Entertainment 2.0

I’ve been running Windows 7 as my main Media Center system since the beta first released.  As is the case with most enthusiasts, I like to play, even though my wife hates it.  This playing can cause issues.  I’m lucky because now I have a laptop to test software on and know that it works before putting on my main system.

The laptop thing happened just recently though and now I have to reinstall.  While it isn’t that difficult of a task, it can be problematic due to the fact that no one in the house has access to media while I do it.  When you centralize your media, this is one of the things that comes with it.

Here I’m going to walk through the install and Media Center setup process as it applies to me and will to most people.  Again, this doesn’t have to be a complicated procedure, but I’ll do my best to spell everything out.

The first thing we’re going to do is install Windows itself.  I again, am running Windows 7 and this installs like most other Windows OSs.  I won’t spend much time here since most people can handle this part of it.  One thing I like about Windows 7 though is the fact that it really works well at finding drivers for your hardware and installing them through Windows Update.  With Vista, I’d spend 30 minutes swapping disks or running executables to install drivers.  Now, Windows 7 finds all but 2 of mine and those I keep on the thumb drive for quick installation.  Any that your install doesn’t find, get those loaded after running

Once you’re drivers are installed (including for any installed TV Tuners) it’s time to start setting up to run as a media center and for me, a server.  The first step I take in doing this is setting up my libraries.  This can be done in Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, or right from the desktop.  I do it from the desktop just because it’s fast and easy.  If you bring up the “computer” window you can see the various libraries listed in the left-hand pane.  Click each one, move to the right side of the screen and click where it shows the number of locations in the library.  Here you can add folders.  These can either be local or shared network folders.

Once you have your libraries setup the next place to head is right into Media Center.  This is where you’ll probably have to do the most work to get things working the way you want, but again, it’s a relatively fast, easy process that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Media Center is first going to want you to run through the required setup.  This is extremely fast and is really just setting up your internet connection and a few other tidbits.  Afterward is when the “real” work begins.  At this point it’s time to start turning this into a real Media Center by configuring our TV signal and recorded TV settings.  Media Center walks you right through the process.  If your tuner is installed correctly, Media Center should give you the option to setup TV on the TV strip on the main menu.  Clicking this takes you through the process of setting up your region, installing PlayReady, and scanning your tuners for signals.  Once it locates the type of tuner and the signal connected, the system will provide you the available tuner options that you can setup.  In my case I have a hybrid analog and digital tuner.  Even so, I only set up the analog side as I still have it connected to cable.  By selecting my tuners manually, I’m able to skip setting up the digital tuner.  After selecting the tuners you want used, you’ll choose your TV provider and Media Center will get your guide data and you should be all set.  Optionally you can head to the setup and change where the system saves your recorded TV.  Personally, I keep recordings on a separate hard drive so I go in and make the change. 

The hard part is out of the way.  From this point on, much of what you can do is optional.  It can take some time for libraries to populate which is one of the reasons I set them up first.  You can of course add plugins to Media Center which will help you expand the functionality, but for basic DVR, music and picture playback you should be all set.

If you read posts on The Green Button, here, or on other blogs, you might think that Media Center is something that takes a genius to run.  This simply isn’t the case.  Those of us who write blogs are more than likely on the geeky side and therefore tend to play with our systems.  If you’re looking for something relatively simple and quick to setup which will provide you with TV (proper hardware of course), video, music and picture viewing capabilities, you can have Media Center up and running in less than 20 minutes depending on your setup.  Don’t be intimidated.  Even if you’ve never looked at Media Center before, go in and do a quick setup.  Even without a TV tuner, you may find that you like using it for other things.

I finally made time this morning to do a clean Windows 7 installation on the main Media Center machine in my home.  Things weren’t perfect, but if they wouldn’t have been any easier or smoother they couldn’t call this a beta.

The machine had been running Vista SP1 up until today.  This didn’t really matter to me since I wanted to see what would happen with a clean installation.  This install was a lot like previous Windows installations except I didn’t have to answer as many, well, dumb questions.  I didn’t time it but from the time I restarted the system with the disk in until I had the desktop up couldn’t have been more than 25 minutes.  Just that fast.

This being a dedicated Media Center machine, there wasn’t a whole lot to do as far as installing apps.  Windows update took over first and automatically installed drivers for my Nvidia 8500GT.  It was an optional update so I had to tell Win7 to do it but after that it was done in about 2 minutes.

