Folks,

Calling on those with experience of MCE, as used in it's intended environment. Does it deliver on it's promises?

Looking at a dual digital tuner Media PC to reduce remotes to one. Media Center will have to do everything it says - be the centre for TV, DVD, music and timeshift recording.

What are the pitfalls? How reliable is it?

Ta.

When it works, it works a treat - but beware - at the end of the day it's windows XP with a fancy dashboard, so is as prone to the spyware/virus/etc. problems as any machine.

Mine tends to get confused with antivirus updates & EPG downloads - on the whole it's pretty reliable, but there has been occasion where it's dropped a b*llck and i've missed something scheduled to record.

On the plus side, it's intelligent to know if it's messed up a recording and will look for alternative showings and record that instead.

I'm happy with it as a media hub depsite the occasional hiccups - although i am working on SWMBO to let me buy an XBOX360 to put under the TV so my computer can go somewhere more hidden...

MPM

Cheers.

I'm recommending a solution for a friend who wants "one remote to rule them all" as it were.

PC will be a declutter solution as well as upscaler for non-HD sources (i.e. everything) to go to an HD ready LCD. In my (admitedly limited) experience, LCDs are poo when having to upscale for themselves (even the built in freeview sets), but can produce solid results when a PC does the work. Same principle with HDMI out, non-HD DVD players, I guess.

I'm think evesham e-box will be just the ticket - the media PC also must not look like a PC... PC tower in lounge? Not allowed.

Hi Mark.

MCE is pretty good, particularly for recording stuff. You can get two tuner cards and record two different programs independantly, although you're best making sure the tuner is / had "MCE" drivers for it.

Case-wise, there are lots to chose from. I'm going to order a SilverStone case tomorrow from Scan (I get free delivery ) as they do neat cases, although you can end up spending a fortune on a box :eek:

If you want any advice, drop me a PM (I'll try adding you on MSN). As I live in Reading, we could meet up if you want to have a chat or have a look at MCE (although I don't have a tuner in mine ATM)...

Still see you on occasion at the Cunning Man lights, Xav (I had the Silver MK1 Octy)

99% This is what my friend will be getting:

http://www.evesham.com/products/info.asp?e=B7EEB7DB-A90A-44A7-B8F9-3FF272B3B55B

Maybe a bit overpriced, but it *should* all work together in harmony (no driver issues), has the right features, and looks like a DVD player.

To be partnered with a large LCD (46 - 50") and hooked up to "listenable" speakers - Probably Logitech THX. They might struggle to fill the living space (BIG) but seperates is an unacceptable option.

MCE is pretty good although it's not as stable as my old TiVo,

but then that's windows for you.

I've got it setup in the front room on a 42" plasma hooked into my digital amp and it's very good.

It's great for viewing photos, if you rip your music collection, Media player will find & sort the artwork for you. My CD collection is now archived in the attic!

The TV picture quality is very good from a freeview digital card.

The remote can be a little slow to respond and the music collection index is also a little slow.

You can also Beta test Vista Media centre, but you need a beast of a machine to run it on though. Mine it a 3.2Gig P4 1.5 Gig Ram, 200 Gig Sata striped Raid in a silverstone LC03 case.

Vista would be better on a faster machine!!!!

My personal preference would be one of the new THX TiVos from the US.

It does it all and is bulletproof! Not available in the uk though. D'oh!

so for now it will have to be MCE

If you are building from scratch, MCE is fussy about both graphics and TV cards so check before you buy. There are TV cards that will switch on the pc to performa recording then shut them down aftwerwards. (Not within MCE though)

The evesham box looks nice! Bit pricey though.

One thing to check about the resolution side is what aspect the LCD will take from a DVI or VGA port. My Panasonic screen accepts & scales 640 X 480 & 1024 x 768 via VGA but is a widescreen display!

You really have to mess around with the screen scalinf & sizing to get the image to display correctly.

Nick

I've got it setup in the front room on a 42" plasma hooked into my digital amp and it's very good.

The reason I am recommending the pricier LCD option is because of the PC source and I'm a bit worried about burn. Have you had any issues?

Moving slightly O/T, what's the general consensus on LCD vs Plasma? I've seen a 50" plasma (HD Ready - 1366x768) in the local Dixons for 2K. LCD of a similar size a bit of a step up in price.

Mines hooked to my HD Ready plasma using a DVI-HDMI cable and have no retention issues.

Mine is a P4 3.0GHZ, with 2GB ram, 2x Hauppauge Nova-T PCI, Gigabit lan card, 500GB of HD space, Geforce FX 5900XT Graphics. Not used for anything other than MCE though.

I'm a bit worried about burn. Have you had any issues?

No problems at all. The plasma is now 2 years old and is as good as when i bought it.

The screen has various methods to stop burn such as contrast limit, image moving (the whole image moves a pixel so every 5 mins. You don't even notice it).

Obvously the real killer is a bright static image. The PC has a screen saver when i'm in Windows & the MCE desktop is a nice pale blue with low contrast text.

Before you buy a screen, go to a shop that has them all on display and look at the pictures. LCD technology is getting better but still doesn't have the contrast of plasma.

If you are going to use the screen for pc use, resolution is very important. My plasma is 848 x 576 pixels natively and although it does a good job of scaling down 1024 x 786,

a higher res screen would be better.

Or you could always wait for the new laser projection screens. A DLP style projection with an RGB laser light source. pricing expected to be lower that plasma for a much better image!

Toys....