Vista vs MCE2005

2013 Views 23 Replies 18 Participants Last post by Ozy666, May 15, 2007

Jay M

Discussion Starter · May 10, 2007

I may be doing a major HTPC upgrade soon. I want to be able to:

-Play HDDVD and Bluray.

-I want to use MyMovies.

-AnyDVD needs to work well.

-Easily view pictures as MCE2005 does.

-I will need the ability to disable "debounce" so my learning remote will work.

I like the look of Vista, but have never used it. I also think it will be most popular, and therefore be most compatable in about a year from now (I could be wrong).

Because of that I would prefer to install Vista on a new HTPC build

I know there are a bunch of people who have a terrible time with Vista. But on a new build with compatible hardware is there anything that won't work?

I don't enjoy reinstalling an OS. I want to choose one that will work well for about 3 years.

thanks,

~Jay

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1 - 20 of 24 Posts

Jay M

Discussion Starter · #2 · May 11, 2007

I really appreciate you guys keeping this topic civil

~Jay

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rdewey

· #3 · May 11, 2007

Use MCE2005.

slothy

· #4 · May 11, 2007

I was using 2005 since it came out and went to vista mce when it came out, I will never look back!! The vista interface was lil awkward at first but the more i use the more i like it. Mymovies/anydvd work flawless (mymovies will be updated to match ui of vista sometime soon, but looks fine imo). Only issue i had was with 8800 vista drivers, but the newer releases seemed to have fixed the problems i was having.

CrispyFish

· #5 · May 11, 2007

Vista will allow you to take advantage of the hardware decoding in the Nvidia 8500/8600 series.

umdivx

· #6 · May 11, 2007

the ONLY reason I won't move to vista yet is the drivers. Nvidia's drivers SUCK for vista. There are no real support for HDTV resolutions, there is no real support for overscan compensation, basically they left out a huge chunk of features that XP drivers have.

- Josh

slothy

· #7 · May 11, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by umdivx /forum/post/0

the ONLY reason I won't move to vista yet is the drivers. Nvidia's drivers SUCK for vista. There are no real support for HDTV resolutions, there is no real support for overscan compensation, basically they left out a huge chunk of features that XP drivers have.

- Josh

i know i probably sound like a broken record, but try the 160.03drivers - fixed my res/overscan probs on my 46" lcd

jedster

· #8 · May 11, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by umdivx /forum/post/0

the ONLY reason I won't move to vista yet is the drivers. Nvidia's drivers SUCK for vista. There are no real support for HDTV resolutions, there is no real support for overscan compensation, basically they left out a huge chunk of features that XP drivers have.

- Josh

I agree. I don't like the Vista UI for MCE as much as 2005, but it does have some advantages that I'm getting used to. (I use it on a desktop.)

But my HTPC is still MCE2005.

- The drivers for NVIDIA/Vista stink. No overscan/underscan support (at least not custom) is a deal breaker.

- Overall, Vista's video overlay really sucks. You usually have to go toggle through two different full-screen modes to get a to a windowed mode. I don't undertstand this at all.

- If you're going to do anything that requires HDCP, I'd wait until people say it works. I don't have proof that it won't work, but in my experience the HR20 from DirecTV was buggy as hell until I started using component instead of HDMI (i.e., no HDCP). I can't imagine MSFT will do any better.

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gnollo

· #9 · May 12, 2007

Vista has its problems, just as MCE2005 did when it was launched, I was one of the early adopters. So far Vista is workable for me, using dvi out and the rez is fine.

Not really happy with stuttering issues, and with no hardware acceleration for DVB-T and dvds. Getting the audio to work properly was also an issue and I cannot use my Maudio cards because of lack of drivers.

It is growing on me though....

I guess I am being assimilated...

