Question about Media Center interface

[Guest]

Hi all:
I currently have a homebuilt Intel Viiv computer with nearly 2 TB's of
recorded material and have a question about how Vista handles "recorded tv".
I tried Vista on another of my computers and when you clicked recorded
tv....instead of showing a list of recorded programs, it had little "icons?"
with the name of the show that scrolled across the screen. Since I have
nearly 250 tv & dvd recordings on my pc, it seems to take way to long to
find the program I want to view by scrolling thru all those icons instead of
down a list. Is there any way to change the "recorded tv" display to a list
like it does in Media Center 2005 instead of scrolling through the "icons"?
I am also concerned that the more restrictive "protected content" that Vista
has will prevent me from viewing "over the air" analog tv shows that I have
already recorded to view in my RV when I travel. If anyone can enlighten me,
I would love to install Vista when it becomes available if these problems
are not really a problem.

xiowan..........in tucson

 

[Dale]

Ouch! That sounds like a very frustrating design feature. That's why I
almost never run MCE even on my MCE computer.

Dale

 

[Guest]

Hi Dale:
Don't get me wrong..........I love the way MCE2005 works, I'm just
hoping there is a way to use Vista as easily. I currently connect my pc to
the living room tv on a wired network to an xbox360 and the picture quality
is almost indistinguishable from direct cable reception. Take into account
the pause live tv, record live tv, access to a large library of content and I
couldn't ask for more.......but.....Vista has many features I want too but
not at the expense of ruining the current features I already have. I
particulary like the idea of improved security and hopefully less need to
download MB after MB of security updates all the time!

xiowan.........in tucson

 

[Gary Mount]

You can type a letter and it will quickly scroll to a position with recorded
content starting with that letter.
I have about 250 shows recorded myself. I can group them by title to reduce
the number of items to scroll through. This works well if one has a lot of
recorded TV series.

 

[Guest]

Right about the Recorded program selection. It is very frustrating. That is
a great tip about typing a LETTER in to get to the show that you want. I
have great difficulty scrolling though the recorded shows it goes either too
slow or too fast, or stops at the wrong place. MCE 2005 was so much better
than this NEW scrolling nightmare. I wish there was a way to incorporate the
MCE 2005 interface and dump the new and improved Vista interface. I use
Media Center 20 times a day and, what can I say, I like the old MCE2005 way
better. Any ideas?(other than staying on MCE2005)

 

[Guest]

Hi JonnyD:
I'm afraid I took a step backward! I had Vista dual-booted with MCE on
my main computer and wound up removing Vista in favor of MCE2005. I just
didn't like the Media Center interface and time lags calling up recorded
programs. It was also difficult to read the guide on a SD tv. Probably
looks better on a wide-screen LCD or Plasma but I'm not going to get one
until there is more Hi-Def programming available. Standard definition looks
worse on a flat panel than my current tv. Since I bought the retail version
of Vista, I sold my oldest computer and built a new one just to play with
Vista. Surprisingly, Vista seems to work with all features on a $72 "open
box" Intel DG965WH board without a graphics card at all! I used a Core2 Duo
E6300 & 2 GBs of DDR2 667 and it works great. I had more problems with the
display using Vista with an expensive NVidia 7600GT than with the onboard
graphics! I stuck in one of those Super Talent 2 GB ReadyBoost flash drives
and it seems to smooth things out a little and there is a noticeable
improvement in the O.S. If I were you, I'd keep using the MCE2005 until you
actually need features that Vista offers. Vista won't be any help with
cable or satelite H.D. programming unless you buy a factory built Vista pc
with cable card already installed as I understand it. That sort of means
Vista won't be much help to me with my Media Center pc with 7 hard drives of
programming.