Windows 7 HTPC

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nitrobass24

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2009
Joined
Apr 7, 2006
Messages
10,466
I was thinking about playing around with Win 7 32bit for my HTPC, just cause I can.

Wondering if anyone has any experience with it.
Anything that I should know going in to it.

I guess im just kinda trolling, but I thought it might be a fun little experience.
 
Been using since before official beta and love it. It is quite stable and very usable.
A little glitch up now and then but I like it a lot better than VMC.
 
I am using it too and so far I like it. I havent DL'd any codecs or anything yet. So Hopefully all will go well. :)
 
i tried watching an hour long high-def mkv file with the fddshow codecs and the sound stopped playing about half way through. had to finish watching it in vlc.
 
I had trouble in windows media with subtitles not showing up, but easy fix to run vlc instead. Overall I liked win 7 more than vista but punkbusters wasn't working right so couldn't play COD4 on some servers. That and the fact I can run 1920 x 1200 w/o AA in XP instead of 1650 x 1050 in win 7 is the reasons i dual boot xp.
 
i have been impressed with 7MC

the DVD library is too slow and the video library is weak also... but the music playback is much better in 7mc and library management is sooo much better....
 
dvd library, video library are heavily reliant on cpu power and network connection (if you are storing your vids over the network). my opteron 144 o/c'd still takes a few seconds to get the library usable... when its not overclocked its at the point of annoying waiting for that hang to let loose. and without a gigabit connection youre just waiting....waiting...waiting....
 
I loaded it on a drive in my HTPC and like the results so far but I don't use MC (I don't care for it)
 
spacetrader said:
dvd library, video library are heavily reliant on cpu power and network connection (if you are storing your vids over the network). my opteron 144 o/c'd still takes a few seconds to get the library usable... when its not overclocked its at the point of annoying waiting for that hang to let loose. and without a gigabit connection youre just waiting....waiting...waiting....
Click to expand...

Wait, what? You're transferring video files over the network and you haven't upgraded to gigabit yet? What are you waiting for, Christmas? Get on it! :D
 
spacetrader said:
dvd library, video library are heavily reliant on cpu power and network connection (if you are storing your vids over the network). my opteron 144 o/c'd still takes a few seconds to get the library usable... when its not overclocked its at the point of annoying waiting for that hang to let loose. and without a gigabit connection youre just waiting....waiting...waiting....
Click to expand...

Whoa there......getting the library up to a usable interface has more to do with disk speed where the database resides..
 
i love it. the recorded tv is a bit slow to load, but other than that, i have no problems, using ffdshow tryouts and haali media splitter to play all my good stuff.

it would be nice if they included out of the box support for mkvs, and if their codecs were improved (ffdshow tryouts are better than media foundation), but nothing that can't be done if you know what you are doing (or can read the stickies on this forum lol)
 
Logan321 said:
Wait, what? You're transferring video files over the network and you haven't upgraded to gigabit yet? What are you waiting for, Christmas? Get on it! :D
Click to expand...

Not that I disagree with that statement, but I can stream 2 1080p x264 encoded Blu-Rays from my server at the same time on 100Mb Ethernet. If all you are doing is streaming one movie at a time (even 2), 100Mb/s is more then enough. Even with straight Blu-Ray, the maximum bitrate is only 48Mb/s, and that is as I said a maximum. They never stay up that high for any long length of time.

That being said, everyone should be on Gigabit!
 
from what ive seen/experienced so far its kind of meh.... the trasitions and menus are better than VMC but its lacking on other things.... such as it doesnt play all of my mkv files, only some. still trying to figure out why but after cracking at it for the last hour i have no idea.... tried registry edits, cccp codecs, mkv codecs...nothing works, still says it cant find the specified file even though its in the library, where it has been located for the past few months....
 
NeilFarted said:
i love it. the recorded tv is a bit slow to load, but other than that, i have no problems, using ffdshow tryouts and haali media splitter to play all my good stuff.
Click to expand...

Same here. I had an issue with the Movie Library in build 7000. Having mixed media types in the Movie Library (DVDs, MKVs, and xvid) was an issue - only DVDs would show. I moved to build 7022 and that issue is resolved.