The first problem I ran into was that a partition on one of my 1TB drives wasn’t showing up in Computer.  I headed over to “Computer Management” and found that said partition didn’t have a drive letter installed.  As soon as I gave it one it popped-up asking me if I wanted to open the folder and then was showing up under Computer.  I run 5 HDD split into a total of 8 partitions and I don’t know if there’s a limit programmed into Win7 but that never happened with Vista.  And no, it wasn’t a new drive.  Still, easy to fix and not a problem now.

The next issue I hit had to do (I believe) more with the Nvidia drivers for the 8500GT than it did with Win7.  Currently this PC has a monitor and a TV connected to it.  Win7 set these up with the desktop being extended onto the TV.  Since Media Center needs to show up on the TV, this won’t work for me.  I want to duplicate the screens, not extend them.  In Vista, this was done through the Nvidia Control Panel which is installed with the drivers.  Under Win7, other than the screen resolution, I couldn’t make any changes to how the two screens behaved.  Luckily I was able to make the necessary changes through the right click menu on the desktop and now it works just fine.

Next was to install the drivers for my TV Tuner.  No big deal.  Download from Asus, install, bang, done.  The only other apps required for this Media Center are My Movies and myTV.  My Movies is nothing:  Installs just like vista and I was able to reload my backed up database with no problems.

myTV was a different story.  If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my tweet about myTV.  Basically, the app won’t install under Windows 7 due to a check that the MSI file does while installing.  There is a way around this which I’ll post about soon (or you can head to the myTV site and seach), I just need some screenshot software first.  To explain, you basically have to remove the two lines from the MSI which call for the version check and it’ll install.  It’s mentioned on the boards at myTV though that it needs to be a clean Win7 install for myTV to work.  I found this to be the case as it won’t work on my laptop which was upgraded.  I do wonder why the author of myTV hasn’t fixed this issue yet as it’s a paid app and the forums on the site are jumping with people wanting to use Windows 7.  I’m not complaining that they have, but at this time it seems as though the users have put more into than the developer.

At this point, my home Media Center is up and running.  Both 3rd party apps work good and my extender is connected.  There are a few issues I’m having though:

1. When I close Media Center on the PC itself, Windows 7 pops up an error saying that Media Center has stopped working and then tries to restart it.  Don’t know why because there’s not option to send a report nor does it give me any error.  I’ve looked in the Event Viewer but can’t tell what’s going on in there.  I’m not that experienced.  I’ll try to get some screenshots of it when I can.
2. DVR-MS files don’t look the same on the extender.  Resolution “appears” to be higher but you can see some pixelization which wasn’t there before.  Also, motion becomes blurred.  Again, this didn’t happen under Vista.  I’m curious to see how WTV files look.  I’ll update as soon as I have a few shows recorded.
3. Under “Videos” all of my video folders show up twice.  I’m not sure why as I don’t think I’m sharing them or anything twice (if that’s even possible) but clicking either one will work.
4. On this install as well as on the laptop, the wmplayer process seems to stay open even after shutting down WMP.  This requires you to go and open your task manager in order to stop the process.

Good and GREAT stuff:

1. In Vista, I was required to use Transcode 360 to play Divx files on the Xbox 360.  Now that Divx and Xvid are supported (with a dashboard update: quick and easy) these files look 100x better!!!!  I wish I could show the difference.  It’s unbelievable.  Downloaded programming that is supposed to be HD actually looks like HD now.
2. The new interface is awesome.  I like the “Info” button function.  Much smoother than it was before.  A lot quicker on the extender as well.  In fact, I haven’t had a lot of time with it yet, but so far, everything looks faster on the extender.
3. I set the library up in WMP first this time knowing that it should transfer to Media Center.  Sure enough it did and wow, fast!  I have over 1500 video files on 5 different drives as well as 1300 music tracks.  The whole thing was setup and populated in under 5 minutes.  This is a huge difference compared to my Toshiba laptop which took more than a day to populate over the network.

I have to say that for a beta, everything is right on track to make this the best Media Center release ever.  As it should be.  Microsoft has had lots of time to get this down.  Hopefully we’ll see more advances before the retail release hits.

For a more detailed description of what’s going on, listen to the live show tonight.  Again, it’s a lot easier to say this stuff than it is to write it.  Also, watch for upcoming posts on “Play To”, how to get myTV to install and my open letter to Microsoft.  I also have a lot more notes about Windows 7.  The posts will keep coming, especially when I go to do a clean laptop install.

This seems almost a little too beginner because if this is the help you need, VMC itself is going to be a huge challenge.  However, I thought I would post this because not everyone knows how to get your experience from the monitor to the TV.

I’ll be looking for other video clips that help explain VMC features as well as add ons.  If anyone knows of any, please let me know.  As well, if I can’t find any, I guess I’ll have to start making my own…you should all be very scared!