Cop-out or valid for M-Audio to say they "don't support" their cardrunning with XP MCE?

On Dec 10, 12:01 pm, "Jaime" wrote:

There really isn't a way to "de-media center" it, you can't just uninstall
the Media Center bits.


Dunno, that's what I was told the procedure at this link does. I don't
vouch for the veracity of any of it having not tried it.


http://www.swee****er.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12352

All that procedure does is disable the MCE specific sevices, you are just
essentially not starting the MC interface. It doesn't really make it XP Pro,
you would still have the same issue with Domain Login and cached credentials
as you would with the sevice running.

Of course, this would only further prove the point that these various media
manufactures are just too lazy to test and certify their product on MCE.

At the minimum, they could simple write their install script to warn you and
disable disable these features. Or they could be real programmers and write
the code to make their products work correctly instead of taking the lazy
way out and simply saying it does work.
--
James
Orlando (Goofy says "Hey!"), FL



"Doc" wrote in message
...
On Dec 10, 12:01 pm, "Jaime" wrote:

There really isn't a way to "de-media center" it, you can't just
uninstall
the Media Center bits.


Dunno, that's what I was told the procedure at this link does. I don't
vouch for the veracity of any of it having not tried it.


http://www.swee****er.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12352

Arny Krueger wrote:
"David B." wrote in message

Do you even know what Media Center is/does?
It's been around for 5 years and is used by many people
as a PVR/cable box replacement, does a great job, it's
also available in Vista.

Compared to running any of the PVR software packages that are sold with
video tuner and capture cards, it really doesn't seem to do anything that is
terribly unique.



It does look cool on an HDTV, and that's what it was designed to do :-)

"Jaime" wrote ...
Not sure what planet you guys are on, but MCE was hardly a "short lived"
or unpopular idea.

The XP version of Media Center has been sold since 2002. MS has sold
millions of copies (and continues to be sell this version) . The Media
Center features are now a part of Vista Home Premium and Ultimate.

There really isn't a way to "de-media center" it, you can't just uninstall
the Media Center bits. You can purposely mess up the install to end up
with just the XP Pro part, but I'm not sure if other apps might still see
it at Media Center anyway.

Wherever you are posting from, you will need to go over to
the planet "rec.audio.pro" to read the r.a.p response.
Suffice it to say that none of your arguments hold much
water in r.a.p-land.

"Short-lived and unpopular" means that people who do serious
audio tried MCE and were sufficiently burned that it now suffers
a horrible reputation as something to be avoided at almost any cost.
The vendors of our favorite hardware share our abhorrence which
only reinforces the revulsion.

MCE was clearly NOT designed for people doing serious audio
and video production. Dunno why MCE fanbois should find this
so remarkable? OTOH, if we ever feel the need to build a PVR
or something, we'll look you up.

"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message
et
Arny Krueger wrote:
"David B." wrote in message

Do you even know what Media Center is/does?
It's been around for 5 years and is used by many people
as a PVR/cable box replacement, does a great job, it's
also available in Vista.

Compared to running any of the PVR software packages
that are sold with video tuner and capture cards, it
really doesn't seem to do anything that is terribly
unique.

It does look cool on an HDTV, and that's what it was
designed to do :-)

Yes, but the PVR software/hardware does the same stuff. If you're in the
market, ADS cards come with what seems to be the best software. I picked up
a pretty functional HDTV package for XP by ADS from Amazon for about $60.

If you want to expunge what the PVR software does to your system from your
system, you just uninstall it. So far I haven't found that it creates any
big black holes while installed, other than creating a lot of I/O when you
are recording or playing video, or when you are time-shifting.

One other thing is that the third party software that comes with the TV
tuner and video capture cards seems to have a fair amount of cross-vendor
compatibility. For example, I've inter-operated PVR software and cards from
ADS and ATI.

If you run Windows MCE your tuner/capture card needs to provide special
software for running with Windows MCE. I've run cards that came with MCE
drivers with other vendor's PVR software. So MCE reduces your options.

And those packages do nothing special compared to MCE, it's just another
choice for the consumer.
I never said it was any better than 3rd party apps, I was refuting the post
about it not being popular, it is quite popular, with many websites and
forums dedicated to it.

--

----
Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
__________________________________________________ _______________________________


"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"David B." wrote in message


Compared to running any of the PVR software packages that are sold with
video tuner and capture cards, it really doesn't seem to do anything that
is terribly unique.

