Discuss this week's Win7News Editors Corner here!

Love the Media Center, but since upgrading from Vista Ultimate x32 to W7 Home Premium x64, when recording TV, a lot of times there is no sound. I haven't been able to figure out why. Frustrating. It sometimes happens when just watching TV too, but a stop of the TV program and then back in fixes it. I can't do that when recording.

That well may be but I use Mythtv (Mythtdora) to do that and more. Has Music player, Picture viewer,News reader, weather, skins, zoneminder (security) and more. It records shows on all channels, if i want to watch Cold Case i can tell it to record on all channels and it knows what was recorded and/or watched and won't re-record it again, unless i over ride it. Has program guide built in all on a nice 10 ft interface. Single backend records with several tuners, frontends connect to it. Best way to re-purpose older pc's! Also has add in to give it a movie list and if a movie on list is broadcast it will record. Best of all (shh) it automatically scans recordings and allows you to skip commercials It also allows you to automatically transcode content to allow use on other devices (PSP, iPod...). Allows all frontends to watch live TV even if they have no turners. I have been using it since XP Media Center and have never wanted a Windows box as an appliance. It connects to My main pc to view media on it too. I can watch something in one room and move to another and pick up where i left off. Has Web interface to schedule recordings with program guide, web interface also lets you maintain all aspects of the system. You can view or download recorded content to any pc through that interface. It has been the best media center that i have found bar none. oh by the way it was recording HD before windows ever had that ability. Has interface to TVIDB and IDB to get descriptions and cover art to use as icon for show/movie. Just my two cents

Media Center is all well and good, but what about satellite TV, what is there for us folks?

I have not made the switch to WMC 7. I have an old MC XP 2005 with a Linksys Extender in the bedroom. Had the system since early 2005, so it is long in the tooth. For the most part it has worked great. Some minor issue from time to time, which was more of an annoyance to my wife than to me. Comcast upgraded their system which forced us to have their cable boxes and use IR cables which don't always change the channel correctly. Due to this I have been thinking of upgrading the system.

Now for my problem. The $100 Extender we have does not work with Win7. It makes for a more expensive upgrade, since my wife is hooked on using the Media Center in the bedroom through the extender.

Anyone have any ideas what to do with my current extender if I do the upgrade> I hate to through a piece of equipment away that still works.

I like this weeks article on Media Center but noted that it left out infomation for OTA(Over the Air) users. With just a TV tuner and a good antenna anyone can get free HD TV. With one month of service from most subscribers you can get you local stations at upwards of 12Mbps. Most of the stations in my area have 20Mbps of bandwidth thats shared, for instance channel 2 would have 2.1, 2.2 etc, allowing each station to have several shows on at once, usually the 1st one being HD and the others being in standard definition. I pickup 64 channels in my area with just a 30 mile range Antenna. Antennaweb.org has information for the general public to help you determine what antenna you need to pick stations and will also list what you can recieve in your location. Its a great way for anyone on a buget to come up with an awesome DVR solution. In my case Im also using an HD home run dual tuner which allows me to share the antenna with any media center computer in the house over ethernet. You can use multiple of these if you wanted to record up to 4 shows etc, upfront cost isnt that high when compare to Tivo and other offerings on the market and has no monthly fees. Im getting ready to leave Satelite service with DirecTV and start enjoying all the free HD channels offered in my area.

One can also access NetFlix, Hulu and other internet video services so OTA can be an excellent choice for anyone on a tight budget. One final note you can get Media Center remotes on ebay for 15$ that allow you to control your system just like any other DVR, some include mouse functionality with right click and left click so it really makes it a joy to access all your photos, video's, music, and TV from the comfort of your home sofa.

I have been using Windows Media Center since XP MCE 2005 Edition, and along with satellite TV all of the time. I have used it with Vista and now with Windows 7. I used all elements - from recording TV to using it for photos, music and videos. I have had a lot of frustration with it thru the years - it has always been unstable, and contains bugs. I only use it sparingly now. I now use the HD PVR from Hauppauge to record TV and now use XBMC media center software for playback of various media. It works well.

When I used to record TV with Windows Media Center, here were some of the problems I had with it:
When I would record a movie (for only 1 time), the scheduler would just automatically schedule and record it again and again (without the double click/press record action), sometimes filling my hard drive and erasing other shows I wanted to keep;
Sometimes the software would get confused and say there is a recording conflict... when there wasn't one;
It would incorrectly report the available space left to record;
Often the software would get confused about the channel it thought it was on.
Often it would just crash, requiring a PC reboot;

These bugs were never fixed and were even ported over to Vista Media Center versions.
I do not know if these problems have been fixed in Windows 7's media center. Win 7 cannot recognize the Hauppauge tuner (mentioned above), but that that is fine. I have had good results with the new tuner and the software that came with it.

I tried the Music portion of Windows 7 media center. I noticed that when I just click to play an individual track that after the track was done playing, Windows changed my rating on the song to 5 stars from 3 stars. It happened on several more tracks. And sure enough, I exited media center and looked at those track in Windows Media Player and those ratings were permanenly changed! A new media center bug in Windows 7. Enough, enough!

(There is no way in Media Center to find an artist's songs if those songs are on a various artists album.)

Goodbye Windows Media Center! Microsoft's applications are never cleaned up. It is better to find another company that specializes in software applications that it continually upgrades, cleans, and improves.

So I used XBMC to replace Windows Media Center (free but well done).
I use MediaMonkey to organize, categorize and manage all of my music (also a solid app, the free version does a lot more than any other jukebox I have ever seen).

It does work with satellite TV.

I would recomend reporting those issues to MS, there are no doubt many bugs to fix. Also for those that dont prefer the MS product their are a number of free alternatives.

