingly 3.5TB’s of space is quickly being used up. My home server is reporting that I have 442.65 GB worth of space left.

So based on the dwindling amount of space and the lack of hard drive bays in my home server I just bought a 5-Bay SATA drive enclosure to expand my WHS by five drives. Meet Metroplex’s new friend:

So over the next few months the plan is to keep an eye on Newegg for drive deals and fill this bad boy up with at least 5 more TB’s. I just have the case right now and the first drive shipped separate and will arrive tomorrow. I’ll post on the setup and how that experience goes tomorrow.

UPDATE: I had my drive capacity reported incorrectly. Thanks to Matt for pointing that out in the comments. I thought my WHS was wrong at first and then I remembered the “Great Drive Swap” of ‘08. That was fun when my main system drive was reporting as G: instead of C: but Google helped me fix that.

Windows 7 RC Fixed It

2009-07-08T12:33:00.001-04:00

I just finished upgrading my previous Windows 7 build to the official release candidate and now all is right with the world. Very weird issue as my Zune software also had no audio.

Well I am now on the official release candidate and I have pre-ordered my copy of Windows 7. I think the only thing missing is confirmation of my tuning adapter.

Do I need to upgrade Windows 7

2009-07-07T11:52:00.001-04:00

Out of the blue today Media Center stopped working correctly on my PC. Every time I try to watch Live TV or a recorded show I get this:

I also have no audio in Media Center but audio everywhere else. Now this was all working last night around 1:30 am as I was up working and watching the news. This morning it just stopped working. There have been no automatic updates since it was last working either. Last time I saw this was with the Beta build and it was a video driver issue. I tried updating the video driver but nothing changed. Fortunately everything is still working through the extenders. It’s only the PC itself that has the problem. I have to think this is an issue with running an early Windows 7 build. I am going to try and upgrade to a newer version or just go back to yesterday’s image on the home server.

Seriously Time Warner

2009-07-06T07:24:00.001-04:00

Alright this is starting to get ridiculous. I just go another letter from Time Warner telling me that more channels are moving to SDV delivery. This latest round of changes starts to cut deep into my lineup.

As of July 28th I will be losing all the channels listed below which includes 9 HD channels and 90% of my premium lineup (in bold).

A&E HD	MAV TV HD	Smithsonian HD
Food Network HD	TBS HD	Universal HD
Golf Channel HD	HGTV HD	Palladia
Nick Toons	Fox Movie Channel	Fox Reality Channel
Fuse	The N	IFC
Inspiration	WAM!	BET on Jazz
@Max	More Max	5 Star Max
Action Max	W Max	Thriller Max
Outer Max	TMC Xtra	Sundance
HBO 2	HBO Comedy	HBO Family
HBO Latino	HBO Signature	HBO ZONE
Showtime Showcase	Showtime Beyond	Showtime Extreme
Showtime Family	Showtime Next	Showtime Too
Showtime Women	Encore	Encore Action
Encore Love	Encore Mystery	Encore True Stories/Drama
Encore Westerns	Starz Kids& Family	Starz Cinema
Starz Comedy	Starz Edge	Starz In Black
Flix

So now I am wondering if Time Warner will reduce my HBO fee by 90% since I am only getting 90% of the value. I may actually make that call. I don’t want their free box but what I will take is a reduce monthly bill since they are reducing my level of service. And as a friend of mine pointed out, I think this goes directly against the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

I really hope the rumors of a Tuning Adaptor update for Media Center in the fall is true. The first channels I lost were disappointing but harder to swallow since I never had them in the first place. This is now taking away content that I actually watch.

My Encoding Quest Update 3.5

2009-06-29T15:13:00.001-04:00

I was almost done with my last post and ready to release my Mencoder Wrapper application (MencoderProper) when I had a sudden burst of coder’s inspiration. As I read back over the list of things that were not working it just seemed like I was quitting right before I got to the finish line. I did a little more research and I am proud to say that I erased all the manual limitations the app had in the last 24 hrs.