I do have some issues with w7mc

Browsing the Music Library can be a little glitchy. Sometimes some album art doesn't show up. Sometimes when your browsing the interface will jump backwards a screen or two, then jump back to where you where.

It seems like there may be a memory leak when on the Music/Now Playing screen(The screen with all of your album art rolling by). When on this screen for 20~30min or so it drops down to like 2fps..


Other then that, no issues with movie playback and overall stability. Even with the little glitches I prefer it over Vista Media Center.
 
The biggest problem I've had with 7MC since loading it 2 weeks ago is that recorded tv and the guide is slow to load. Another problem is that I have MediaBrowser installed and sometimes when I go to open it media center freezes and I have to end the process with task manager.
 
is anyone else having the problems with only some mkv's being playable? i still cant figure out how to get them ALL to be able to play and its bugging me to the point of going back to vista... ive tried CCCP and mkv codec packs but they still wont all play nice...
 
i've had no problems with any of my mkvs. I don't use all those codec packs, though... they are usually more harmful than not. ffdshow tryouts are all you need for codecs, and haali media splitter is all you need for a mkv splitter.

Are you running 64bit or 32bit? Also, can you show us the registry edits you made? if you made an error or got bad information, that could be your problem as well.
 
Shady240 said:
is anyone else having the problems with only some mkv's being playable? i still cant figure out how to get them ALL to be able to play and its bugging me to the point of going back to vista... ive tried CCCP and mkv codec packs but they still wont all play nice...
Click to expand...

i had some issues and then found this site: hack7mc. basically everything on there is useful, tons of comments and a lot of utilities. some beta ffdshow and other programs got me running. this is basically what you need: Shark007 Codecs for Windows 7. It's ffdshow tryouts beta pack and other stuff. There is a tool called graphstudio which shows you if the mkv is going through the right codec or not and lets you set it.
 
i never liked codec packs either, until i tried this- http://www.cccp-project.net/

try it out- with all other codecs you have uninstalled first. this is best installed on a fresh format, but its worth a shot either way since you can uninstall it easily.
 
64bit Windows 7 Ultimate

Spacetrader - the first thing i tried which was highly recommended here and other places was the CCCP project

Registry 1 -
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mkv]

"PerceivedType"='video'

"Content Type"='video/mkv'

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mkv]

"Runtime"=dword:00000007

"Permissions"=dword:0000000f

"UserApprovedOwning"='yes'

Registry 2-
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mkv]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"Content Type"="video/x-matroska"
"PerceivedType"="video"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mka]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"Content Type"="audio/x-matroska"
"PerceivedType"="audio"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\video/x-matroska]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mkv"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mkv"
"Extension.Key"=".mkv"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\audio/x-matroska]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mka"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mka"
"Extension.Key"=".mka"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Groups\Video\mkv]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"Description"="Includes files with .mkv extensions."
"Extensions"=".mkv"
"FriendlyTypeName"="Matroska Media File"
"MIME Types"="video/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Groups\Audio\mka]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"Description"="Includes files with .mka extensions."
"Extensions"=".mka"
"FriendlyTypeName"="Matroska Media File"
"MIME Types"="audio/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mkv]
"Permissions"=dword:0000000f
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Runtime"=dword:00000007
"PerceivedType"="video"
"MediaType.Description"="Matroska Media File"
"Extension.Handler"="MatroskaVideo"
"Extension.MIME"="video/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mka]
"Permissions"=dword:0000000f
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Runtime"=dword:00000007
"PerceivedType"="audio"
"MediaType.Description"="Matroska Media File"
"Extension.Handler"="MatroskaVideo"
"Extension.MIME"="audio/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Descriptions]
"819"="Matroska Media File (*.mkv;*.mka)"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\MUIDescriptions]
"819"="Matroska Media File"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Types]
"819"="*.mkv;*.mka"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\MLS\Extensions]
"mkv"="video"
"mka"="audio"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\video/x-matroska]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mkv"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mkv"
"Extension.Key"=".mkv"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\audio/x-matroska]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mka"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mka"
"Extension.Key"=".mka"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Groups\Video\mkv]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"Description"="Includes files with .mkv extensions."
"Extensions"=".mkv"
"FriendlyTypeName"="Matroska Media File"
"MIME Types"="video/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Groups\Audio\mka]
@="MatroskaVideo"
"Description"="Includes files with .mka extensions."
"Extensions"=".mka"
"FriendlyTypeName"="Matroska Media File"
"MIME Types"="audio/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mkv]
"Permissions"=dword:0000000f
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Runtime"=dword:00000007
"PerceivedType"="video"
"MediaType.Description"="Matroska Media File"
"Extension.Handler"="MatroskaVideo"
"Extension.MIME"="video/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mka]
"Permissions"=dword:0000000f
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"
"Runtime"=dword:00000007
"PerceivedType"="audio"
"MediaType.Description"="Matroska Media File"
"Extension.Handler"="MatroskaVideo"
"Extension.MIME"="audio/x-matroska"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Descriptions]
"819"="Matroska Media File (*.mkv;*.mka)"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\MUIDescriptions]
"819"="Matroska Media File"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Types]
"819"="*.mkv;*.mka"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\MLS\Extensions]
"mkv"="video"
"mka"="audio"

