Windows 7 Media Centre Thread

wolvers · 11 Jan 2009 at 21:31

I installed Windows 7 today and obviously I was keen to try out the new improvements made to Media Centre.

First off I wanted to see what the new LiveTV features are like, particularly support for HD channels and multiple tuners. First try I got nothing as it doesn't have the drivers for my HVR-4000 satellite card so I installed the Vista ones that I had and it seemed to go ok. Also, I made sure that I had the Nvidia driver for Windows 7 installed.

Once into the set up it was really slow but it eventually configured itself no problem. I was made up to see that not only was the BBCHD channel working perfectly and utilising hardware decoding but was also receiving Dolby Digital too and my HDAV sound card was happily sending it to my amp without any fuss at all.

If you are also trying this out please post your screenshots and thoughts/experiences here. I'll post more screenshots soon.

wolvers · 12 Jan 2009 at 15:36

I'm a bit stuck now as I can't do any more testing until my new back up drive arrives tomorrow.

In the mean time I found this little review of 7MC. Even though it's from a previous build I don't think any of it has changed;
http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2008/10/28/windows-7-media-center-revealed/

Some nice looking additions there. I read some where that it downloads meta data for your movies too, like media portal and the plugins that you can get for VMC.

wolvers · 13 Jan 2009 at 13:12

cram said:
I've yet to really go wow about anything.

What about support for multiple tuners?..............oh hang on I tried that last night and all I got was a eye full of BSODs!!

Liking the media centre gadget though.

wolvers · 13 Jan 2009 at 21:09

PistolPete said:
Anyone tried with a Blackgold 6 in 1 card?

Should work with the vista drivers. My HVR-4000 works with the vista ones........kind of.

wolvers · 14 Jan 2009 at 20:32

Meatball said:
Can someone test if AAC Losless (Apple Losless) works natively in 7? I suspect not but since it's part of AAC family maybe it will? .

I can try it for you but you'll have to host a file for me somewhere as I don't use AAC.

Some more screen shots. Sorry they're not in full screen as it won't let me print screen and I can't be bothered to find a work around;

New music wall when playing choooons!

The new info bar for TV (shows Dolby Digital on BBCHD

)

wolvers · 15 Jan 2009 at 15:21

Snakedoctor said:
unlike Vista, you can use the progress bar to jump to sections within prerecorded AVI. You also get the teletext stuff and interactive

Great info Snakedoctor, I'm gonna test all of this tonight. Skipping though AVI's has always been tricky in VMC.

wolvers · 16 Jan 2009 at 12:42

bam0 said:
The H264 codec that comes with it doesn't appear to have GPU acceleration, or at least not for my system, I have a 3700+ with a nvidia 7300GS and BBC HD audio is fine, but video is choppy. The CyberLink H264 codec though decodes it all with no problems.

I don't think that the 7xxx series supports hardware decoding of H.264.

Xee said:
Can you not just add codecs to your PC, just like you do when your not in Media Centre?

You can, yes.

wolvers · 16 Jan 2009 at 15:08

Vertigo1 said:
Well it's not quite that simple - with extensions like MKV you have to add some registry settings to get Media Center to recognise the files but, once that's done, they work fine. That's the case on XP MCE and VMC at least, not sure what formats/extensions W7MC supports out of the box.

I don't know why you've had to do that for VMC to play mkv files. I just installed the splitter and the codecs and it plays fine. No messing around in the registry at all. Same with AVI's, which are also natively supported in 7MC.

wolvers · 17 Jan 2009 at 08:53

That's good.

I'm not sure why it didn't work properly for you then without the cyberlink codec. You should send the feedback on that to Microsoft.

wolvers · 17 Jan 2009 at 14:32

TMT doesn't work at all with Windows 7 at the moment. They say that the next version (3.0) will, due out fairly soon, and will have the media centre integration that is really good.

wolvers · 1 Mar 2009 at 11:55

^^great info, thanks

^^

wolvers · 1 Mar 2009 at 12:01

Vertigo1 said:
Nope they don't have to be the same card.

