The first poll to get things started

Will you be upgrading to Windows Vista?

 

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TheDigitalLifeStyle.com the home of The Media Center Show!
Microsoft MVP

Already running it.  But I will also be buying a new Media Center as soon as someone offers a dual ocur (cablecard) system and the price is right.  I would love to buy a Niveus but think my wife would kill me if I spent that kind of money on it. : )

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My Media Center Blog

I would love a Niveus too, like you my wife would kill me!!

Thanks for the reply

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TheDigitalLifeStyle.com the home of The Media Center Show!
Microsoft MVP

this is the downside of having access to it. Vista clearly isn't ready for me, and can't do what i need of it, yet i find myself DRAWN to it...like i MUST have the latest technology even though i KNOW i don't need it :-P

If mike can figure out VNC for me, that seems like it can be just the solution i need since Microsoft has told me they're not gonna implement concurrent sessions in Vista :-(
 

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Mike Garcen
Microsoft Media Center MVP

They should offer that as an Ultimate Extra, that would sell it

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TheDigitalLifeStyle.com the home of The Media Center Show!
Microsoft MVP

Absolutely, I agree....

I don't run an extender, so my (XP) MCE box is in the living room.  It is so convenient to be able to RDC into the box to do maintenance under a different user account while someone is still watching TV (I have the terminal services DLL version from XP RC2 or beta2...whatever it was, which allows multiple concurrent sessions just like terminal services on Windows Server 2003).

Even if they limited it to a maximum of 2 sessions, and only while one of the sessions is running full screen Media Center;  that would still be OK with me.  I can understand why MS doesn't allow concurrent sessions on a 'normal' desktop OS (to prevent licence sharing), but in a living room PC where one of the sessions is just running Media Center in a full screen, it's not really two people sharing one copy of Windows (in the traditional sense), is it?

That would certainly be something that increases the appeal of Ultimate.

I have no plans to upgrade to Vista because :-

a) the UK/European price is a humungeous rip off (double USA price)
b) it adds no significant features at all for Europe (not even DVB subtitles, let alone a host of other issues)
c) the DRM in Vista is OTT
d) the forcibly included IE7 and WMP11 screwup album artwork

Knowing Microsoft, it is going to take them years and years [if ever] to get round to adding things like

DVB subtitles
DVB teletext
MHEG5 (red button)
DVB-C
DVB-S
DVB-S2
DAB radio
MPEG4 H.264 (for HDTV via DVB-T or DVB-S2)
MSN Remote Record

This gives me plenty of time to save up for the extortionate price of Vista (or Vienna as it maybe by then).

ive tryed vista on my main pc, with Media center the interface looked nice, but the locations of stuff i.e merging videos and photos doesnt work for me. and the fact that video are just thumbnails without titles is poor.

i could just about to live with that, but reading other forums people are having problems with standby s3 mode - which is a total turn off (pardon the pun)