MencoderProper can now be used at the command line or via DVR-MS toolbox. In the last 24 hrs I was able to fix the automatic reading of the video file metadata (to determine resolution, audio type, etc) and fix an issue with an external command window. With that last one fixed it now successfully runs inside DVR-MS toolbox.

I have sent it out to one person for testing but hopefully it will be something that can get out there soon. More later…

My Encoding Quest Update 3.0

2009-06-28T01:22:00.001-04:00

So I finally have a temporary solution that will work for all my movies. It’s not ideal but as I said in my previous post I don’t want to do too much because I know something more automated is coming. At the end of the day it was good C# coding experience that I can use going forward.

So what changed that I now have a version of the International with an aspect ratio that is actually watchable? Through the process of elimination I found out it was only one small part of my command line that was incorrect.

I went back to an earlier version of Windows 7 (that I had on my laptop) and installed Transcode360. I ran Transcode360 in console mode on a sample file so I could see the command string that was being used. I then took that and compared it to the command string my program was spitting out.

There were two small differences between the command strings and one of them in particular just did not make sense and stood out like a sore thumb. As a reminder here is the original command line:

C:\Test\MEncoderTranscoder\mencoder.exe -quiet -oac copy -aid 0 -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -o "C:\Test\The International.360" -lavdopts threads=4 -ovc lavc -vf scale=1280:536,expand=1280:528,harddup -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=8000:keyint=15:aspect=16/9:threads=4 -ofps 24000/1001 -sid 0 "C:\Temp\Complete\Movies\1280x536\The International.mkv"

I had the “threads=4” option in the command line twice and I do not think the second one makes any sense at all being where it is.

The real problem was with the expand option (expand=1280:528). This is where the magic happens. The code that I used from Transcode360 has a crucial method that calculates the optimal resolution. Unfortunately I had had height and width hardcoded for testing purposes and I did not realize it until today. Now that I have fixed that the code calculates the optimal expand resolution. So for movies with a resolution of 1280x536 it expands it to 1280x704. I don’t know why this works but it does. And right now that is all that matters.

I will post the small app that I have created in case anyone is interested in a separate post so I can explain it’s idiosyncrasies.

My Encoding Quest Update 2.7

2009-06-27T13:43:00.001-04:00

I am out of town right now but I wanted to give one more update before the full post tomorrow.

I just finished encoding a 108p MKV with DTS sound into a DVR-MS 1080p file with AC3. It took one pass to get the mkv to mpeg2 and then from that point it was a matter of putting the mpeg2 into the DVR-MS container.

I can finally get through a backlog of movies and get them encoded with the proper aspect ratio. I have noticed one issue though. MediaBrowser is reading the video MetaData incorrectly. Annoying but not a deal breaker by a long shot.

My Encoding Quest Update 2.5

2009-06-26T13:23:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to write a quick post because I was sooo excited. I finally fixed the Mencoder problem that I posted about in My Encoding Quest Update 2. So far I have only done a few small tests. Working on a larger test now and I will post the results later with the solution.

FINALLY!!!!

How I Get My DVDs Into Media Center

2009-06-24T22:36:00.001-04:00

I have had a few questions about ripping DVD’s and the best format to use. The answer to that question really depends on what you want as the end product. For me, I wanted a copy of the movie that had the same visual and audio quality as if I were watching the movie directly from the DVD. Also I wanted a process that was quick and easy. The one drawback of my process is that it produces rather large files (about 4GB on average) because I do not re-encode the movie. So with that caveat out of the way here is how I get one of my DVD’s into Media Center and my MediaBrowser library.

1) Rip the DVD with DVD Shrink 3.2

First I insert the DVD into my DVD drive. Then I open DVD Shrink 3.2 and press the Open Disc button in the upper left. The resulting dialog box already has my DVD Drive highlighted so I press “OK”.

DVD Shrink then proceeds to analyze the DVD…

… and the result looks like this:

I only want the movie with the AC3 Dolby Digital audio track and nothing else so I choose the “Re-Author” option by pressing the button on the toolbar. You then get the following screen with the main pieces separated out.

