Saturday I took some time to load Windows XP Professional Media Center on my laptop and on my old Dell desktop at home. It was an interesting process, finding all the right drivers since I hadn't planned out that aspect of it ahead of time. Thankfully I had backed-up drivers not to long ago. Also fun playing around with Media Center and setting up music, pictures, etc.
I also set up Media Center Extender for Xbox (unfortunately I do not yet have the Xbox 360). While the animations and smoothness of the Media Center GUI are not present on the Extender for Xbox, it's pretty slick to pull all the music, pictures, and videos that I want. I even paid too much for a 50 ft ethernet cable just to set it up this weekend. Oh and I ordered this Hauppauge card as TV tuner.
Finally, the major challenge of setting up Extender for Xbox is getting the firewall settings correct. I'm currently using the Windows OneCare Beta, and needed to manually (I guess that is the correct verb for typing in specific port values for it to work) set the ports. This Microsoft Knowledge Base 883352 Release Notes has a helpful section on networking - I opened the ports described (only for internal router traffic) and it worked. :)
awww...easy access to electronics. that is one thing i miss about home. i love that stuff! keep at it
Posted by: Alex at January 24, 2006 05:46 AMThanks... Great new pics on your site. :)
Posted by: Jeremy Showalter at January 24, 2006 09:54 AMVery cool. So where did you end up getting your copy of XP MCE?
I'm having a lot of trouble with my built-from-scratch media-friendly PC right now. It crashed on the first bootup after we moved and I can't get it to re-install XP now. I hate computers. . .
Posted by: Jacob One at January 25, 2006 04:27 PMJacob One,
You can get MCE separate from PCs now - i.e. the OEM versions, so places like TigerDirect and probably Buy.com offer it.
It definitely is more of a challenge to go the DIY route, yet I think more fun as each little hiccup causes me to do a bit more research and learn a bit more about stuff. Like the other night after I got the tv tuner card it was video decoder files...still working on a good one of those...
Posted by: Jeremy Showalter at January 25, 2006 09:23 PMSo which Hauppauge card did you get? The link seems to be broken now. How is it working out for you? I have given up completely on the ATI All-in-Wonder 2006 now that it has chewed through two sets of hardware and spit them both out. I am currently trying to get my computer simply to work after the latest ATI-induced crash. . .
I have to have it ready for Gamefest! :)
Posted by: Jacob One at May 28, 2006 10:33 PMI got the WinTV-PVR-500MCE. The 150MCE is cheaper and provides similar functionality. Key benefit of the 500MCE is the ability to watch one show while recording another or recording two shows at the same time (dual tuner). It's all analog so if you're using digital cable it basically loses the ability to record two shows since it ties to the cable box (but you could probably rig this via cables or something). There might be a way to do this, but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. Alternatively it's actually better to have two cards so you get two cable lines in if you're trying to recording simultaneous shows. It's worked great in a very old Dell Dimension 4300.
Updated Dell Link: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0620089
Hauppauge Product Page: http://hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mcekit.html
Posted by: Jeremy Showalter at May 30, 2006 10:42 AM