Here is a Wiki link that has some DVR/PVR alternatives, some are free, some have a minimal cost(Linux is also a good solution for someone wanting to build a solid DVR solution):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..._PVR_software_packages


I have also been experiementing with ultra large video, audio and photo libraries and notice that Media center does have slower load times then I would desire. I batch compressed many of my 12MegaPixel images. Overall its worked for me and I havent run into any critical failures. I have over 10K photos in the library and approximately 30,000 music files. Also have Hulu and Netflix interfaced. The new Windows Media player is unacceptably buggy compared to other apps on the market, I have found it unable to handle my large music library but thats another blog.

On dual screen setup's I have noticed that Media Center locks the mouse to the screen, this can be a hassel as one has to hit the windows key, or resize the screen to get to the 2nd display. It good for a DVR/HTPC only config, but this should be a selectable option and not a permenant setting. If anyone has a fix for the registry settings to correct please post. It a minor overall and one can use another app to stream TV. I like being able to access my recorded shows from my main HTPC, its not hard to setup multiple Windows 7 PC's to access mydocs, videos, music etc from a central homegroup PC.

I wish there was a stripped down version of windows 7 that could be used as an extender. I would love to get 2 cheap, thin line PC's top replace my STB's, while using the Ceton InfiniTV 4 tuner. I would assign a tuner to each of the 2 small PC's, while using the other 2 tuners for recording/viewing in the 3rd room when the Windows 7 Media Center would be based.

All very well and good is Mythdora. . . but it's for Linux systems, nie? I did see a version for Windows that someone has done, but couldn't figure out just what is needed to take advantage of it.

I have been using MediaPortal on WinXP for at least 2 years.....Works great and is stable (most of the time!). I recently looked at using Windows 7 Media Center, but did not for one big reason: I currently use several PC's as MediaPortal Clients for streaming live TV - Bedroom, lounge, kitchen, study etc - and I cannot seem to find this functionality in Windows 7 without resorting to virtual TV card drivers etc. or getting dedicated Media Extenders.

I know that you can use Windows 7 as a client for recorded TV, but with only one PC that has the tuner cards in it, this was a deal breaker.

If anyone out there has a solution for this, I would be open to looking at it again.

Silicon dust makes a tuner the HDHomeRun which will make TV available over ethernet to all your Media Center devices. It works with a number of systems not just Window Media Center, the great part is you can add tuners and systems will auto grab whats available and you can add adtl tuners on the network. Im using one dual tuner currently which gives me the equivilant of what I had with DirecTV but Im looking at adding another so I can record up to 4 shows. Since were using this for multiple rooms thats where the extra tuner capacity comes in handy. They can be found for as cheap as 100$ for the dual tuner if you get it onsale. NewEgg had them awhile back at this price with free shipping. Ritz Camera also has them currently with free shipping for about 125 or you could also go the refurb or Ebay route if on a budget.

Hello I am new to this forum and new to the media center. I have a question what type of antenna does everybody use to get a good reception and the hd chanels?

The antenna you need can very greatly depending on environmental factors and distance from the stations. Antennaweb.org http://antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
is a great site for finding out where your stations are located and based on that you can select an Antenna. I recommend getting an Antenna that handles UHF and VHF. Im only about 26 miles from my stations and use a Winegard FreeVision FV-HD30. It works great and is not very big so I was able to mount it in the attic and hook it up to my old SAT Coax connection. Outside mounting is best but in your Attic or even a set top can work depending on your range. Solid Signal has a good selection of Antenna's at reasonable prices. Once you have the information from Antenna web you just select an Antenna that meets your preferences that can pickup signals from that range. You may also point Yagi Antennas in different directions if you have towers in different areas but most cities keep the stations all in a nest.

Another site with Antenna reviews and install tips that may help:
http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/index.php


Forgot to Mention another great program to enhance Media Center is Remote Potato. With this little app you can set recordings from your phone or any web browser. The author is also working to add video streams to mobile devices from your Media Center. Takes about 10 min to configure as its dependent on some other free services but its well worth checking out to flush out Media centers functionality.

Also downloaded a plugin that allows mounting of ISO images which is awesome as we can now click on family DVD home videos that I have archived. The program mounts the ISO automatically in the background allowing you to load images on the fly. Recomend you use the default Slysoft program in conjunction with as Daemon tools didnt work for the automount process for me.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto...indows-7-media-center/

I personally have not had any issues with recording series or individual shows to the media center as of yet and currently Im doing about 7 hrs a day just for the world series not counting other programs my family has scheduled. So far Im very impressed with how much functionality MS has added. Their always room for some tweaks but enough 3rd party plugin's exist to help with that.

Edited: 6/17/2010 at 12:57 PM by Cyborg1024

Thank You very useful information.

Have spent a good bit of time tweaking media center.  Using tapirex for caller ID you can have a photo in addition to contact information appear for inbound callers appear in the Media center while watching TV, you can also look at a log of calls.  That was the last item I had on my list to have the system running with everything I wanted and more.  There are also good programs available such as MCEBuddy for comercial removal but personally Im not using that one as it takes time and processing for your HDD to re-encode all the footage.  Once they have that setup for realtime I may change my tune.  All in All Im really impressed with MS product, it does take some tweaking but with a little time you can save yourself a good bit of money with this type of solution.  My kids havent complained one bit since the switch to OTA TV and we get about 55 stations in our area plus all the online content such as Hulu, Netflix, internet TV.  We can now enjoy family videos, music, and are having a good bit of fun with the new setup.  Kudo's to MS and the green button forums.  I got alot of help from techs and users and its a great place to look for tweaks and help with Media Center.