Windows Media Center

[sparr]

So, I finally got to sit down at the home theater of a Microsoft fanatic, hoping to finally see the good in their media experience...

10 minutes later I had figured out that there is no way to stretch SD television to fill the screen, and that the software is somehow magically able to produce thumbnails for videos that it claims not to have the codec required to play (which, btw, was 80% of the videos I tried to play, in various containers and formats, from his own network file server).

There was maybe a 80 chance I was not going to try an X-Box 360, or a Windows MCE machine, as my home theater machine. Now it is 100%. That leaves plenty of alternatives... Boxee and MythTV here I come!

Comments

[pagemasterjim.livejournal.com]

Hrm, I have a 360 setup as the focal point of my home theatre and have relatively few issues. Then again, I actually know a thing or two about home theatres. I only get the random file it cannot play. But it comes down to what you want out of a home theatre.

For the record, your friend obviously doesn't know much about theatres if they are trying to stretch SDtv to fill a widescreen. That is just basics.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

I didn't want it to fill the entire screen, just the 4:3 section in the middle (with black bars on the sides).

"the random file it cannot play" is not acceptable. It should play everything. Your 95% success rate could be my 50% success rate. You probably have mostly H.264 and MPEG video in AVI and ASF containers. The vast majority of my video is stored as X.264 and Theora in Matroska and Ogg containers.

[pagemasterjim.livejournal.com]

I totally agree it should play anything. That is my only complaint.

Why did it not fill the 4:3 section? It does that just fine for me. That is not a XBOX issue, but a tv issue I would think.

[major-kusunagi1.livejournal.com]

Fer sure a TV issue. Had the same problem at first until I fiddled with my TV. Mine is a LG and it took a few minutes of panicy button punching to get it right. But now I have the R2 unit inputs defaulted to 4:3.

:{)

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

I don't want the TV to do the scaling. It will be inferior to what the PC can do.

[major-kusunagi1.livejournal.com]

I actually did not see a difference. Also it depends on your connections too. My R2 unit has a hi-def connector.

:{)