Windows Media Center Edition benefits
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Now, if I bought MCE, I would only want the MCE interface to appear on monitor 2 (my projector). Monitor 1 should still show the usual Windows desktop as I would do my work on that monitor.
Is this possible or not ?
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Yes, new to MCE2005 is multi-mon support. This means you can run MCE on one display and use your desktop on the other. You can run one display at a completely different resolution than the other, so you get the best from both displays.
There are a couple of things to be aware of:
1) You must run with the standard Windows multimon manager, not some proprietary display device driver that swizzles the display outputs behind the OS.
2) If you take window focus away from Media Center (eg. to use the mouse on the other display), that will force Media Center to leave DirectX exclusive mode and you will lose the performance benefits of DX exclusive mode (eg. video may tear under certain conditions). This usually isn't a big deal, because when you are doing critical viewing, you give focus to MCE.
Now, if I bought MCE, I would only want the MCE interface to appear on monitor 2 (my projector). Monitor 1 should still show the usual Windows desktop as I would do my work on that monitor.
Is this possible or not ?
>>
Yes, new to MCE2005 is multi-mon support. This means you can run MCE on one display and use your desktop on the other. You can run one display at a completely different resolution than the other, so you get the best from both displays.
There are a couple of things to be aware of:
1) You must run with the standard Windows multimon manager, not some proprietary display device driver that swizzles the display outputs behind the OS.
2) If you take window focus away from Media Center (eg. to use the mouse on the other display), that will force Media Center to leave DirectX exclusive mode and you will lose the performance benefits of DX exclusive mode (eg. video may tear under certain conditions). This usually isn't a big deal, because when you are doing critical viewing, you give focus to MCE.
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Thanks, Jay for your answer ! I am glad this works !
Two follow up question regarding tearing ...
I think MCE does not tear because of a propriety allocator presenter, right ?
1. Does this only work for the default MCE 2005 player or will it also work for ZoomPlayer for instance if run on MCE2005 ?
2. Any chance Microsoft will "fix" the standard allocator presenter for XP or one can adapt the special MCE one for all players in XP ?`
Thanks, again for your help !
Alex
| Yes, new to MCE2005 is multi-mon support. This means you can run MCE on one display and use your desktop on the other. You can run one display at a completely different resolution than the other, so you get the best from both displays. There are a couple of things to be aware of: 1) You must run with the standard Windows multimon manager, not some proprietary display device driver that swizzles the display outputs behind the OS. 2) If you take window focus away from Media Center (eg. to use the mouse on the other display), that will force Media Center to leave DirectX exclusive mode and you will lose the performance benefits of DX exclusive mode (eg. video may tear under certain conditions). This usually isn't a big deal, because when you are doing critical viewing, you give focus to MCE. |
Thanks, Jay for your answer ! I am glad this works !
Two follow up question regarding tearing ...
I think MCE does not tear because of a propriety allocator presenter, right ?
1. Does this only work for the default MCE 2005 player or will it also work for ZoomPlayer for instance if run on MCE2005 ?
2. Any chance Microsoft will "fix" the standard allocator presenter for XP or one can adapt the special MCE one for all players in XP ?`
Thanks, again for your help !
Alex
I've installed MCE 2005 and found one oddity; System Properties reports the version as:
Microsoft Windows XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 2
Anybody else notice this? I find it strange they would do this.
It was a clean install of the OS. Never had a previous version.
Microsoft Windows XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 2
Anybody else notice this? I find it strange they would do this.
It was a clean install of the OS. Never had a previous version.
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Ouch, is there a good reason for this? I run a domain at home and have a MCE 2004 box logging in fine to that at the moment, having to go backwards to workgroup security would be very annoying.....
John
| Originally posted by ChrisL01 MCE is a superset of XP Pro. It includes everything XP Professional does *except* MCE 2005 no longer supports connecting to Domains. |
John
rickcfer: Thats correct. You will go into Media Center to get its version.
JohnA: Yes there is. Media Center Extenders. Extender's use Fast User Switching to work and that functionality is not available on a domain. So, on a clean install of MCE 2005 the option to join a Domain is gone. An upgrade from MCE 2004 to MCE 2005 will still give you the option to join a domain, but you may not use Extenders.