Next just drag “Title 1” under main movie over to the left under DVD in the DVD Structure section. To verify that you actually have the movie you can highlight Title 1 in the DVD Structure section and press the blue play button above the black box. You should see something like this:

Next click on the Compression Settings tab. Here we can deselect all the audio and subtitle tracks that we do not want. This avoids the end product having audio in a different language and also reduces file size by not keeping audio tracks that you do not need. You should only have the AC3 5.1-ch English audio track selected like so:

Before you actually kick of the DVD ripping process double check your settings under “Edit > Preferences”. On the first tab you should have DVD-9 selected in the target DVD size drop down box and uncheck “Split VOB files into 1GB chunks” under the Output Files tab.

Next click on the “Backup!” button in the toolbar. Change your backup target to “Hard Disk Folder”, select an output folder (click on the folder icon for a suggestion) and uncheck the “Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders” option. Then press OK and the Encoding dialog box will pop up.

Wait for the encoding to be done and the DVD is ripped to a single VOB with full DVD video quality and the AC3 5.1-ch sound. You are done wit DVD Shrink. The encoding time will depending on the hardware you are using and the system resources available at the time. I was actually recording an HD show at the same time as ripping the DVD for this post.

2) Convert VOB to DVR-MS with VideoRedo

I chose early on in my Media Center journey to try and work with the native file formats as much as possible and bypass any on the fly transcoding. The main reasons for this were ease of use for the family and consistency of experience (i.e. all my video files have the same FW/RW experience regardless if it’s ripped or recorded TV).

I use VideoRedo for the last step but I am sure there are other options. This to me was the easiest. Open VideoRedo and open the VOB file.

Then under the “Tools” menu choose “Quickstream Fix…”. Change the “Output Stream” option to reflect the final directory and filename of the movie file. In this case I want to put it in the movie folder of my home server so the “Output Stream” value is “\\server_name\movies\Memento\Memento.dvr-ms”. Click on “Start Quick Fix”. About 5-8 minutes later you are done.

3) Open up MediaBrowser and verify

Last thing I do is open up MediaBrowser and verify that the new movie was scanned and picked up.

If you see any issues with the meta data that was automatically pulled by MediaBrowser you can use MetaBrowser to make corrections.

That’s it! Any questions just shoot me an email or leave a comment.

My Encoding Quest Update 2

2009-06-18T17:43:00.001-04:00

I thought I had everything working and sorted out. The process I had settled on was not as automated as it could be but it was manageable. Well I have hit a snag and I have absolutely no idea what to do.

The problem is with MKV files for movies that have an aspect ration of 2.35:1. If the movie is 720p then it most likely has a resolution of 1280x536. He is a screen shot of “The International”:

Here is the codec information screen:

Now for some reason when I use my Mencoder process to convert the file to MPG2 so that I can put it into a DVR-MS container I get a file with the right resolution but incorrect aspect ratio. The movie looks like this:

You can visually see that Clive Owen’s head is squeezed up. On my 16x9 television this movie should still show with black bars at the top and bottom since it has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Instead it now has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and fills the screen in this stretched manner. The codec info in VLC was blank so here it is from VideoReDo:

Everything looks to be in order so I am not sure what is wrong. Here is the Mencoder command string that was used for the conversion. If anyone sees anything that might help, PLEASE let me know.

C:\Test\MEncoderTranscoder\mencoder.exe -quiet -oac copy -aid 0 -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -o "C:\Test\The International.360" -lavdopts threads=4 -ovc lavc -vf scale=1280:536,expand=1280:528,harddup -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=8000:keyint=15:aspect=16/9:threads=4 -ofps 24000/1001 -sid 0 "C:\Temp\Complete\Movies\1280x536\The International.mkv"

Shoutout on EngadgetHD Podcast

2009-06-10T16:14:00.001-04:00

Big thanks to my friend Dana (dmccall, or as Steve Kim likes to say D.M.C.-ALL) for the shoutout at the end of the this weeks EngadgetHD podcast.

Hopefully there are some new readers to the blog that will subscribe to the RSS feed. I have a number of posts in the hopper that should be coming in the next few weeks such as “Moving to Media Center: 1 Year Later”, “Windows 7 Features You May Not Know About” and “Organizing a Movie Collection That Just Works”.