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:15:41 -0800, "Richard Crowley" wrote:

"Jaime" wrote ...
Not sure what planet you guys are on, but MCE was hardly a "short lived"
or unpopular idea.

The XP version of Media Center has been sold since 2002. MS has sold
millions of copies (and continues to be sell this version) . The Media
Center features are now a part of Vista Home Premium and Ultimate.

There really isn't a way to "de-media center" it, you can't just uninstall
the Media Center bits. You can purposely mess up the install to end up
with just the XP Pro part, but I'm not sure if other apps might still see
it at Media Center anyway.

Wherever you are posting from, you will need to go over to
the planet "rec.audio.pro" to read the r.a.p response.
Suffice it to say that none of your arguments hold much
water in r.a.p-land.

"Short-lived and unpopular" means that people who do serious
audio tried MCE and were sufficiently burned that it now suffers
a horrible reputation as something to be avoided at almost any cost.
The vendors of our favorite hardware share our abhorrence which
only reinforces the revulsion.

MCE was clearly NOT designed for people doing serious audio
and video production. Dunno why MCE fanbois should find this
so remarkable? OTOH, if we ever feel the need to build a PVR
or something, we'll look you up.

It's amazing then that suddenly these same manufacturers that could not support MCE 2005 are able to
support Vista including the Ultimate & Home Premium editions that contain the self same Media Center
code.
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
MCE MVP

"Nigel Barker" wrote ...
It's amazing then that suddenly these same manufacturers
that could not support MCE 2005 are able to support Vista
including the Ultimate & Home Premium editions that contain
the self same Media Center code.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that people are lining up to NOT
buy Vista. Delayed driver support is one major reason.

Interesting to see what happens when microsoft newsgroups
are cross posted to the real world.

"Nigel Barker" wrote in message

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:15:41 -0800, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Jaime" wrote ...
Not sure what planet you guys are on, but MCE was
hardly a "short lived" or unpopular idea.

The XP version of Media Center has been sold since
2002. MS has sold millions of copies (and continues to
be sell this version) . The Media Center features are
now a part of Vista Home Premium and Ultimate.

There really isn't a way to "de-media center" it, you
can't just uninstall the Media Center bits. You can
purposely mess up the install to end up with just the
XP Pro part, but I'm not sure if other apps might still
see it at Media Center anyway.

Wherever you are posting from, you will need to go over
to
the planet "rec.audio.pro" to read the r.a.p response.
Suffice it to say that none of your arguments hold much
water in r.a.p-land.

"Short-lived and unpopular" means that people who do
serious
audio tried MCE and were sufficiently burned that it now
suffers
a horrible reputation as something to be avoided at
almost any cost. The vendors of our favorite hardware
share our abhorrence which only reinforces the revulsion.

MCE was clearly NOT designed for people doing serious
audio
and video production. Dunno why MCE fanbois should find
this
so remarkable? OTOH, if we ever feel the need to build
a PVR
or something, we'll look you up.

It's amazing then that suddenly these same manufacturers
that could not support MCE 2005 are able to support Vista
including the Ultimate & Home Premium editions that
contain the self same Media Center code.

Part of the difference is that basic mainstream computer power has increased
in the intervening 2-3 years.

MCE code that would cause a machine with a 2 GHz processor and 512 megs of
RAM running over a 120 GB hard drive hiccough and burp, won't nearly upset
as much a machine with two 4 GHz cores, 4 GB of RAM and a 500 Gb hard drive.

(*note that the so-called 4 GHz cores are actually clocked at as little as
half that - I'm using CPU vendor-speak*)

"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message
et
Arny Krueger wrote:
"David B." wrote in message

Do you even know what Media Center is/does?
It's been around for 5 years and is used by many
people as a PVR/cable box replacement, does a great
job, it's also available in Vista.
Compared to running any of the PVR software packages
that are sold with video tuner and capture cards, it
really doesn't seem to do anything that is terribly
unique.

It does look cool on an HDTV, and that's what it was
designed to do :-)

Yes, but the PVR software/hardware does the same stuff.
If you're in the market, ADS cards come with what seems
to be the best software. I picked up a pretty
functional HDTV package for XP by ADS from Amazon for
about $60.

I was talking about the interface.

Then we're talking about the same stuff.

If you want to expunge what the PVR software does to
your system from your system, you just uninstall it. So
far I haven't found that it creates any big black holes
while installed, other than creating a lot of I/O when
you are recording or playing video, or when you are
time-shifting. One other thing is that the third party software that
comes with the TV tuner and video capture cards seems to
have a fair amount of cross-vendor compatibility. For
example, I've inter-operated PVR software and cards from
ADS and ATI.