Ive already tried the Shark 007 Codecs as well....
 
well, honestly, i think the mistake you made was choosing 64bit instead of 32bit. For htpc use, there is absolutely no reason to use 64bit. The headaches over stuff exactly like this are why. unfortunately, even after almost 10 years, 64 bit OSes are nowhere near mature, and the support for codecs, drivers, software, etc. is just nowhere near 32bit OSes. I struggled myself with 64bit Vista on my htpc until i finally gave up and switched to 32bit W7.
 
Yup. 64bit OS'es are amazing for everything.......except HTPC's. 2 reasons. There is nothing a HTPC does that takes advantage of what a 64bit OS is all about, and massive codec compatibility problems.
 
Shady240 said:
it ran perfectly fine with no problems at all with Vista x64 though....
Click to expand...

Im sure that you can have a stable smooth running 64 bit media center pc but I think in the end a lot of people may run into codec issues and decide just to move back to 32bit. This may not be the case moving into the future as codecs become more 64 bit friendly.
 
i don't know.. some people use their htpc's for a bunch of things including gaming, so 64bit isnt a crazy idea. but i admit i run 32bit on my htpc rig, because imo above ALL else, my htpc needs to be the most consistent, stable, reliable machine i have... otherwise it loses its entertainment appeal (which its only reason for existence to begin with)
 
yeahhhh im going to have to switch to a 32 bit OS....i tried my x64 vista...having the same problems as the 7 beta :(
 
i loaded this on my newly built htpc last night and the MC is so god awfully slow. i read someone else say that they had this problem with build 7000 as well so i guess i have to assume that is the problem.

Right now everytime i open the movies section it takes about 3 minutes to load the movies into view like its scanning for the first time everytime even though i set the folder up for it to monitor.

are there any other things i can do to tweak this or should i just chalk it up to the build not being fully fleshed out in the MC part.
 
The libraries need a lot of tweaking. I had nothing but problems with them in build 7000.
 
good to know i will probably just load Vista then and run XBMC if i dont like the MC of vista.
 
I'm using Shark007 and WMP12 for MKV's.

Question: I'm having problems disabling subtitles, any tricks?
 
i had problems with codecs on 32bit win7, switched to 64bit and don't have problems. i'm special.

most likely some unrelated issue like brain damage. still, loving 64bit and haven't had a problem yet.
 
JenoSidhe said:
i loaded this on my newly built htpc last night and the MC is so god awfully slow. i read someone else say that they had this problem with build 7000 as well so i guess i have to assume that is the problem.

Right now everytime i open the movies section it takes about 3 minutes to load the movies into view like its scanning for the first time everytime even though i set the folder up for it to monitor.

are there any other things i can do to tweak this or should i just chalk it up to the build not being fully fleshed out in the MC part.
Click to expand...

as with the reasons why you don't want to normally use x64bit for htpc's, you SURELY don't want to use beta os's for htpc's!!
 
Logan321 said:
Windows is ALWAYS a beta OS, just sometimes they're honest about it.
Click to expand...
lol True, true. I remember when Vista first came out and I tried using it, man was it a pita. Anyways, I just put Win7 on my new desktop but I won't put it on my production HTPC simply because of how Beta it is.
 
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