JohnA: Yes there is. Media Center Extenders. Extender's use Fast User Switching to work and that functionality is not available on a domain. So, on a clean install of MCE 2005 the option to join a Domain is gone. An upgrade from MCE 2004 to MCE 2005 will still give you the option to join a domain, but you may not use Extenders.
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When you do a clean install of MCE 2005, you will have the option of joining the computer to the domain, if you do not join it at this time (this means your nic driver has to be on the CD at the time or it won't work), you will not be able to do this again until you rebuild it, as the option will not appear in the regular interface, and once you remove a computer from the domain in MCE 2005, the option will disappear too.
It really is a great platform, I have 2 MCE 2004 machines, and my wife absolutely loves it, and the fact that you can share recordings and such makes this a great solution. The only complaint I have is that I can't play many DVD's in 1080i on my HDTV big screen, as the MCE copyright protection will kick in, which is rather frustrating.
I posted a copy of the transcript of the MCE Q&A which was going on during the MCE 2005 launch on my site, but I can't link it here as the system won't let me. It has many interesting questions answered and contains some other good information.
It really is a great platform, I have 2 MCE 2004 machines, and my wife absolutely loves it, and the fact that you can share recordings and such makes this a great solution. The only complaint I have is that I can't play many DVD's in 1080i on my HDTV big screen, as the MCE copyright protection will kick in, which is rather frustrating.
I posted a copy of the transcript of the MCE Q&A which was going on during the MCE 2005 launch on my site, but I can't link it here as the system won't let me. It has many interesting questions answered and contains some other good information.
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anydvd should fix this, it will make it look to MCE like macrovision isn't required.
John
| Originally posted by CocoonTech The only complaint I have is that I can't play many DVD's in 1080i on my HDTV big screen, as the MCE copyright protection will kick in, which is rather frustrating. |
John
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67 Posts
Wow! This seems like a very promising frontend. I'm considering the purchase of the OEM disk from Newegg when it arrives again and doing a CLEAN install.
I have two questions about the 2005 version before I purchase.
1) Can you get WAV or WMA lossless playback at 44.1 KHz provided you have a card (Delta 410 in my case) that supports playback at multiple sample rates/frequencies? Basically, will my WMA lossless files be played back at something other than 44.1 KHz (ie K-MANGLER!) if I want to launch and listen to them in MCE 2005? I have all system sounds and themes disabled via reg hacks btw. I want unmangled playback of my audio without having to manually go into my driver's control panel (to switch between 44.1 and 48), which currently works perfectly through foobar and myHTPC (meedio is still too buggy), but that setup has low WAF!
2) I think I saw this somewhere else, but is it possible to launch ifo/vob's or ISO's of DVD on the network HDD through MCE 2005 by just selecting it in the video module (provided Daemon Tools, etc... is installed)? Also, if my video card is set to 1280x720 (for Sammy DLP via DVI), will mce 2005 choke from copy protection etc while upscaling dvd to that resolution? Again, these will be ripped dvd's that have copy protection removed.
My wife really liked the ease of use on the original MCE, but it didn't look right on the widescreen at that point and it didn't do a lot of what I wanted. So if I can get acceptable audio playback quality and easy dvd selection from the hdd with this version, and knowing that widescreen support is available in mce 2004, then I'll do it!
Your responses will help me in making this decision.
Thanks in advance.
Jay
I have two questions about the 2005 version before I purchase.
1) Can you get WAV or WMA lossless playback at 44.1 KHz provided you have a card (Delta 410 in my case) that supports playback at multiple sample rates/frequencies? Basically, will my WMA lossless files be played back at something other than 44.1 KHz (ie K-MANGLER!) if I want to launch and listen to them in MCE 2005? I have all system sounds and themes disabled via reg hacks btw. I want unmangled playback of my audio without having to manually go into my driver's control panel (to switch between 44.1 and 48), which currently works perfectly through foobar and myHTPC (meedio is still too buggy), but that setup has low WAF!
2) I think I saw this somewhere else, but is it possible to launch ifo/vob's or ISO's of DVD on the network HDD through MCE 2005 by just selecting it in the video module (provided Daemon Tools, etc... is installed)? Also, if my video card is set to 1280x720 (for Sammy DLP via DVI), will mce 2005 choke from copy protection etc while upscaling dvd to that resolution? Again, these will be ripped dvd's that have copy protection removed.
