nmpcrazy said: I have recently been able to give Vista Ultimate Media Center a test drive. I am using a P4 2.8 GHz laptop with 1.5GB DRAM. I have cable internet and my network is wired 'g'. Most of my media is on a home built Linspire (linux OS) server with a few other drives scattered around my network. In total around 3.5TB of mostly video. What I am observing is that Media Center seems to be in a constant never ending discovery/updating mode. I have 12 'watch' folders enabled and I assume that if I want to be able to access the content in these folders using Media Center and MSC they need to be designated as 'Watch Folders'. Now I realize that first time discovery will take some time but it seems to nearly start over each time I power down and restart. Also, when I power on the MSC it is usually well behind where MC is on my PC and therefore is quite slow and sluggish. The most troubling aspect is that my higher bitrate mpeg2 files that play smoothly and continuously on my other network media players stop and start as though the streaming is not keeping up with the playing, like network/cpu resources are being heavily used and interfering with the streaming. So my basic questions are; 1. Will a faster multi-core PC with more DRAM make a difference in performance on the MSC? Not so much waiting for thumbnails to upload and repopulation of video folders ect. 2. Does Vista MC ever stay caught up with the exception of the addition or deletion of a few files a day? I really do not want to leave my PC on 24/7! 3. Vista MC seems very limited in customization capability, am I missing something? 4. Is there any way to specify 'Watch folders' specifically for Music and Pictures? I am getting triplicated song listings and when I go to my Photo Library it is empty but my photos are in my video library because I have photos and video on the same drive. My over all impression of Vista MC + MSC is one of 'Oh it could have been so much better', it is kinda close but highly restrictive and that this digital experience is built around the newer high end PCs (my suspicious nature leaps to the conclusion that this is 'All part of the plan')

It is not clear if you are using your MSC in mediasmart mode (where it aggregates), in UPnP mode (go to servers and then select content) or Extender mode.

If you use it in MS mode, you really don't even need to run Media Center on the PC.

 If you use it in extender mode, it should find all media files the first time you installed it.

Faster CPUs always help. If aggregation causes delays, simply turn-off a few servers.

You can definitely create separate music and pictures directories. Create the directories and then add them to your Library.

nmpcrazy said:

TV guy said:

nmpcrazy said: I have recently been able to give Vista Ultimate Media Center a test drive. I am using a P4 2.8 GHz laptop with 1.5GB DRAM. I have cable internet and my network is wired 'g'. Most of my media is on a home built Linspire (linux OS) server with a few other drives scattered around my network. In total around 3.5TB of mostly video. What I am observing is that Media Center seems to be in a constant never ending discovery/updating mode. I have 12 'watch' folders enabled and I assume that if I want to be able to access the content in these folders using Media Center and MSC they need to be designated as 'Watch Folders'. Now I realize that first time discovery will take some time but it seems to nearly start over each time I power down and restart. Also, when I power on the MSC it is usually well behind where MC is on my PC and therefore is quite slow and sluggish. The most troubling aspect is that my higher bitrate mpeg2 files that play smoothly and continuously on my other network media players stop and start as though the streaming is not keeping up with the playing, like network/cpu resources are being heavily used and interfering with the streaming. So my basic questions are; 1. Will a faster multi-core PC with more DRAM make a difference in performance on the MSC? Not so much waiting for thumbnails to upload and repopulation of video folders ect. 2. Does Vista MC ever stay caught up with the exception of the addition or deletion of a few files a day? I really do not want to leave my PC on 24/7! 3. Vista MC seems very limited in customization capability, am I missing something? 4. Is there any way to specify 'Watch folders' specifically for Music and Pictures? I am getting triplicated song listings and when I go to my Photo Library it is empty but my photos are in my video library because I have photos and video on the same drive. My over all impression of Vista MC + MSC is one of 'Oh it could have been so much better', it is kinda close but highly restrictive and that this digital experience is built around the newer high end PCs (my suspicious nature leaps to the conclusion that this is 'All part of the plan')

It is not clear if you are using your MSC in mediasmart mode (where it aggregates), in UPnP mode (go to servers and then select content) or Extender mode. If you use it in MS mode, you really don't even need to run Media Center on the PC.  If you use it in extender mode, it should find all media files the first time you installed it. Faster CPUs always help. If aggregation causes delays, simply turn-off a few servers. You can definitely create separate music and pictures directories. Create the directories and then add them to your Library.