Yeah, it worked through WDM! :-)

Exactly. And WDM seems to be pretty solid.

If you run Windows MCE your tuner/capture card needs to
provide special software for running with Windows MCE. I've run cards
that came with MCE drivers with other
vendor's PVR software. So MCE reduces your options.

I hate to break it to you Arny, but all of the video
input and output cards use WDM to communicate and they
all do it through the OS.

What a concept! ;-)

It used to be proprietary (15
years ago), it's all standard stuff now.

Exactly. This asks the question - why did MCE require all those other
changes?

Hell, I once
hooked up an old analog video camera and a really old ATI
input card and used it as a webcam in Yahoo IM. I can't
conceive of any modern capture card NOT providing drivers
for Windows MCE, as a matter of fact most of the existing
ones will be supported already by the OS, just like they
are right now with plain old vanilla Windows XP.

Apparently MCE requires more than just WDM drivers, because the packages I
see that work both stand-alone and with MCE have a special setup program and
more code that gets installed for MCE.

Sure, you'll need custom MCE drivers for enhanced functionality

There you go.

but the basics are already supported.

Yes, MCE seems to be based on WDM drivers, but it seems to need more.

"J. Clarke" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message
et
Arny Krueger wrote:
"David B." wrote in message

Do you even know what Media Center is/does?
It's been around for 5 years and is used by many
people as a PVR/cable box replacement, does a great
job, it's also available in Vista.

Compared to running any of the PVR software packages
that are sold with video tuner and capture cards, it
really doesn't seem to do anything that is terribly
unique.

It does look cool on an HDTV, and that's what it was
designed to do :-)

Yes, but the PVR software/hardware does the same stuff.
If you're in the market, ADS cards come with what seems
to be the best software. I picked up a pretty functional
HDTV package for XP by ADS from Amazon for about $60.

If you want to expunge what the PVR software does to
your system from
your system, you just uninstall it. So far I haven't
found that it creates any big black holes while
installed, other than creating a lot of I/O when you are
recording or playing video, or when you are
time-shifting.

One other thing is that the third party software that
comes with the TV tuner and video capture cards seems to
have a fair amount of cross-vendor compatibility. For
example, I've inter-operated PVR software and cards from
ADS and ATI.

If you run Windows MCE your tuner/capture card needs to
provide special software for running with Windows MCE.
I've run cards that came with MCE drivers with other
vendor's PVR software. So MCE reduces your options.

However if MCE came bundled with the machine then why pay
extra for a third party package?

The third party package doesn't cost squat. I picked up an ADS HDTV/video
capture card on Amazon for like $60-70. I think it was cheaper than the
cheapest HDTV card that I could find that would work with MCE, and not by
just a little.

MCE was never sold as a consumer product, the only way
you could get it was with a machine or as an OEM System
Builder product, so there's no scenario of going out and
buying MCE to get PVR functionality.

Yes, there's no retail version of Windows MCE. Thus MS forces people to
learn how to spell Torrent if they want to build their own hardware.

And none of those third party packages let you view the
secured HD content on cable--for that Vista is the only
game in town.

On Comcast, AFAIK the only way to watch secured HD content is to have one of
their boxes, or a device that takes one of their cards. I know of no PC
accessories that take a card.

I've heard about secured HD content, but I know of no providers who are
actually delivering it nationwide today.

Nigel Barker wrote:
It's amazing then that suddenly these same manufacturers
that could not support MCE 2005 are able to support Vista
including the Ultimate & Home Premium editions that contain
the self same Media Center code.

Strange, from what I see, vendors of audio cards are having horrible
nightmares trying to get their products to operate properly under Vista.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message


Nigel Barker wrote:

It's amazing then that suddenly these same manufacturers
that could not support MCE 2005 are able to support Vista
including the Ultimate & Home Premium editions that
contain the self same Media Center code.

Strange, from what I see, vendors of audio cards are
having horrible nightmares trying to get their products
to operate properly under Vista. --scott

There was a big change in how the Windows Mixer works, among other things.
Supposedly it will all be for the better in the long run.

I think that Vista will be better in the long run. I think they released it
at least a year too soon for the marketplace and the hardware SOTA.

Many audio card vendors don't have in-house driver writers, and are
dependent on subcontractors.