The current schedule has me posting at least twice a week so make sure to subscribe and keep coming back.

- Andres

My Encoding Quest Update

2009-06-09T23:16:00.002-04:00

Well it looks like fellow Media Center enthusiast Ben Drawbaugh is on the same page as me. He is taking his earlier MKV conversion process that was very TV centric and updating to take into account the extra complexities of movies (multiple aspect ratios and DTS sound).

In lead up to posting his final solution he has given me a piece that will tide me over. Ben has posted an update for DVRMS toolbox that will take an MKV file with DTS sound and convert the audio to AC3 without tampering with the video stream.

Now my little "MencoderProper" app that I wrote in C# works great. It will create the proper Mencoder application string and convert the MKV file to MPEG2 which allows me to get the file to MKV.

I was going to continue to clean up the app, but now that I know Ben is working on getting something going as part of DVRMS Toolbox I think I have a stop gap solution that is good for now.

The best part of this endeavor was that I learned more about C# development and I am seriously thinking about working on a Media Center plugin.

My Encoding Quest

2009-05-28T10:37:00.002-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Over the past few days I have been on a crazy encoding quest. I use to have a kind of convoluted process of converting MKV movies into DVR-MS files but I was inspired by Ben Drawbaugh's post on EngadgetHD to simplify the process. The simple thought has turned into a journey that I did not expect.

So first let me explain the old process. After I had the MKV file (fill in the blank) I would do an initial conversion using MKV2VOB. That conversion would give me an MPG file that maintained the same HD video resolution and a 5.1 AC3 audio track. A number of MKV files have DTS audio so the AC3 audio track was very welcome. For some reason this file would not open in VideoRedo so I did another conversion using Transcode360. I would just play the file via Media Center using Transcode360 and the file would be encoded into a proper MPEG2 HD file with AC3 audio. The last step would be to open the file from the Transcode360 cache folder in VideoRedo and perform a quickstream fix to end up with an HD DVR-MS file with 5.1 audio. Whew! Not only is that too many steps but I have also had trouble installing Transcode360 under Windows 7.

After reading Ben's post about converting MKV's using DVRMS Toolbox I thought I could just use the same process for my movies. Well, I was wrong. The two sticking points for this working are aspect ratio and audio. The process that Ben layed out was specific to TV shows which all have the same 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio. Movies on the other hand usually have either a 1.85:1 or 2.39:1 aspect ratio. TV shows also have AC3 audio by default while movies could be either AC3 or DTS so the audio track would need to be converted.

As I started to dig deeper I realized that both processes use MEncoder to do all the heavy lifting. The difference was really in the way MEncoder was used. Transcode360 always worked because it analyzed the movie file to make sure apsect ratio was preserved and AC3 audio was used.

My next thought was that I could just reuse the C# code that is part of Transcode360 and create a simple command line program that would use the Transcode360 logic and in the end be used in conjunction with DVRMS Toolbox. I personally do not care for the transcode on the fly functionality as much as I care about getting the movie file in the format that I want and need which in this case is DVR-MS so that I can have a smooth fast-fwd / rewind experience.

I am probably about half way through coding my new C# application and it has been a lot of fun. It has been awhile since I did any coding so it's nice to get back to it. When the application is complete then you will be able to just run the app at the command line and pass in the path to the file that you want to encode like this: c:\mencoderproper.exe "c:\test.mkv"

The result will be a file named test.mpg with full HD video in the proper resolution with AC3 audio. Once I have this working I can integrated it with DVR-MS and have a process that will watch a TO CONVERT folder. Once a file is place in that folder it will be re-encoded and then converted to a DVR-MS file using todvrms.exe. The resulting file will be moved to the home server and added to the movie collection.

As soon as I have everything working I will post everything for download.

Media Center vs the Cable Box

2009-05-19T08:20:00.004-04:00

My family and I moved over to Windows Media Center full time over a year ago. As part of that transition I had to agree to keep the cable box for a few months. We thought that we would still use it to rent pay-per-view movies every now and then. That turned out to be a scenario that never happened. So now we are finally going to return the cable box back to Time Warner Cable and save our $10 a month.

