Windows XP Media Center Edition: Exposed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 8, 2003 2:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
With all of this talk about recording, what happens if you try and record two things at once? Remember that a Media Center PC will only use one TV tuner card and thus can only be "watching" one TV stream at a given time.
MCE will not let you schedule two recordings that conflict, if you try to you'll be greeted with this screen:
...and you'll be forced to choose between the two. If you can't bring yourself to pick the one you really want, the conflict will be denoted by an exclamation mark in the guide:
In this case, MCE will choose to record the first show that it was asked to record - College Football and the Nutty Professor will just be listed as a conflict.
Conflict resolution is a fairly important aspect of any PVR and the way MCE handles it is decent. Firstly, MCE will not let you purposefully create a conflict as we just illustrated with the above screenshots. Should a conflict arise because a show got moved, MCE will end up recording the first show you selected - there is no ability to control priorities of shows, which is somewhat disappointing.
In the event that a show isn't recorded for a reason other than you deliberately making a conflict the show will appear in MCE's list of recording errors. The fact that MCE keeps a log of all errors is quite handy, just so you know what shows you've missed and for what reason.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
9 Comments
View All Comments
GreyMack - Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - link
Excellent review, but I don't think it was harsh enough.baboon68 - Wednesday, October 29, 2003 - link
Well, if nothing this article shows that MCE is NOT capable of settling comfortably the living room for a variety of reasons. MCE does not do away with the windows menu and the instability/driver issues. The HP box is certainly worse than a custom assembled Shuttle SSF or Ahanix box. The latest ATI Multimedia Center software in conjuntion with an RF (not IR) control is also quite close to the MCE experience - I have one and it works quite well on a cheaper Athlon 2K+. ALso free/cheap updates to the ATI software can only make it better - never mind the HDTV capability using the 40$ adapter. And last bat not least, if I look at the additional capabilities of Freevo or MythTV (Weather, RSS feeds, MAME, etc.). Also missing - at least from the article - is a discussion of: support for people outside of the US, possible DVB-S card support, external IR Transmitter support (to control a Sat receiver box), and more.I think the MCE is at best another flawed attempt by Microsoft to market beta quality software at a loss or at the expense of hardware integrators to gain market share in the Tivo market.
Anonymous User - Monday, October 20, 2003 - link
After reading this article I'm not clear why the author thinks MCE is preferable to alternatives like ATI All-in-Wonder, which sounds like does the same things and is more flexible what computers it will work with. In particular, the author says the MCE interface is significantly better than ATI but doesn't adequately explain why. Also, the ATI remote will work without line-of-site required and can control the computer mouse, which MCE can't. Seems like ATI is a better deal.Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link
Do the same thing for freewww.mythtv.org
Anonymous User - Friday, August 29, 2003 - link
This is a great review. Will a Dual processor xeon machine combat the stuttering? i presume its compatible as its xp pro based.Anonymous User - Monday, August 11, 2003 - link
Thank you, AnandTech! Your review is extremely helpful, as it debunked some of the myths of Windows Media Center. Plus, it gave me inside look of the machine I'm looking to buy.Still, I have one question: About the "skip" function, when you skip 30 seconds ahead, does the machine record the commercials also or does it only record the areas not skipped? If it doesn't, is there some kind of software that can erase the commercials?
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - link
yeah basicallyAnonymous User - Thursday, July 17, 2003 - link
So, the the final word is the MCE is just Xp pro plus PVR right.. ???Anonymous User - Saturday, July 12, 2003 - link
This is a great review. It explains every aspect of this Media Center PC in great detail. I have looked all over the internet to find a review like this and this is the only one I could find. Thanks alot. This will make me even more jealous to buy it since I am planning to purchase one.