Go into settings and edit the channels. Select one of the channels (say BBC1 at ch.101 on Freesat) and then change the guide listings source to be the same as the other channel which carries the same content (so BBC1 at ch.1 on Freeview for example). This will merge the channels and 101 will disappear from the guide. Whenever you watch or record on channel 1, it will know that this channel is also available on the Freesat tuner on channel 101 and can use that source instead.

You can even set the priority of the channels if you prefer it to get the channel from one tuner whenever possible.

That's ace and just shows how much better this version of Media Centre is. Proper support for dual tuners that is well thought out. I also think it shows how much better it is than stuff like media portal that look nice but doesn't cut it when it comes to TV stuff.

wolvers · 1 Apr 2009 at 10:34

Finally got around to having a bit more of a play with 7MC last night
(now that the HTPC build is finished and the boiler's fixed! :rolleyes:

) and in particular mkv playback. As I'm running it in 64-bit I couldn't use the exact same codecs that I'm using in Vista and in the end settled for these.

http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html

For 64-bit install this after that one.

http://shark007.net/x64components.html

I'm not usually keen on codec packs but this one is quite slim and mirrors the codecs that I use in Vista. A full install got my mkv files playing straight away, although I had to change some settings to get DTS bitstream working.

wolvers · 1 Apr 2009 at 22:07

After a bit of messing around trying to find the ITVHD channel (it was a different channel number than peeps had said) and doing the reg change I managed to get it working in time for the second half of the footy.

Looks really good on the projector (as good as BBCHD) which is good as ITV has the worst PQ of all IMO. Man, Capello is really wrinkly!!

It's just a shame that you have to view BBCHD first otherwise you get no picture. Also there wasn't any 5.1 DD like on Sky Sports HD footy matches, just 2ch DD, which is a bit of a shame.

wolvers · 11 Apr 2009 at 15:32

Quick update. I've switched to the 7068 build of Windows7 so I thought I'd just post any changes that I find.

The intro is a little different and the sounds have been changed. I'm not sure if I like the new sounds but maybe they'll take a bit of getting used to.

I think the guide listings are in a much better order now right from the start. The process of re-ordering them is still a long one though.

There's also a slide show screen saver which I think is new but it only seems to work in full screen mode and I can't seem to get a screen shot of that.

Also pleased to find that the red button works although I think that worked on build 7000 as well.

wolvers · 13 Apr 2009 at 12:08

Vertigo1 said:
Seen loads of reports of people having problems installing PlayReady on the 7068 build. Gonna stick with the original beta for my testing for now I think and hang on for the proper RC due later in May.

Yeah, I've had that message appear. I can't get ITVHD working on this build either.

There's also some other software that I use for video capture that doesn't work in Win7 yet, and TMT2 doesn't either, so I won't be switching to Win7 full time until they do.

Quick shot of my movie section which looks much better than Vista. What a shame they don't make it look like the Vanilla build of Media Browser though.

wolvers · 13 Apr 2009 at 16:48

Spider said:
They've done something to the Codec's used for HD over DVB-S, so BBC HD and ITV HD aren't working in the latest build(s). Not sure about 7106 though....

BBCHD works fine in 7068. I recorded Finding Nemo the other night, HD and 5.1DD, and the file is 15.8gb!! :eek:

Can't find a way to convert the file to something else though.

Edit; iTVHD is working too now. Maybe it was fine before and they just weren't broadcasting the ID page.

wolvers · 13 Apr 2009 at 16:59

demoneye said:
The new WMC in W7 also supports the RGBY buttons of standard digital TV, and hitting the red button takes you instantly into digital text - no delay like on a standard freeview box - I'm using a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-900

Have you been able to input numbers though? When I try it, with keyboard or remote, it just enters like you're selecting a channel.

wolvers · 15 Apr 2009 at 18:19

Is that the wallpaper from the start up screen (not the one with the nice cheeks!

)? How do you change it?

On a side note, do you find imon works OK in Win7 as it sometimes won't load for me?

wolvers · 16 Apr 2009 at 13:09

Vegetarian said:
if its still not working ie black screen with audio press "stop" then "play" and then it works.

Hadn't tried that so if it happens again I'll know, thanks. I think the FA cup footy is on iTVHD at the weekend so I'll test it then.

easyrider said:
what BETA version is that?

I'm on 7068, optitech-uk is 7077. I don't think there's much difference between them in Media Center.