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Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

I've joined a couple of other folks in the attempt to rebuild their machines with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004.  I was resisting the move, but since Office 2003 has been released it gave me two reasons to rebuild my machine.  To add even more incentive, one of my hard drives decided to start acting up and went into a forever loop on wanting me to run chkdsk at startup.  Rather than try to solve that problem, went and got a new drive and it was time to FFR (FDisk, Format, ReInstall for those that don't know the acronym).  Now I have the following:

  • Intel 2.4ghz processor
  • Intel 845EBG2 motherboard
  • 1gb RAM
  • NVidia GForceFX 5600 Ultra
  • Hauppauge PVR-350
  • SoundBlaster Audigy 2
  • Promise Ultra133 TX2 controller
  • Maxtor 250gb HD
  • Maxtor 160gb HD
  • Maxtor 120gb HD
  • Maxtor 120gb HD via USB 2.0

Here is the quick and dirty instructions for getting MCE up and running.

  1. Install Windows Media Center Edition CD 1 and 2.
  2. Install Windows Media Center Edition 2004 update.
  3. Install drivers for you video card.
  4. Install drivers for your sound card.
  5. Install drivers for the Hauppauge PVR-350 (downloaded from their website).
  6. Install WinDVD 5 demo (available from their website).

Step 6 is probably the one that will bite most people.  The error presented by MCE when you try to start My TV is kind vague.  Essentially, you have to have the MPEG2 video codec installed (which is installed with the demo version of WinDVD). 

Another nice side effect of having the Hauppauge PVR-350 is that the WinTV2000 software will co-exist on the same machine; allowing you to utilize of of the additional features of the card (hardware out, svideo input, control over MPEG2 encoding parameters, etc.).  As for recording something for later playback, MCE is perfect... but if you want to record something for conversion to VCD/DVD, the WinTV2000 software is a bit better IMO.

Also, I think over time, I will slowly be replacing the existing hard drives with at least 250gb drives... I want to get to a terabyte ;-)

And, yes, I have verified that MCE is written using .NET! :-D  It's kinda weird, but it's written (even the 2004 edition) in 1.0.  Not sure why they didn't upgrade to 1.1; in any case, it's downright impressive to see that .NET is completely capable of being as responsive as MCE is.  I know some people would point out that it's also utilizing DirectX instead of the Windows Forms engine; nonetheless, it's pretty rock solid and an AWSOME example of what a smart client application can be using .NET.

Published Wednesday, February 04, 2004 2:28 AM by CorySmith

Comments

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, February 04, 2004 7:13 PM by Phil Weber
Hi, Cory: I'm curious, since the Hauppauge card has an MPEG codec in hardware, why you have to install WinDVD to get a software codec? Does MCE not take advantage of Hauppauge's hardware codec?

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, February 04, 2004 7:26 PM by Cory Smith
There's a couple of issues surrounding this. It does make sense, so I'll try to explain it as I see it. This first issue is that in order for applications to take advantage of the hardware decoder, a codec must exist in order for the application to access it. I don't believe that the mfg of these cards are creating these codecs. The next issue is that why doesn't MCE come with one of these preinstalled? My experience has shown that although MPEG2 is an open standard, those that are implementing the codecs want to get pain ;-) Rather than Microsoft digging into their own profit margin, I think they've left that to the people building the machines for the general public to deal with. It would seem to me that Microsoft could get a pretty good deal if they were to add someones codec to the OS; however, I think the other side of that issue is that there'd probably be a lawsuit since that would pretty much put any of the other companies out of business. It's a tricky situation. Like I said I understand the issue, but I think the error message should be a bit more clear and that Hauppauge should create a codec that would work directly with MCE and leverage the hardware decoder that's available on the card. The codec on their site does not appear to do whatever MCE is requiring. Which leads me back to my original point, I've run into several MPEG2 decoder codecs that work drastically different from one another... after 7+ years of MPEG2 being the defacto standard in video; it's amazing theres not a little more consistancy in the products available.

# PVR-350 Output????

Friday, March 19, 2004 11:38 AM by MCE
I am trying to set up my own MCE box and am curouis of the PVR-350 output works with WinXP & MCE? I can not get anything to output to the television but a test pattern(columns of different colors) when I load My TV. Before I load My TV nothing is coming out of the Composite output.
If the output does not work what is a good good CHEAP TV output card that works with XP/MCE.