My wife really liked the ease of use on the original MCE, but it didn't look right on the widescreen at that point and it didn't do a lot of what I wanted. So if I can get acceptable audio playback quality and easy dvd selection from the hdd with this version, and knowing that widescreen support is available in mce 2004, then I'll do it!
Your responses will help me in making this decision.
Thanks in advance.
Jay
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Yes it plays back at 44.1 fine with my soundmax and sony receiver
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for dual monitors the way MCE works is that when it is in full screen mode you are not able to use the second screen. (So that the remote focus is on the MCE interface at all times) You can make mce work on the second monitor and use the first for work, but not in true full screen mode.
Garth
| Can you get WAV or WMA lossless playback at 44.1 KHz provided you have a card |
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| I have a dual monitor setup where monitor 1 is my TFT for work and control and monitor 2 is my projector for movie viewing etc. Now, if I bought MCE, I would only want the MCE interface to appear on monitor 2 (my projector). Monitor 1 should still show the usual Windows desktop as I would do my work on that monitor. Is this possible or not ? |
Garth
garth,
what you say seems to conflict with the response from jpk. in his response he says the true multimonitor support is available.
who is correct.
jpk,
can you tell me why mce requires a separate analog tuner when both HDTV wonder and fusion have analog tuners builtin.
thanks.
what you say seems to conflict with the response from jpk. in his response he says the true multimonitor support is available.
who is correct.
jpk,
can you tell me why mce requires a separate analog tuner when both HDTV wonder and fusion have analog tuners builtin.
thanks.
They improved 2005 so that you can maximize MCE on either monitor, it no longer needs to be the primary.
But if you maximize MCE on either monitor, you can not use the mouse on the other monitor, it stops at the edge of the MCE window. If you are going to work on the other monitor, you have to manually expand the MCE window to fit on the MCE display in order to be able to use your mouse and keyboard on the other display
At least that is how my 2005 machine works.
Garth
But if you maximize MCE on either monitor, you can not use the mouse on the other monitor, it stops at the edge of the MCE window. If you are going to work on the other monitor, you have to manually expand the MCE window to fit on the MCE display in order to be able to use your mouse and keyboard on the other display
At least that is how my 2005 machine works.
Garth
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2,554 Posts
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It's a CD of music, playlists, video, and recorded tv clips. It's so system builders can demo a "populated" system and comes with the 3-pack of MCE 2005.
| Originally posted by gadgetkid Do you know what the Digital Media Feature Pack is? How does one get the pack; it's not part of the MCE disk set. |
I don't have first-hand experience, but the documentation makes it sound like you need a DirectShow filter to decode other formats. If the DirectShow filter is in place on the MCE PC, the docs say that even the extenders will be able to play back other formats because the host MCE PC has the filter.
That said, I found some info on a DirectShow filter for AAC, but I don't know about .ape or .flac.
That said, I found some info on a DirectShow filter for AAC, but I don't know about .ape or .flac.
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jpk,
can you tell me why mce requires a separate analog tuner when both HDTV wonder and fusion have analog tuners builtin.
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Two reasons for this
1) The cards that have hybrind NTSC and ATSC tuners are not true dual tuners. You can't use the NTSC tuner to record a show while you are watching an ATSC channel. They don't even have a hardware MPEG2 codec so you can PVR the NTSC stream. This makes for a very bad user experience. If the card has a true dual tuner setup where you can use both tuners independently, then MCE2005 will support it.
2) You must setup an NTSC tuner first, so that MCE2005 can get the correct guide information for your area. There are no reliable ATSC only EGP services, so we have to key off of the NTSC information. If you don't setup the analog tuner and EPG, the ATSC experience won't work correctly.
jpk,
can you tell me why mce requires a separate analog tuner when both HDTV wonder and fusion have analog tuners builtin.
>>
Two reasons for this
1) The cards that have hybrind NTSC and ATSC tuners are not true dual tuners. You can't use the NTSC tuner to record a show while you are watching an ATSC channel. They don't even have a hardware MPEG2 codec so you can PVR the NTSC stream. This makes for a very bad user experience. If the card has a true dual tuner setup where you can use both tuners independently, then MCE2005 will support it.
2) You must setup an NTSC tuner first, so that MCE2005 can get the correct guide information for your area. There are no reliable ATSC only EGP services, so we have to key off of the NTSC information. If you don't setup the analog tuner and EPG, the ATSC experience won't work correctly.
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