Before I returned the Cable Box I thought it might be a good idea to compare Media Center with the Cable Box directly to show what we have gained and lost by making the transition.

As you will see in the video I gained a LOT MORE than I lost. I filmed the video using a standard definition 4x3 television to show that Media Center is a valid option for everyone regardless if own an HDTV’s and/or an expensive home theater. Due to length, the video is split into 5 parts. Enjoy.

Really Time Warner?? Less HD…

2009-05-18T21:26:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

I just read on Engadget that Time Warner Cable is planning on dropping HDNet and HDNet Movies at the end of the month. This is half of the premium HD tier that TWC currently offers. The other two channels in the tier are MGM HD and Universal HD. If they are dropping HDNet they might as well drop that tier and make those channels part of the regular digital tier like all the other HD channels.

If by some small miracle TWC actually traded that bandwidth for some new HD channels that I could get with my Cable Card than the sting will not be as bad but somehow I seriously doubt they will do anything for the few Cable Card customers they have.

DirecTV support just cannot get here fast enough for me.

Kids and DVR’s

2009-05-18T17:45:00.001-04:00

My three year old son is officially spoiled. He is spoiled by the experience of DVR’s and will never have a grasp on the concept of advertising supported programming.

This came to my attention this morning when my son asked to watch Spongebob Square Pants. Usually he gets to watch a show in the morning that is already recorded on the Media Center (Backyardigans or Max & Ruby). Since he does not usually watch Spongebob we had to watch a live showing that just happened to be on. My son was excited and happy but was not prepared for the commercials at all. He freaked out and asked me to get back to the show. I had to try and explain to him what commercials were and what was going on. It was a losing battle and it was easier to convince him to just watch a show that would not have commercials.

CRAZY!! Times are changing. I was just remembering the other day when Saturday Morning Cartoons meant something too.

Windows 7 Media Center – What’s New for You?

2009-05-13T23:42:00.001-04:00

Since I am on Windows 7 Media Center full time now I wanted to do a post on what is new in Windows 7 from a user perspective. What are those little things that increase the user experience satisfaction level? I thought today I would create a list and then do an individual post on all the items that I list. So in no particular order here are the things that I think add to the user experience in Windows 7 Media Center:

Improved 30 second skip
Sliding timeline on the PC
Improved UI elements
Improved guide
Additional sorting in recorded TV
Music and Picture favorites
Movies Strip

I will break these out and anymore I can think of in further posts.

My Media Center Testimonial Video is Online

2009-05-09T08:17:00.001-04:00

This past December I answered a post on the Green Button to volunteer to create a two minute testimonial video about Windows Media Center. I just found out that all of the testimonial videos have been posted online. Check them out HERE. If you go through all the pages I am on page two or you can see my video directly HERE.

Looking at it again now there are some more shots of Media Center itself that I wish I had added like this screen shot:

Check out all the videos and let me know which ones you like. A few of the videos are highlighted on http://windowsmediacenter.com/ as well.

Caller ID Working in Windows 7

2009-05-06T21:29:00.001-04:00

A BIG HUGE thanks goes out to Michael Healy and his great Hack 7MC blog. He recently published a post about getting caller id working in Windows 7 Media Center that helped me get caller if working again after moving to Windows 7 full time.

I am no stranger to editing the modem inf file and getting caller id working but for some reason the old tricks did not work in Windows 7. I suspected that it was the modem drivers so when I read the hack7mc post I decided to give it a go with a new modem since the modem was so cheap.

Well everything worked as advertised except for one caveat. I have no caller id images. I tried using Vista Caller ID as per the instructions and it seemed to work fine until I discovered that the caller id pop-up only showed on the PC and not on the extenders. So I went back to TapiRex and the pop-up worked on the extenders just fine but with none of my caller id images. Hopefully this will be resolved in a future TapiRex update.

So if you want caller id I would read the post and follow the instructions. This should work for either Vista or Windows 7 and is a really cheap addition that adds a lot of value to Media Center.

