Anybody Using Windows 7 Media Center With A HTPC?

[Cletus Van Damme]

I have just built a HTPC and at the moment I am using Windows XP Pro SP3 with Mediaportal as the media centre software. It is free and I imagine it is great when setup by an expert. I am pretty good with computers but I am really getting fed up of all the hassle with Mediaportal. First it was fighting to get the remote to work, then getting it to play bluray via a pluggin, now I am having codec issues with certain types of files. To be honest I am fed up of all the time I am wasting on this. So I just wondered does anybody have any first hand experience of Windows 7 media centre? Does it play blu rays, mkv, avi, mp4 etc with out any grief. Does it need external codecs? As I believe that 7 has codecs built in. I am not expecting it to be hassle free just wondered is it actually any good?

 

[rh100]

Windows 7 for a htpc is much better than vista, or xpmce. I've been using it for over a year now.What display and audio setup do you have?Mine feeds hdmi out to a hidef receiver and then on to the tv, using hdmi 1.3 which has built in lip sync. I use it to play blu ray and DVD and music, don't bother with the tv anymore since having sky plus, as using a standard def capture card upscales to the HDTV very poorly in my setup, but the movies look great, BUT I'm using third software which has a plugin to media centre interface, I use total media theatre by arc soft, it also upscales DVD.Remotes for wmc are readily available, you can also get the kit easily enough that has the ir blaster to control your sky or cable box, setup can be fiddly but it does work. I just use a wireless keyboard with the green button on it and media controls etc, it works great.For codecs for your videos just download a well known codec pack and that should make all your movies play fine through media player. There is also a plugin I have which the name escapes me for now, but it comes up in a menu in media centre and gives you cover art and info for all the movies on your drive or network share, kind of like a DVD library.The last third party media centre I bothered to use was show shifter years ago, havnt bothered with anything since getting windows versions as it works so well.A good place to look is the green button forums or av forums.By the way, for hdmi, I found the best video card at the time was the ati 5000 series as it also has a built in sound card sent over hdmi, Probably better ones around now but it works fine for me

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I am just using a regular amp conected to stereo speakers for the sound as I do not have a surround system yet. This is just done using analog out from the soundcard. The video is just going via HDMI from an ATI5450 to a Samsung HD ready tv. So I guess that you are using Arcsoft as a separate prigram to watch blurays? Just that I read on another forum that Windows 7 MC does not play blurays. I am using Arcsoft with a plugin for mediaportal to watch blurays and dvd's and that works very well. It is just other files that I am having issues with. It sounds good what you have mentioned so far for setting it up. I just find mediaportal really hard work.

 

[rh100]

Win7 is pretty user friendly, I don't think you'd regret it.Arc soft also works via a plugin, so it can be selected from within the media centre menu and operated from the remote, ie it has the six foot interface or whatever they call it.As I say the normal video files, avi's and whatever all work fine after installing the right codec packs, downloadable for free. The files play within media centre they just use the codecs to enable media centre to display them.Mine is a samsung also, as I say I had lip sync issues which I think was more down to the processing of the picture in the tv, which gave it a slight delay behind the audio going to the amp, I used to have a normal surround amp using coax digital but the hdmi amp allows all the kit to sync with each other on version 1.3, if yours works fine then no need to worry.Get winy as an oem disc rather than full retail, you will need the home premium version at least to include media centre.

Ps...win 7 also passed the wife test, she uses it fine without any problems

 

[2Loose]

K-Lite codec pack (basic) is one of the things that'll help Cheesney.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Thanks for all the advice. I have just tried XBMC and it is a way better program than Mediaportal (just IMHO). It is working like a dream after around 10 minutes setting it up. Even the remote works with no messing about. I have spent hours on Mediaportal but I have thrown in the towel it is not for me. I still may go with Windows 7 as I believe that it offers hardware acceleration, whereas XP does not. Which version of Windows 7 are you using RH100, 32 or 64 bit?

 

[rh100]

32 bit, I always find you get driver issues with 64 bit and performance isn't really an issue with HTPC's

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Yes I agree, if I do upgrade I think that I will go with 32 bit as I really do not need anymore computer grief lol.