I have run the MSC in ALL of the modes you described. I started out with UPnP and then WMP11 + Media Gateway. What I wanted to know is what Vista MC as an extender could do. I am ultimately interested in extender mode because I want PVR and file delete capability. This can only be had in the extender mode which of coarse requires running Vista MC. Not sure what you mean by turn off a few servers? Are you talking about turn off HDDs/PCs? That is really not an option since we would like to watch anything and everything at at any moment in time that is in our video cache. Are you saying that when setting up Vista Media Center I should NOT select 'Watch Folders'? I thought that was how you told Vista Media Center what files to share? Is that not correct? I also do not know what you mean by creating separate directories for music and pictures. Separate HDDs? Separate folders? Currently my music is E:\Media\Music and my photos are in E:\Media\Photos. But for some reason Vista MC only gives me option to "Watch" E:\Media. What I really want is an extender (pvr and file deletion from the couch) and I thought that maybe MediaSmart Connect + Vista Media Center might fit the bill. After all that IS what it is advertised to do! In my previous posts I have been out spoken in regards to VIstaster and I thought that maybe I should try it before continuing to bash it, so that is what I did. The overall MSC+Vistaster is not quite as bad as I expected but not by much. Vista MediaCenter is stifling and slow with an unfinished feel to it. IMO more effort was put into restricting the user and directing them than to consumer satisfaction. At any rate, from your comments I surmise that a faster PC may help some but probably not that much. I have not completely given up on Vista + MC yet but it is not looking too good. SageTV HD Media Extender is looking better all the time.

Yes, you should be able to use the MSC to control your PC as a PVR in Extender.

Monitoring folders under extender is in general tricky (and depends on the server capabilities of your NAS), but try the mode described in the MediaSmart FAQ (www.hp.com/support/mediasmart/faqs)

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01130039#N1344

See Under:

nmpcrazy said: TV guy: Thank you for the links. I took your advice and setup WMP11 in Vista Ultimate. Allowed sharing, created audio and video playlists and so on. I deactivated the 'Watch Folders' in Media Center and the net is about the same as before. I now have audio playlists in Media Center but no video Playlists. It seems that if I want extender mode, want to play h264 files and want video playlists/genre I need to have WMP11 running, MediaSmart Gateway running and Media Center running. At the MSC I will need to switch between them depending on what it is I want to do. Kind of a pain but doable. One thing that is clear is that a fast computer is a plus and quite a bit of patients. IMO moving around on the MSC is painfully slow and if you couple that with a lumbering Media Center (seems to always be searching for new files) you really can not be in a hurry. One last thing and that is that playing OTA HD ts mpeg2 files with a 12Mb/sec bit rate in Media Center is a loss because of the stopping and stuttering. My 2.8Ghz P4 runs at 50-70% utilization when streaming this type of video in Media Center mode. I will check to see if I can stream these files smoothly using WMP11 and or Gateway. My other media players stream these files smoothly, in fact they stream files with bit rates of 18Mb/sec effortlessly.

50-70% utilization is a lot. Media streaming should take minimal time, unless the PC is doing some transcoding on the fly!

Definitely try to play those files in Mediasmart mode. Using wired Ethernet connection there should be no stuttering.

I am not sure why you have problems with Cinemanow plug-in in Extender mode, but that plug-in was always very buggy. I would try to remove it and re-install. Even better, use the Cinemanow service from "Online media". You don't get previews, but works quite nicely. You can order movies from the TV and they download on your PC and you can start watching while it downloads. Or simply order a movie from your PC and then go watch it on the Connect.

nmpcrazy said:

TV guy said: I am not sure why you have problems with Cinemanow plug-in in Extender mode, but that plug-in was always very buggy. I would try to remove it and re-install. Even better, use the Cinemanow service from "Online media". You don't get previews, but works quite nicely. You can order movies from the TV and they download on your PC and you can start watching while it downloads. Or simply order a movie from your PC and then go watch it on the Connect.

This time I am one step ahead of you. I un-installed Cinemanow and the 'fluxDVD' error went away. Re-installed and it is back. Found that Cinemannow does work in the Online Media and actually downloaded a movie. Any suggestions on how to get rid of the 'fluxDVD' error that pops up as soon as I go to Media Center?

Where did you get your Cinemanow download manager? From the HP install CD or the Cinemanow web site?

Make sure you install it from the CD or the latest HP softpaq.  I do have Vista at home and CNMnow manager and I never saw that problem.

nmpcrazy said:

bruceleeon said: Look into Media Portal.

Does it work with the MediaSmart Connect?