Windows XP MCE (Media Center Edition)

First of all, I’d like you to know I’m sitting in a comfy chair sitting in front of a 55″ projection big screen tv with my IBM X31 on my lap, typing this post and watching 24 – Season Four on my Media Center PC. My analysis on Season 4 will come later, since as this title suggests, it’s going to be about MCE.

As I stated in one of my previous posts, I was really impressed with my friend Derek’s Media Center PC. So I decided one of the projects I’d work on this winter break was to upgrade my HTPC (Home Theater PC) to Windows XP MCE 2005 (Media Center Edition). As a Microsoft employee, we’re allowed to “test” the software for free. I also dropped by the Company store before I left and picked up a Microsoft Remote Control for MCE for $25. Supposedly, the Logitech® Harmony® 880 Advanced Universal Remote (which Amazon.com is selling for $230) is a much better remote, but the price tag is a lot more than what the market price for the Microsoft Remote Control is. I was also thinking about getting the Micorosft Remote Keyboard for MCE for $45 (which Amazon is selling for $80)

Installing the OS wasn’t bad. I didn’t really have anything to back up on this system since all the videos were stored on a network drive. However, since my hard drive in this Shuttle XPC SK43G is a SATA and there’s no floppy drive in it, I had to ghetto rigged a temporary floppy drive from my brother’s desktop to be able to load the SATA drivers. The setup was rather simple and like all the other XP installations I’ve done. The only difference is that XP MCE 2005 has 2 CDs and somewhere in the middle, it prompted me to swap discs.

After the OS installed successfully, everything was fine and dandy. Media Center started without a hitch and the setup process went through smoothly. Adding folders to “My Videos” was also easier than expected. The remote control did wonders. However, the moment I tried to play a video, I hit problems. I would get audio, but no picture. The screen would go completely black. After some searching online, it turns out apparently some video cards are compatible with MCE. That meant the onboard video on my Shuttle XPC SK43G which is a S3 Graphics with Via KM400/KN400 isn’t compatible with MCE. I tried a bunch of things like updating the drivers and even trying to look for bios/firmware updates, but there were none. I’ve tried playing with the video settings, but that didn’t get me anywhere. The only thing left to try was sticking in another video card and trying, but it was already 7am and I was tired. Do note, this was my first night home.

So this afternoon when I found some time, I once again borrowed something from my brother’s desktop. I stole his Rosewill Radeon 9200SE and plugged it into my Shuttle XPC. However, S-Video was giving me trouble. The screen was black and white and it was scrolling down continuously and wrapping back at the top. I didn’t really know what this problem was. Was the video card having s-video problems. Was the card loose? I even brought out my 19″ LCD to diagnose, updated to the latest Radeon drivers, and played with the display settings. An initial search resulted people with a black and white problem, but not the scrolling problem. There wasn’t really a simple answer on fixing the problem and at this point I was getting frustrated. While trying to look for updated drivers/firmware and playing with display settings, I was googling for what may be the cause of this problem. Then I hit a thread talking about PAL and NTSC problems and having seen PAL VHS tapes in my NTSC VCR before, this was exactly the problem when a PAL signal is sent to a NTSC device. But there’s no way to configure that setting through software. The user manual wasn’t much help and the online threads were saying something about DIP switches which didn’t exist on my video card.

However, the card did have some jumpers. 4 in fact: J1, J11, J12, and J13. The only jumper that connected the 2 pins was J13. I’m not exactly sure why this card was set in PAL mode since I bought it from NewEgg. The user manual didn’t have any information regarding these jumpers, so I ended up taking a risk and unconnecting J13. Bam! No, that wasn’t the sound of my video card blowing up, but it worked! Color and no more scrolling!

Once Windows loaded, the problem came back and I’m like, oh no! WHY!?!?! Then it hit me that the problem may be because of the drivers I installed. I uninstalled them and reinstalled the drivers (same executable), rebooted the machine, and it WORKS! If the driver could control the PAL/NTSC setting, why the heck couldn’t I change it? Grrrrrr.

Anyway, I loaded up Media Center and the videos play fine. w00t!

Now, my brother’s system doesn’t have a video card. I searched Anandtech and Fatwallet for some deals on cheap AGP cards and found that mwave was having one for sale for $15. They also had one with DVI for $2.50 more. So I chose that one instead. I also had a $10 off coupon. After tax and handling fees, it came out to be $13 for a FIC A92 Radeon 9200SE, which is basically the same video card. Hehe.

You can read the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Review. The Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 Review is also available. Here’s the official What’s Hot with Media Center. There’s still so much to play with like the online gaming and music which I haven’t had time to check out yet.

I happened to find this link: Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP Media Center Edition which includes Tweak MCE for Media Center Edition 2005, Alarm Clock, Media Center Soltaire, and Playlist Editor.

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