Im enjoying Vista Media Center
A few days ago I posted about how I took some old PC parts I had and pieced together a media center PC. The PC I built was meant to be used as a full time media center, connected to my TV and used to view media and online video. The OS I used was Vista Ultimate.
I have been using Vista for a while now but I never once fired up the media center app that comes installed with Vista. So ar its been about 2 weeks of using my new PC as a full time media PC and I have to say, that I really like it so far.
There were of coarse a few things I had to do after the fact to get things to work how I like it. The first thing was to install FDDSHOW. Over the years I kind of got away from installing codec packs, even did away with installing the Divx codec. FDDSHOW seems to do just about everything I need, every video and audio format can be played and everything is lovely.
The Media center app works really well on a TV, but trying to surf the internet at 1080P is almost impossible from across the room (it works, I just cant see it).
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November 20th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Vista Media Center-Windows Media Center in Windows Vista features some great advancements over previous versions, including an improved user interface with easier navigation and breakthrough media visualization.
November 20th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Great advice.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Try zooming while surfing? What’s the specs of that PC by the way? Kind of interested..
November 21st, 2008 at 4:27 am
While I’m a mac user at home and work, a buddy of mine is running the Vista Media Center in his living room, and I’ll admit - I was/am impressed. Still not enough to make me change my mind about winblows products, but the boys in redmond are getting closer.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:45 am
I’m using and enjoying it. Thanks for writing good article.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:46 am
I didn’t even know that this existed in Vista. I’m going to check in out in the weekend.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Vista Media Centers is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread. I got a cheap hd tuner off of woot and now I’ve got a DVR / Gaming beast.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:17 am
I have run into one stumbling block that I wanted to ask you about. For all of my pictures and videos, my sub-folders show up, but none of the content will show in media center. It basically looks like a empty folders, but I know they are not empty.Have you ever seen this happen to yourself or anyone else?
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Looks cool!! I have never used vista. I am using xp service pack 2. Hey friends! Don’t you think so vista has copied its style and features from Mac OS of Apple???
December 10th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I’m using and enjoying it. Thanks for writing good article.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
I have heard of an app which allows to view images on your PC from a TV located at a remote location. Is this what the media center app does?
January 27th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I never used it but now i am thinking to use it after reading your article.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I saw Vista Media Center in a friend’s house some days ago and the movies we saw was perfect!! BTW, I have the same video codecs like u but also I prefer videolan.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
I do not like vista, but vista media center is interesting for what you say … and I would like to connect the pc to my tv ..but i can´t..
February 21st, 2009 at 8:12 am
im running the vista rtm release of media center and tempted to get a TV card but heard Microsoft has stopped this functionality. is this just in the test version of vista or all versions?
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 am
Good information. But I am curious to know which TV tuner card you are using and whether the Remote you got was a Media center remote since me too is planning upgrade my Media Center PC to Windows Vista Home Premium.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I am a crazy fan of vistas media center. there are several options mentioned in the post. but love most is the DVD player with vista media center. i left all other software and using that with no trouble.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Hi. I to have built my self a media center using windows Vista home premium. I’m having major problems with it though, I can’t get any of my AVI files to be recognized and run on it. I’ve tried to look online for solutions and installed all the recommended codec packs, and still nothing. Is it something to do with it being 64 bit Vista? I have another PC running 32 bit Vista and that has no problems at all. Please give me an idea on what to do.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I hate Windows Media Centre! I often get lost in it, don’t know how to use it and it takes a lot of memory, so I use the usual Windows Media Player to play audio, I use GOM Player to play videos (used Koala Player but it doesn’t work with Vista) and use normal Picture viewer to view images.
By the way, GOM Player gives you much more than Windows Player does. This is not an advertisement, this is the truth.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I saw Vista Media Center in a friend’s house some days ago and the movies we saw was perfect!! BTW,