Replacements for Vista Media Centre ??

  • Thread starter Thread starter Synapse Syndrome
  • Start date Start date
Ben said:
You're right -- it does try to do a lot, but doesn't seem to strongly
excel at any of it. Did you try the newly released Vista compatible
BeyondTV 4.6 from SnapStream Media? I used it a while back, and it was
great -- wanted to use it now primarily for the MPEG-2 files it saves --
but -- it doesn't work with my TV card.
Click to expand...


Yes I had tried BeyondTV a few years ago, when it was called SnapStream. I
found it a big resource hog, but now I am using a much more powerful
computer I thought I'd try it again. But it has no support for digital
DVB-T cards that we use in Europe and Australia. It's a shame, as this was
likely to be the best option for me otherwise, especially as ShowShifter is
dead.

ss.
 
Sounds par for the course re: Vista. Wait a few year's until at least SP2
then think about Vista / MCE. CJB.
 
Thank you. Did you open this thread in the web-based reader and mark my
response as helpful?

Thanks,

Dale
 
I take your point, but it does work very well with the arrow keys and enter
key on the keyboard, I stopped trying to use the mouse after the first five
minutes. The only great thing about the mouse is using to exit Media Center
with the 'X' at the top corner. Finding the 'Tasks' and exiting with that is
poor.

I'm not saying it's a great interface, it's not. But it is a fair
improvement for keyboard navigation over the XP MCE interface. I find I'm
much more comfortable navigating with the keyboard now than with either the
mouse or the remote, and certainly it's far better than XP.

I'd love to see the fonts on the menues at 1/4 the size, a full screen
display of the Guide so you can view more than 6 channels at a time, full use
of the the full-screen 'real estate', an 'Explorer Deatails' type view with
full vertical lists where you could scroll through a thousand pictures or
songs in a second, etc etc. I'd love to be able to talk them into letting
redesign the interface. But all in all, I find it better than XP MCE.
 
Well, at least the track number is no longer second largest UI component on
the screen. That's a huge improvement all by itself. I might, over time,
get used to the horizontal list but I never could get used to MCE 2005. I
wrote my own wrapper for WMP because MCE 2005 was so bad - which is a shame
because it was almost so cool that it really inspired me to get more into
the display of my music.

Dale
 
Me too. It is a rolling scrolling nightmare. Someone thought changing it
might make it better. Anyway, I installed Snapstream Beyond TV 4.6(Vista
compat). I do alot of recording off the tuner(PVR-150) and then run the
shows through VideoReDo Plus to eliminate the commercials. Awsome product.
Then I burn the show to a DVD so that I can bring it on vacation and watch it
later. I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 to burn. I am happy with the whole
process. No more rolling and scrolling for me. Hope this helps.
 
JohnnyD said:
Me too. It is a rolling scrolling nightmare. Someone thought changing it
might make it better. Anyway, I installed Snapstream Beyond TV 4.6(Vista
compat). I do alot of recording off the tuner(PVR-150) and then run the
shows through VideoReDo Plus to eliminate the commercials. Awsome
product.
Then I burn the show to a DVD so that I can bring it on vacation and watch
it
later. I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 to burn. I am happy with the
whole
process. No more rolling and scrolling for me. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

I've used BeyondTV a few years ago, when it was just called Snapstream, but
the current version doesn't support digital DVB-T cards we now have here in
Europe. This is a big shame as I know that BeyondTV is pretty decent.
ShowShifter was good too, but XP MCE drove them out of the market.

ss.
 
JohnnyD said:
Me too. It is a rolling scrolling nightmare. Someone thought changing it
might make it better.
Click to expand...

I don't think making it better was much of a consideration. The navigation
and most of the UI for MCE 2005 was pretty good. This whole mixed
horizontal and vertical navigation scheme in Vista MCE absolutely sucks. It
isn't intuitive, it isn't natural.

And it wasn't changed for the better. It was just changed to be different
from the old. If there are no visual differences in the new product,
there's little clear incentive for the average user to move to the new
product

Dale
 
Well, I like it. :)

I had the same problem with a new HD Cable box called "Moxie" that the cable
company started using a while back. It has the same type of
vertical/horizontal menus and I hated that when I first got it, but after
using it for a short time, it kind of grows on you and ends up being much
faster and easier to use than the old "one way" menus.

JMHO.
 
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