Thanks

# AverTV studio 303 or GOTVIEW

Friday, May 14, 2004 8:28 AM by Max
AverTV studio 303 or GOTVIEW are the best cheap tv cards u can get... really good value for money...

# PVR-350 Output

Saturday, July 03, 2004 11:23 AM by Sylvain Hamel
I have same problem. Can only get a test patter of colored bars to display.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Tuesday, July 06, 2004 12:57 PM by Cory Smith
Windows Media Center, as far as I know, will *ONLY* work with the SVideo output of your graphics video card. The hardware output on the PVR-350 doesn't work and wasn't designed for this purpose. That's why the PVR-250 (or more specifically, PVR-250MCE) are the ones that manufacturers are putting in the machines.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, August 04, 2004 1:16 PM by Cory Smith
I removed some of the GotView comments since they appeared to be spam. If this is not the case, then please state a little more information pertaining to it. Thanks.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 8:21 PM by thx76uk
Hi there I have Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and I cant get it to play DVD useding it from the pc dose any one know why ?

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Friday, October 29, 2004 5:50 PM by dipje
1st:
As stated earlier, the output from the PVR-350 card is ment only for MPEG2 playback. It is only capable of decoding MPEG2 (or MPEG1) streams, and displaying them on the output. So, it doesn't assist in decoding MPEG files. It can decode them entirely, but can only output the decoded files on it's own output.

So it is impossible for programs like Media Center (or other media apps) to make use of the PVR-350 output. You can't display anything on it except MPEG files! So things like a mouse cursor, onscreen-display or a menu are impossible.

Thereby, there are no standards for such hardware-outputs on cards, so almost no program knows how to access the PVR-350's output.

2nd:
Playing back anything in Media Center requires MPEG2 filters. They normally come with a DVD player package like PowerDVD or WinDVD. Playing back DVD discs requires more filters (for the menu's and subtitles and such) that normal TV watching doesn't need.

So when you can watch LiveTV or recorded shows, but can't watch a DVD disc, you only have the files installed for MPEG2 playback, but not for DVD navigation.

Still, a normal DVD package installs those. WinDVD 6 Trial worked for me!

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Friday, November 05, 2004 9:20 PM by joefitz
I'm able to get my Mandrake Linux desktop to show out of the video out on my PVR-350 card using the ivtv drivers. I can also play DVDs through it. Meedio 2 now supports displaying more than just mpeg through the 350 output as well.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Friday, December 24, 2004 2:50 PM by Nick
Hi there i have the same intel board and thje problem i get is during setup of Windows XP media center edition 2005 my pc just reboots in a loop and does not install at all, the loop occurs when setting up the deivces, it reaches 34 % and reboots. any ideas.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 7:15 AM by Rajesh Iyer
WIN DVD 4 which came alongwith my ASUS Motherboard does not work after I installed Windows XP.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 7:17 AM by Rajesh Iyer
WIN DVD 4 which came alongwith my ASUS Motherboard does not work after I installed Windows XP.

I am able to play CD tracks through Windows Media Player 10 and Real player.

I am not able to play DVDs.

I have a SONY CDRW-DVDROM

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Monday, March 28, 2005 2:24 PM by MadPatrick
Try using MythTV a linux based mediacentre.
Here can you use the PVR350 output for everything. U can see the UI, OSD and watch TV on the output of the PVR350.

So you get crystal clear TV and UI

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Saturday, April 02, 2005 5:03 AM by antish
does asus tv fm card with philips 7135 hl chip support mce 2004 or mce 2005.
please help me

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Saturday, April 16, 2005 12:11 PM by francois
i have installed power dvd 5 but i still cannot play dvd movies on media center. dvds play fine in media player but not in media center.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Friday, April 22, 2005 4:36 PM by Simon Jones
I have bought a PC with XP Media Center installed and also a GeCube ATi Radeon 9250SE 128mb DDR graphics card. When I fire Media Center up, it says my graphic card is not compatible. My graphics are fine otherwise. Anyone know what a compatible card would be?

