MCE 2005 questions/problems

[brumster]

Hi guys,

As some of you may know, I'm a bit of a MythTV man, but I'm trying to set up an MCE2005 box and it's all a bit new to me, so I was wondering if anyone can help on the following issue/query?

It's running a Pinnacle DVB-T Pro Dual tuner card, listed as MCE compatible. I've installed XP/MCE, done all the updates from Microsoft, installed the Pinnacle drivers, then let MS Update update them too. I then installed PowerDVD which I believe I need to do in order to get an MPEG2 decoder on there, right?

Well, Live TV is very flaky. When it works, I get no audio (despite getting audio in every other aspect on MCE; mp3s and so forth) but after a few channel changes it breaks the decoder and that's it until you reboot.

I also have graphics card issues with a corrupt display when exiting out of MCE back to XP but I think this is due to driver/scaling issues for my TV...

[Chenks]

TV problems sound like a driver and/or codec problem

my rule is never let windows update drivers.. always use the ones supplied by the manufacturer.

[brumster]

I get the "decoder failure" message in the TV output screen... I'll have a fiddle, see what I can do...

[brumster]

Oh, here's the other one... most of my videos are held on a (linux) fileserver and shared out via samba. Windoze boxes, including MCE, just mount these at network drives no problem.

Is there any way you can get an XBOX360 to recognise non-Windows shared devices? It will mount anything with MC Extender installed on it - like MCE2005 boxes or other XP boxes but, since the server is Linux, there's no obvious way of sharing content out to it :(

[Chenks]

use a problem called "TVersity"

that will run as a mediaserver and you can add your shares in that... XBO360 will then connect to TVersity as the mediaserver and you will see everything

[brumster]

use a problem called "TVersity"

that will run as a mediaserver and you can add your shares in that... XBO360 will then connect to TVersity as the mediaserver and you will see everything

Dunt run on linux, though, does it :(

[Chenks]

Dunt run on linux, though, does it :(

but you could map the drives on your MCE2005 system.. and then run TVersity from that.

[brumster]

Hmm... possibility I suppose.

Anyway, I tried the drivers option thing and it's a bit more stable now, it would seem. However I still get no audio. This is weird because, if I record the programme I'm watching, stop it, exit out from MCE and play the recording in Media Centre - all the sound is there. But if I watch it back through MCE (or am just watching the live broadcast in MCE, without recording it) - no sound.

What gives?! Is it something to do with the MPEG2 decoder sitting in the middle? I'll fiddle with the speaker setup options again just in case.... blimmin' weird.

Laters,
Dan

[brumster]

Ok, I've installed the nVidia PureVideo decoder and I now have sound, so that works.

However, and here's where I start waving my "MythTV was great" flag... boy this thing crawls, and it's got an FX53 in it FFS! Video playback goes very choppy as soon you ask MCE to do anything else other than just display the video - so a menu pop-up for example, it starts dropping frames. If I haven't had such a ballache with it up until now, I'd find it comical.

So, Is the PCIe nVidia 7100GS I've got in there not up to the job (which, if not, is another comedy moment considering Myth had no problem with an old FX5200) ? Does anyone else run a 7100GS in MCE and have problems with choppy video?

Looks like I'm almost there with it now...

[Chenks]

MCE ran fine for me with a nvidia FX5200, so it would appear that your problem is being cause by something else.

[brumster]

Super, right, I'll look into it then. Remote receiver turned up today (thanks KPC boys ;) ) and works a treat; well chuffed. This is just sooooo much easier than Myth :p a shame it doesn't have so many of the cool features, but 80% of the functionality for 2% of the hassle? Sod it, I'll make do.

[Chenks]

may i suggest an alternative application called 'MediaPortal'.

that's what i use instead of MCE, and it's much better in my opinion.