Off the grid

2009-05-06T21:19:00.001-04:00

I was off the grid for awhile and on my way back I had my identity stolen. Luckily I caught it in time and the thief did minimal damage. I am still in the process of cleaning it up. It’s taken me two weeks so far to clean up what he did in 24 hours (and I still have more to go).

Anyway, I am back and I have a backlog of posts, so here they come.

Time Warner SDV Update

2009-04-20T11:44:00.001-04:00

As part of my recent Windows 7 upgrade I had to set up my guide again. This afforded me the opportunity to revisit my current state of SDV immersion.

In my area, Time Warner is primarily using SDV (Switched Digital Video) technology to deliver HD channels but its also used for a few SD channels. I am really not too concerned with the SD channels but I’ll comment on those too.

In my area Time Warner offers 59 HD channels including premiums. I have listed them in the chart below. All channels in BOLD ITALICS are delivered via SDV which means that I cannot access those channels via Cable Card and my Media Center. Premium channels in italics.

UNC HD (PBS)	WTVI HD (PBS)	ABC HD
NBC HD	CBS HD	FOX HD
MyTV HD	CW HD	WAXN 64 HD
*ABC Family HD*	*Disney HD*	*Planet Green HD*
*Animal Planet HD*	*TLC HD*	*Discovery HD*
*USA HD*	*Bio HD*	*History HD*
*SciFi HD*	*Lifetime Movie HD*	*Bravo HD*
*Hallmark Movie HD*	*CNBC HD*	*CNN HD*
HGTV HD	Food Network HD	*Speed HD*
*Fox Sports HD*	*Versus HD*	National Geo HD
*Science Channel HD*	*FX HD*	*Travel HD*
*Outdoor Channel HD*	*MLB Network HD*	*AMC HD*
*ESPNEWS HD*	*HD Theater*	TNT HD
TBS HD	A&E HD	Palladia
ESPN HD	ESPN2 HD	Golf Channel HD
*Big Ten HD*	*ESPNU HD*	MGM HD
Universal HD	HD Net	HDNet Movies
HBO HD	*HBO West HD*	Cinemax HD
Cinemax West HD	Showtime HD	*Showtime West HD*
Movie Channel HD	Starz HD

So out of the 59 HD Channels Time Warner offers I am only paying for access to 53 of them. Thanks to SDV I only have access to 25 out of the 53 (a little over 50%). So I am eagerly anticipating the tuning adapter so I can get my other 28 HD channels back. In addition to the HD channels blocked by SDV there are also 15 SD channels that are blocked to me. Out of those the ones that I actually miss are PBS Kids Sprout, BBC America and TV One. The other channels I never really watch anyway so no huge loss.

Based on this recent audit of my current state of SDV I am really hoping that the rumors of SDV tuner adapter support is forthcoming with Windows 7. I also hope the satellite supports shows up to so that I have the option of ditching this SDV nightmare for good.

Windows 7 Install Update

2009-04-17T22:38:00.002-04:00

I wanted to post a quick update on how things went today. I went back to Windows 7, this time build 7077 instead of 7000. Here is a quick list of thoughts. I'll expand later.

Love the new intro animation
Love the new sounds effects
Where is my photo screen saver???
Love heterogeneous tuners
Basic clean install of Windows 7 took like 10 minutes!!!!!
Install HDHomerun software, ATI DCT drives, ATI Radeon Win 7 drivers then setup Media Center with TV tuners without a hitch
It'll be nice to have MenuMender but Hack 7MC has me covered for now
Linksys Extenders - Check!
Xbox 360 - Uh Oh / Check! / Uh Oh! / Check!!
Convert WTV to DVR-MS is present
Media Browser, shoutcast and HeatWave installed with no problem
Caller ID with TapiRex still not working
Love having the new Windows 7 Media Center UI back
So far so good!

That's it for now. I need to watch some TV and relax.

Back to Windows 7 - Why?

2009-04-16T10:51:00.003-04:00

Image by larryosan via Flickr

I wanted to write up a quick post on why I am going back to Windows 7 and address some comments I made earlier when I moved back to Vista. All this back and forth is starting to feel like and episode of Lost!! I have had a few comments and emails so I thought it would be easier and more interesting to address the points in a post.