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Monday, April 25, 2005 7:14 AM by Damien McGuinness
Compatible GPU's are listed on the Microsoft website at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/partners/dfw/partnerlisting.mspx

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Thursday, June 23, 2005 2:07 AM by Tyler
Simon what you need to do is go to ATI's web site and download the media center edition drivers for your radeon card you probably just have the Win xp graphics driver and you don't have the specialized winxp media center edition drivers found here:

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Sunday, June 26, 2005 1:41 PM by Markus Andersson
I have some questions that I hope can be answered by someone here. I'm currently using MCE 2005 on a computer with Power DVD 6 installed. MCE works fine when it comes to pictures, videos and music. The problem is DVD playback. Unfortunately I cant get the DVD subtitles to show. If I load a movie and play it with Power DVD everything works just fine. Anyone out there with a solution?

Another qustion I have is: can I expect MCE to play every file type that I can play using WMP as long as the appropriate codec is installed?
I'm thinking about xvid movies...

Last, since I'm planning to purchase a tv card, I'm wondering: will Hauppauge PVR-350 work flawlessly with MCE - or should one got with some of the tv cards designed specifically for MCE? Or do the manufacture MCE drivers for the PVR- series...

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Friday, July 29, 2005 10:29 PM by Rob
I'm also having trouble with windows MCE. I have installed windvd 5 and though dvds play within MCE i cannot see which menu option is selected. It is fine outside MCE using windvd itself. I have a 9800 with the correct graphics drivers. It is really irritating as i have to guess which option is selected and often end up chosing the wrong option.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Saturday, December 10, 2005 2:56 AM by gursharan singh
please send me xp mediacentre edition

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, January 11, 2006 4:46 AM by Vishal
I have MCE 2005 installed on my PC. i am using a Nvidia Geforce PCIx Graphics Card & Pinnacle PCTV 110i TV Tuner Card installed.

The Problem that I am facing is that when I go to MYTV Option the Channel tuned plays smooth & fine, but when I change the channel, the movie does not plays smoothly. It goes frame by frame like Slow motion. When I quit Media Centre & restart it again the channel plays fine. But again on changing the channel it again plays it frame by frame & is not smooth. Also U cannot here the sound. Is there any specific way of changing channel in the MCE 2005. Kindly Reply at the earliest.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Monday, January 16, 2006 6:48 PM by Alec Wandy
How Can I Install Windows Media Center

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 5:37 AM by Alec
Install Windows Media Center YEAH!

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, January 25, 2006 1:28 PM by jagdish
i wann media center drivers for pctv pro

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Thursday, February 02, 2006 2:01 AM by Justin
I had some problems when I built a media center pc. The problem was that it wouldn't let me watch tv, kept saying the decoder wasn't installed. I installed powerdvd xp, this didn't fix it either. So I installed powerdvd 6 and this fixed everything. Must have had something to do with the fact that I had media player 10 installed and it required the latest powerdvd to function correctly.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Saturday, February 18, 2006 10:06 AM by pradeep
hello

i have got a pinnacle tv tuner card (rave) it is not detecting in the mce so what driver i need to install .i am using mce 2005 please specify the url

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Saturday, March 18, 2006 9:04 PM by Tom
Re: Pinancle - MCE doesnt detect the card.

There is an update on their site now.

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Sunday, April 23, 2006 4:29 AM by sudip
i want yhe latest in xp so i think its the best one

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Sunday, April 23, 2006 4:29 AM by sudip
its yhe best in xp editions

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Sunday, April 23, 2006 2:01 PM by stella
cannot use windows media player to watch dvd

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Friday, June 30, 2006 2:28 PM by Luis
does asus tv fm card with philips 7135 hl chip support mce ??

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 asus 7135

Friday, July 21, 2006 6:46 PM by gaz
The Asus 7135 does run unde mce 2005.

1) install card on Pc
2Install 7135
3) MCE picks up the card as bda sound device (ok)
4) Install plugin (www.brianlema.com)
5) Check it works

) Now install latest drivers for card - still works?

Good.

If you get an echo then mute the aux in in sound properties

# re: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Wednesday, September 27, 2006 2:14 AM by Yoda
I am not as techie as most people on here but i have been searching for the answer on this....i have the windows media edition and whenever i try to play dvd's it crashes and pink lines come up. I get a serious error and i need to turn off the power and restart. god can anyone help???
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