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<div class="post-sig post-sig-limit shazam usersig-click"><div class="reparse-sig-lineheight"><span>Member of the MWAM Liberation Front</span><br><span>

DVDSlave ;(</span><br><a href="http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116221">Software Guide at fine tuning a WINXP HTPC</a><span>/</span><a href="http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=0806c8e2ef3fc4cb513d1bafc6386440&threadid=117493">My 2 Home Theaters</a><br><a href="http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/dvd-benchmark-part-5-progressive-10-2000.html" target="_blank">Progressive vs Interlaced: a guide</a><span>/</span><a href="http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mc.asp?alias=Toniolli&type=O" target="_blank">My DVD Profiler</a><span>/</span><a href="http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=465419">MCE 2005 Faq</a></div></div>

ginnal

· #10 · May 12, 2007

Mce

bruce73

· #11 · May 12, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by slothy /forum/post/0

i know i probably sound like a broken record, but try the 160.03drivers - fixed my res/overscan probs on my 46" lcd

Do these drivers address the "no video on return from standby" issue (necessitating a reboot)? That's been my biggest complaint.

Jay M

Discussion Starter · #12 · May 13, 2007

it sounds like it would be best for me to wait until I HAVE to move to Vista. I guess I'll stick with XP for now.

A friend of mine is having a terrible time with Vista on his new laptop. several of his programs aren't yet supported.

~Jay

openwheelracing

· #13 · May 13, 2007

Drivers are great for Vista. MCE2005 was buggy for me, and Vista has been absolutely flawless. I don't have overscan problem cause I will never buy a TV that doesn't support 1-to-1 mapping. Better reliablity and more features.

Weird how some just can't get it to work properly.

jimwhite

· #14 · May 13, 2007

Quote:
Drivers are great for Vista.

you are in a hugely small minority...

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varan

· #15 · May 13, 2007

Windows Vista has improved Sony's Digital Living System ( VGX-XL1 ) by miles. Windows MC2005 sucked!

openwheelracing

· #16 · May 14, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by jimwhite /forum/post/0

you are in a hugely small minority...

Funny though I've built 3 HTPCs for family/friends and Vista has been rock solid. (left over parts) You either choose the right components or you don't. You only hear the negatives cause people only come here for the negatives or looking for answers. Those who have it setup properly, are enjoying.

BigAl

· #17 · May 14, 2007

I'd say one of the biggest issues with Vista on HTPC's is the video drivers. I'm sure this issue will get taken care of but for right now it sounds like pretty much all mfr's have work to do to get full functionality in their drivers for Vista. The drivers work for typical things but some of the HTPC specific stuff like overscan correction seem to be half baked right now.

I went with Vista knowing that I would have some issues, and I had a few but my issues were easy enough to live with and have slowly been getting fixed.

If you can live with a less than perfect system for a month or two I'd say go for Vista. But do your homework on the components you will have in your build ahead of time.

umdivx

· #18 · May 14, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by openwheelracing /forum/post/0

Funny though I've built 3 HTPCs for family/friends and Vista has been rock solid. (left over parts) You either choose the right components or you don't. You only hear the negatives cause people only come here for the negatives or looking for answers. Those who have it setup properly, are enjoying.

First off you've got Video card driver issues, Nvidia purevideo decoders aren't fully supported in vista, even though i've got a projector that support 1:1, the overscan utility isn't there, then hardware acceleration (which is part of the drivers and decoders) isn't that at all.

- Josh

Genius74

· #19 · May 14, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by jimwhite /forum/post/0

you are in a hugely small minority...

I'm in that minority as well.. I couldn't load a video driver in MCE to save my life.. everything went smooth in Vista.

I'm also not the kind to tweak every week or buy latest/greatest GCs and such.. (not that tweaking is casuing most of the driver issues, I know the support just isn't there)..

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sactown

· #20 · May 14, 2007

I am thinking about putting together a system, and would prefer to use vista. Could those of you that have experienced smooth vista installs list what hardware you are using (eg video card, motherboard). Thanks. I hope that my own installation goes as well.

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