Another Windows 7 RC Post

I can almost fully endorse Windows 7 Media Center. The beta DivX mkv splitter shows some real promise, and if it can one day support high bitrate h.264 video and subtitles, then I'd give it full 100% approval. If a person really wants a stable, turn key HTPC that supports every media type well, it seems like you still have to stick to Vista, but Windows 7 has UI and feature improvements that are most welcome.

- Movie Library for Extenders
- Shared Recordings
- TV Pack features are stable
- native h.264 and .m2ts support

For me personally, I think I'm willing to live with a few minor mkv issues in exchange for those improvements. If I was building a box for someone else though, I'd push them towards 3rd party codecs and plugins to get most of those features out of Vista. As third party develops work on tools like a Media Foundation mkv splitter though, then Windows 7 Media Center will be complete.

HTPC Data Check

Using 3TB in encoded video files.

1,791GB used to store 287 HD Movies
366GB used to store 241 SD Movies
870GB used to store 58 TV Series
129GB used to store 29 Anime TV Series

Needless to say, I'm running out of space.

Home Theater Upgrade

Rehashed and updated my Home Theater setup. Go into the specifics below:











Panasonic 50PZ800U - HDTV
Onkyo TX-SR705 - AV Reciever
Dell XPS 420 - Home Theater PC
3 ATi Digital Cable Tuners
Sony BDP-S350 - Blu-Ray Player
Toshiba HD-A30 - HD DVD Player
Microsoft Xbox 360
Sony PS2
MonoPrice 5 Port HDMI Switch
4 Mission m73 Loud Speakers
Mission m71c1 Center Channel Speaker
B&W ASW650 Subwoofer
Home Built Media Server w\ 3TB of storage space
2 APC BackUps RS BR1500LCD
NetGear 8 Port Mini Switch
Vantec SATA Hard Drive Dock

The speakers, sub, game consoles, rack, TV stand, and Switches are old. But the rest of the equipment is either new or upgraded. I tuned my old HTPC into a glorified server, all the bittorrents and DVD library rips get saved there, but now there's more space. That said I'm having some growing pains with failing hard drives in the RAID array, but I hope everything will be ironed out in the next week.

All the video equipment is now 1080p, which meant a new TV, HD DVD player for my 38 HD DVDs, a Blu-Ray player, and a CableCard HTPC. The CableCard HTPC has 3 Tuners and 2TB of storage. Works great with FIOS, I would argue that videos on it look twice as good as they used to on my old TV. Replaced the old receiver for a new one that can decode TrueHD and DTS MA, so it works great with the Sony Blu-Ray player. Ultimately decided to go with a standalone player for that bitstreaming support of TrueHD and DTS MA, and all I can say is wow.

It took a bit to get to get the CableCard HTPC to play everything right from within Media Center, but thanks to some help from thegreenbutton.com, I got it all worked out. Codec packs work pretty well for Media Player Classic, but not so much with Media Center. Below is what I use.

FFDShow Tryouts Beta 3 (later builds have issues with VMC)
DirectVobSub for subtitles
Haali Media Splitter for mkv
QT Lite for QuickTime support

For 5.1 SPDIF support I:
-Set DTS and AC3 to SPDIF in FFDshow Audio Properties
-Followed these steps to get 2.0 and 5.1 AAC audio to play

Plays well with the extender in the bedroom, as well with the DRMed CableCard recordings. Earlier with other codec mixes I had random instability, but not this is fairly stable. I did give up on my HD HomeRun. I dropped the HD HomeRun in favor of a 3rd ATi Digital Cable Tuner. While there's a net loss of 1 tuner, I get 100's of channels from the DCT, where the HD HomeRun gives me only 13 or so because of encryption from FIOS.

One of the nicer features about CableCard's DRM is that it does at least work with any Media Center extender out of the box. While extenders otherwise have poor codec support, right now I use a Popcorn Hour for all the AC3 content, ripped DVDs, and mkvs that Media Center Extenders do not play, while the extender can do the CableCard recordings. Both devices can do basic xvid/mp3 avi's well. Only thing right now a Popcorn Hour cannot play is a mkv with Ogg Vorbis audio. Too bad Golgo 13 uses that.

I didn't realize this, but the only HD DVD players that bitstream TrueHD and DTS MA are the high end players such as the A35. The mid range and low range players do not, which is disappointing. Well, since I won't be buying any more HD DVDs, I guess it doesn't matter. Paying $60 for a used player on ebay was a better deal than rebuying a bunch of movies. I'm trying to fill up my Blu-Ray collection with used Blu-Rays to save a little money.

Looking forward to the FIOS upgrade on 8/13 when FIOS will add a lot of new HD channels to everyone in Richmond.