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You might have noticed this via your Windows Update that Microsoft has released a cumulative update for Vista MCE! It is supposed to fix a number of issues, though I have not seen any changes (but then I was not having any issues in the first place). You can get details on what this update contains.
If you recall I talked about lifeStation last year and Simon from Passive Technologies posted a comment letting me know that they have upgraded all their machines to MCE Vista from MCE XP. There is also a new lifeServer which boasts 6TB of storage and RAID 5 (though I cannot find out anywhere if this is 6TB of total storage or usable storage). On a separate...
I must say after getting used to viewing TV (and Movies) via a MCE - not having one is sorely missed. Recently the machine was randomly hanging and a few blue-screens and as it turns out one of my memory sticks went bad which was causing the issues. Although I had bought the memory from Crucial , over two years ago - they have a lifetime warranty. I called...
There are a couple of new Vista based remotes coming out in the next few months, which incorporate SideShow - sure looks sweet.
If you are running Vista x32 or x64 and want to play the usual set of audio and video files (such as mp4) you might need additional codecs . The one which has worked with me on Vista x64 is called the K-Lite Mega Code Pack v1.61; however as I said in my previous post , it might have caused an issue in DVD playback though I am not 100% sure of that.
I don't know if this is a Vista x64 issue, but when I am watching a DVD on the laptop the movie playback is quite jerky and as a result very irritating. I have tried both Media Player and Media Center and unfortunately get the same result. Interestingly though, a few weeks ago, between the two (Media Player and Media Center), one of them was jerky but the...
I recently came across this advertisement in one of the magazines. There is a company called Passive Technologies who have released a pretty cool looking MCE machine called lifeStation . It looks like an appliance and still runs MCE 2005; I would recommend to wait when they upgrade to Vista. I don't own one, so I don't have any first hand experience. I also...
I currently have two small NAS's - Ximeta's NetDisk (120 GB) which have been running well without any issues (except a little slowly when there is a lot of traffic), but I am getting close to exhausting that space and was looking for something beefier. A couple of options that do seem very promising. One is the Buffalo Tera Station , which while I know a...
Check out the soon-to-be-released Origen AE S210 which among many other features has bays for 12 HDD's, and a 12" touchscreen LCD! Not sure on the damage it will cause (£££), but if its reasonable, then I would need to find a business case when Vista ships to get my hands on one of these :).
Seems like BBC is answering exactly the same question, and if you ask me they got too much free time on their hands.
If you are still in the market to build you MCE, ExtremeTech has an article talking about the best case, powersupply, etc. to pick for the job. You can check out my MCE configuration here. [Listening to: I Am - Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day (03:54)]
I am quite happy with the case I have for my MCE, but I came across the following to new cases, which if I had to buy now I would seriously consider - they are on opposite end of the spectrum and depending on what you need and your budget one might be a better fit than the other. DIGN X15e Aluminium Enclosure Enlight 7473 Home Media Chassis Drool on! :)
According to Neowin , MS is going to release the Rollup Update (code names Emerald) to MCE soon, which will incorporate: 2x HD Tuner supported No CableCARD No QAM DVD Changer Xbox 360 Extender support Sonic DVD Burning fixes Slight improvements in Media Library performance The update will be free and available via Windows Update. MS also released some information...
Well on one lovely weekend when there were clear blue skies (big deal here in London), I thought what better way to spend the day then mess up the MCE and stay indoors all day to fix it. And how does one go about doing that? Well here is what I did and lessons learned (hopefully) :). Firstly, just because there is a new update for the BIOS don't be compelled...
A few of you have asked me to upload some pics here of the MCE; and here they are - sorry it took a while, but better late than never. In case you are curious, this is my MCE configuration . Me and Karan assembling the box - as you can see we just finished screwing in the motherboard Here is what the finished CPU looks like from the inside - the PCI Express...
I had this very irritating issue with the remote control of Media Center, where mostly whatever key I pressed, got pressed more than once (even though I pressed it once); it it would cause things like as you move around - very irritating as you would skip over channels you wanted to change or navigate to music or pictures, etc. But it seems like this issue...
Well, we have a very nagging problem on the MCE, Live TV, Recorded TV, Music, Radio - all was fine, the only issue was whenever we saw a DVD, even with the MCE and Windows volume all the way to maximum, the sound was not loud enough to hear and quite often we had to switch on the sub-titles just to follow what is going on. Finally, though it seems I have...
I have been asked this a few times and till now I have been shying from posting this, but here it is now, the details of the MCE I build a few months ago (in Feb. 2005). Motherboard: I got a 939 pin MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ RAM: 1 GB, DDR PC3200 (Ballistix) HDD: OS - Maxtor 80 GB Data - Two 200 GB (each) in RAID 1 Graphics Card...
If you have not got an MCE yet and are thinking of a small factor (like a laptop), check out Toshiba’s new Qosimo’s - drool! I have seen the old version in the stores and they are an absolute dream, the screen is just awesome and now they have improved it!
Now that my Media Center is up and running (yes, yes I know, I will be posting the specs and pictures soon, as I am travelling on work in Brussels will do it when I get back), I have been thinking of how to extend that to make it a fuller experience (if there is such a word). Here are some things that I was thinking of integrating/extending/playing with...
I think this has to be the coolest Media Center PC (not to mention pricey too). Since I just build mine, maybe in a few years I can save up to get this one... :)
Jonathan Hardwick explores a few ideas on how to share your windows desktop on more than one machine... Now the question is that which ones are supported in Windows Media Center 2005, so I can control that using one of the laptops at home (there is always either mine or Meenakshi's around). Has anyone tried this with MCE?
Well, the idea of assembling a computer and making it dual boot and trying out both Media Center and Myth TV does have me tickled, and if you have been following my useless blabbering here you know I have done a fair amount of research and also swayed in the past , but after reading this excellent review by Brian , I am now not very sure. If something is...
After a lot of research and more reading and talking to Karan and having thought I had a handle of this thing I come across this article on slashdot where the folks at Snapstream have configured a PC PVR with six tuners (yep you read it right, six)! *sigh* seems like we are back to square one. [Listening to: 12 - Track - (04:38)]
Well, I have been thinking for a long time (for those who know me, know that is quite unusual, mostly my poor brain just gives up and packs up due to overload - but that's a story for another day) of getting a Media Centre at home of some sorts. Being a Microsoft geek it was obvious of the choice of going with the Media Centre 2005, but being a geek, and...