Why Move Back to Windows 7?
The biggest reason to move back to Windows 7 is as a fix for the TV tuner issues I have been having. The main purpose of my Media Center is as a DVR and not as a media streamer. The other functionality just gives me an all in one solution, but the DVR functionality is king and will always take priority. I have had some weird issues with my HDHomerun tuners which is solved in Windows 7 since it has native QAM support. Also the Cable Card tuners gave me no issues at all under Windows 7 and responded soooo much faster when I was changing channels.

The straw that broke the camels back the other day was when a TV conflict had to be resolved manually because I have 2 tuners for ABC HD on channel 235 (Cable Card) and on channel 2102 (HDHomerun). Under Windows 7 everything is collapsed into one channel and the conflict would have been resolved without me.

But What About....

Webguide and unsupported applications: Webguide was the one thing that I griped about the most. I hated not having it. One thing that I have realized since I moved back to Vista is that it is not quite the deal breaker that I thought. I have used it only a few times in the last month and it has been terribly convienient but webguide is something that I now know that I can wait for. I can get by until the next version comes out.

The other two applications that I was concerned with was Menu Mender and Caller ID. As far as Menu Mender there is now a work around. It's not elegant but it works. Caller ID was working for me when I did a Windows 7 upgrade versus a clean install so I feel like I can get this working.

Stability: The main stability issue I had under Windows 7 was with my extenders. I had random lockups and reboots of my Linksys extenders and my Xbox 360. Since I use Media Center almost exclusively through extenders this was a big deal. Everything that I have read points to these issues being resolved in later builds of Windows 7 so I expect this to go away.

Clear Upgrade Path: There has been a lot more information on the release schedule and path to a final production version of Windows 7 that I now feel more comfortable with this as well. I can easily see using the current version of Windows 7 until I am able to install the production retail version. I expect to have to do a clean install but with the Home Server's support I think I will be ok.

So the move will occur tomorrow and I am looking forward to getting back to Windows 7. There has been a lot of new things to try in Windows 7 thanks to Michael Healy's GREAT blog Hacking Windows 7 Media Center. If you have not read his site you need to do yourself a favor and read it. Some of the tips can be applied to Windows Vista but it will also give you a good idea of what is to come if you are considering the upgrade to Windows 7.

I'll report back on how things are going with the latest Windows 7 build.

I had a taste of the good life…

2009-04-15T21:27:00.001-04:00

Image by Zlatko Unger via Flickr

I had a taste of the good life and I want it back. A month ago to the day I moved back to Windows Vista from the Windows 7 beta. I was extremely excited to get WebGuide back and Caller ID back. It seemed like a good decision at the time, but over the past couple of weeks I started to realize why Windows 7 Media Center was so much better than Windows Vista Media Center. That reason can be summed up in two letters: T-V.

The TV support in Windows 7 is miles above anything that is in Windows Vista. I have had to reconfigure my TV setup twice in the last week due to issues between HDHomerun and Media Center. I have had conflicts in recording that would not been an issue at all in Windows 7 thanks to heterogeneous tuners. I have had a return to inconsistent performance with my cable card tuners that NEVER happened in two months and a FREAKIN beta. My extenders are slow as crap in responding to remote control commands and acting upon those commands. I didn’t even realize how slow it was until I went back to Vista after using 7 for 2 months.

So I am going back to Windows 7 and will live with it until the final release. I am confident that I can get the Caller ID working again since I had it working at one point. Also I still have 7 episodes of ER that are in WTV format that would not convert to DVR-MS for some reason. I can get all those shows back. As for WebGuide I will miss it, but I manage without it as I wait for the rumored Live Mesh version to finally release.

I have just hit a wall with quality of TV Tuner support in Vista. This is definitely a big kudos to the team and the work they have put into the Windows 7 version. I know I will be recommending Windows 7 Media Center more as a solution to friends and even look to setup my parents with it since I feel it will be a stable enough solution to deploy to the parents.

Windows 7 here I come! Again!