Well after purchasing an Xbox360 earlier this year, I inadvertently set myself up for an easy transition to Windows Media Center. After getting fed up with how dated and kludgy the MythTV interface was (no offense to the MythTV team as they make a really solid product), I was looking at transition to XBMC. Something a little more modern and hip. Then I remembered that the Xbox360 can be used as a Media Center Extender (MCE), and so I started to dig into the idea a bit. I started discovering what was possible, e.g. recording/playback/music/etc. It had all the basic PVR software that I needed (along with free EPG, as I had previously been paying for it through SchedulesDirect).
After a long debate with myself, and looking at videos of the interface, I was ready to take the plunge. I ordered my copy of Windows 7 Home Premium (from NewEgg for like $100), and I ordered the Xbox 360 MCE Remote from Amazon for $20. Now it was just a waiting game. We had a huge snow storm hit the day I was expecting the packages, but unfortunately they didn't arrive until the Monday afterwards :( With this timing, I only had one day to setup the computer before I headed out on vacation.
So I did as much as I could in one day, but the system was lacking, and I wasn't sure how I felt about Windows Media Center. I already found myself missing the control/customization options of MythTV along with Linux. These features were not things that were readily visible to me in Windows Media Center, and I was feeling like a fish out of water. And to add insult to injury, I was having an issue with the Windows software not liking a hard drive that had worked fine for me under MythTV. It turns out linux can handle variances better in hardware than Windows (duh), and so I had to buy a new hard drive, and I am RMAing the non working one. So as I was leaving for vacation, I didn't have the greatest perspective on the Windows software setup, but I was still hopeful.
So, here comes today. I woke up at 4am (10am in Italy, which I had just come from) and the new hard drive had been delivered the day before, so I was raring to give it a second shot. I installed the new hardware (hard drive plus an extra 1gb of ram, as Windows 7 is more memory hungry than MythTV). I then proceeded to aim for feature parity with my MythTV system. The things on my checklist for today were:
- Commercial Skipping
- DivX file play back
- Streaming media to PCs
- Trailers and Movie Times
Streaming between Vista and Windows 7 doesn't work so well (darn you MS), but I was able to share drives on my wife's computer to read the media. But another downer is that Windows Vista cannot read wtv files. Apparently only Windows 7 and Windows Vista Media Center can, which means I cannot share the tv recordings with my wife nor with my linux laptop. MythTV definitely had a better solution to this, but that is what you get for using open standards! So for the time being I am taking a loss on this one, but I will continue to press on.
Trailers and movie times I'm still in the mix for. I had a plugin for Windows Media Center that I thought would handle the trailers, but it hasn't panned out. The plugin seems to be pretty dodgy, and I am about to uninstall it for another.
So, all in all it has been a struggle, but a learning one. I haven't dealt to much with Windows software packages, and so it is good to get used to that world again, even if for a little. I will say I am pleased with Windows Media Center, but I know it is going to take as much tweaking as MythTV did to get it where I want it. Let's just hope that Windows allows for it ;-)