Happy Birthday Windows Media Center

Posted by:
Brandon LeBlanc
03:27 AM Saturday
Aug 25, 2007
31 Comments

Windows Media Center Program Manager Charlie Owen highlights that this year Windows Media Center celebrates its 5th anniversary on September 3rd. With Windows Media Center's upcoming birthday, Ed Bott decided to take the opportunity to celebrate the event by writing about how Windows Media Center has taken over his living room. Ed takes three pages to describe setting up Windows Media Center in his living room and his experiences using it. Ed's goal was to turn Windows Media Center into a centralized hub for all his digital photos, music and video - consolidating his data into a single digital entertainment point within his house. Those interested in Ed's specs and pricing for his Windows Media Center set up - he's posted them here. I'm going to follow in celebrating Windows Media Center's 5 year anniversary just like Ed by posting about my very own Windows Media Center set-up I have in my living room.

My Windows Media Center PC is a custom PC by Velocity Micro called CineMagix Grand Theater Entertainment System specifically for Windows Media Center. It is currently running Windows Vista Home Premium with the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2.13GHz
2 GB DDR2 PC5300 DDR667
ATI Radeon X1950
ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner (for Digital CableCard features)
Integrated Intel High Definition 7.1 Channel Sound, with Optical and Coaxial Digital Outputs
2 x 250GB Seagate 7200.10 16MB Cache SATA/300
Integrated 10/100/1000MBps Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter

The PC cost $2,215 and currently rates a 5.1 on the Windows Experience Index. As noted above, my Windows Media Center PC has CableCard abilities. Through Comcast (who supplies me with the CableCard), I have ability to watch and record HD content through my ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner. I plan on covering my experience with CableCard and recording HD content through Windows Media Center in a later post but it is absolutely amazing. I was able to completely ditch the digital cable box supplied by Comcast replacing it with my Windows Media Center PC.

Connected to my Windows Media Center PC is my 42-inch LG HDTV. It fully supports 1080p (1920x1080 screen resolutions) which is what my Windows Media Center PC is running at. The HDTV essentially is the monitor for my Windows Media Center PC.

Just like Ed, I use the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000. This keyboard is perfect for Windows Media Center. It is light, thin, and has some great quick-access buttons for launching essential Windows Media Center features like the Guide and play controls. For a complete review of the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 - Andre Da Costa has an excellent review on his blog.

I also have a second Windows Media Center PC - my main desktop PC in my office (the one with the dual monitors you've seen in all my videos). It currently runs with an ATI TV Wonder 650. When I'm working, I have Windows Media Center running on the second monitor. The ATI TV Wonder 650 is capable of over-the-air HDTV but unfortunately I don't have the proper antenna to get this capability. But I have the ability to watch and record standard definition TV.

So to continue the celebration of Windows Media Center's upcoming birthday - tell me about your Windows Media Center set-up. How do you have Windows Media Center running in your home? I'm really interested in hearing about other people's set-ups.

Comments

rowdy

Posted on: August 30, 2007 at 3:46AM
Hi,

I am running Vista Home Premium. When using Media Center I cant view any of my jpgs pictures. I can see the folders but it says 0 itmes in the folder. This is really annoying. Please help.

Rowdy.
newscientist2000

Posted on: September 05, 2007 at 3:38AM
Darn it I really need that setup, or even cable, but Im to cheap, nice setup though :-)

Actually Il'd settle for OTA ATSC tuner that outputs an SD signal, but currently the set top boxes but are too expensive ($200 at most stores).

Ild love to play around with Media Center more, but the OTA analog signal I get without cable is pretty bad so its not really worth the effort until I buy cable or a OTA ATSC tuner.
Brandon LeBlanc

Posted on: September 05, 2007 at 4:12AM
Rowdy, are you storing your photos in your "Photos" directory under your user profile? Windows Media Center by default should pick your photos up if so. If you're using an entirely different directory - you may need to go into the settings of Windows Media Center to find and add the directory so that Windows Media Center finds your photos.
torobucks

Posted on: September 06, 2007 at 8:32PM
Very poor function. Even not good than the free XBMC on old XBOX console.
Tac-Elf

Posted on: September 13, 2007 at 1:23PM
Generally I'm happy with Vista Media Center (VMC) and have been running it 24/7 since Vista shipped, with little downtime. Of course, there's always room for improvement:

1. Fix the wake-on-lan issues when an extender tries to connect to the VMC box. It never succeeds in sustaining a connection in this situation, though it wakes the machine properly. Thus I'm forced to keep the VMC box running 24/7. That's between 1-2kWh wasted per day depending on a box's idle power usage.

2. Work out some solution with CableLabs so I don't have to waste the investment I've made in my non-OEM PC. I would glady pay Comcast their digital subscription if I just had cable-card ability w/o having to spend $2500 on a new OEM digital cable PC. Really: It's just the motherboard/BIOS that needs certification...

3. Partner with the XBox team to get well-known codecs (like DivX) to work over an XBox 360 extender session.

4. Partner with whoever it takes so the DVD juke-box scenario works over an XBox 360 or other generation 2 extender.
Tac-Elf

Posted on: September 13, 2007 at 1:26PM
Oh and one other item:

5. Partner with Windows Home Server team to have media center services be part of that OS. If that's not possible, get Vista (and thus media center) the storage capabilities of WHS. In otherwords, there's shouldn't be a reason why WHS couldn't be your home server + media center server. Seems like an obvious scenario all combined into one box. A real opportunity...
davo

Posted on: September 17, 2007 at 6:41PM
I'm having the same problem as Rowdy (Aug 30). ie. I am running Vista Home Premium. When using Media Center I can't view any of my jpgs pictures. I can see the folders but it says 0 items in the folder.

This is really really annoying. Please please someone help.
kirste

Posted on: September 26, 2007 at 4:56AM
I had the same problem regarding Vista Media Center not displaying any of my jpg/jpeg pictures and I just found a fix that worked from this link: http://www.mediacenterstuff.com/faqs.htm

The Q&A that worked for me is:

Q: My JPG images will not display. How do I fix that?

A: This seems to be a common problem with systems that have Office and/or PhotoShop. You can fix it easily...

Run REGEDIT from the Start/Run dialog.

Expand HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, scroll down to JPG and JPEG entries.

Click on JPG or JPEG entry - on the right should be an entry for PerceivedType.

That entry should say "image".

If it's not there, add it by right-clicking on JPG or JPEG and selecting New/String Value.

Enter "PerceivedType", then press Enter.

Double-click on PerceivedType, then in the dialog enter "image".

Make sure you check both JPG and JPEG - you may need to fix both.
Nay Uk

Posted on: June 15, 2008 at 9:52PM
Why can't I get media center to display my .jpg's?.When using Media Center I cant view any of my jpgs pictures.Now It say "no picture were found". I can't see only media center.

please help me.Thank you.
Brandon LeBlanc

Posted on: June 15, 2008 at 10:02PM
Nay Uk, have you made sure that your Media Center library is configured to look for the images in the specific folder that has those .jpg's of yours?

- Brandon

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