Now that Windows 7 RC has been available for a week or so I thought I would ask your thoughts on how Windows 7 is working for you. I have moved over the HP Touchsmart to Windows 7 which is connected up to my Xbox 360 as my main system. This was one of the last machines I have moved over to Windows 7 due to having issues with my Nova-T 500 tuner, it works most of the time but about one in three recordings are blank as the tuner seems not to release after it finishes recording. So I am using the built-in Avermedia tuner in the Touchsmart which works fine but is only a single tuner. The improved Media Center UI is great on the 360, little things like the video thumbnail when using the skip function makes it Windows Media Center very nice to use as do the enhanced movie features and guide improvements. One of my favourite features is Home Group, I love being able watch recorded TV on devices with no tuner. I can sit in any room in the house and watch anything recorded on my main Media Center system. All that is missing is a Webguide replacement!
There are many other things too like better codec support and Play To/DLNA feature, these things make Windows 7 a much better OS that Windows Vista (which overall I was very happy with). I do like how well it works on my Samsunng NC10 Netbook and Samsung Q1, Windows 7 is much better than its predecessor on lower spec devices like and my Samsung NC10 resumes from sleep in seconds.
So far I have had very good experiences with installing and using Windows 7, I have had no major driver issues and all the installations have gone smoothly. So how has your Windows 7 testing being going? Are you running Windows 7 on your main Media Center system yet? If not why? What is holding you back?
I’ve found it really buggy. It has failed to record several programs, stopping half way through saying low TV signal quality – I’ve never had that with Vista. There’s no sound for the first 20 seconds of watching a recording. It has also randomly crashed while watching programs a few times, which takes it’s WAF down to zero, so we have gone back to Vista.
I’m working toward upgrading to it, but I’ve not found a lot on how to migrate Media Centres. MS say a clean install is recommended, but how do I make a backup of my list of programmes to record and other settings?
I love it. After using VMC with TV Pack for a few months, it was killing me how unstable and buggy it was. Now I am running the same extender-only model with 3 xbox’s and it is very stable, and everything is there, including movies, without a single 3rd party add-in. I even convert WTV to DVR-MS and remove commercials without it touching the 7MC interface. Same with Movie Meta-data, all on the back end. It’s the best ShareWare I’ve ever used!
I must say I am finding it is working very well, have been using it on my main media center system since the beta’s and have never switched back to VMC.
However having said that I do not use it as much for TV recording as a lot of you seem too, (to be honest there is no that much worth watching on freeview in the UK), but I have certainly hit no issues and am now running the RC with no problems.
I’m having a few UI issues, nothing major. For example in Recorded Tv when I delete a show that is in a group of multiple shows of the same show it will come straight out in the main recorded tv section. If a show is deleted that is not in a sub-group it will sometime bounce me back out to the main menu. A little annoying but nothing major.
One or two semi-imortant problems, but on the whole its been VERY stable…..
Interestingly I had to install it twice. The first install was a horror show, with problems from day one. The second one has worked pretty much perfectly. How odd!
Did an upgrade install from Vista as I hadn’t had time to install the beta. So far so good. Most importantly, it’s passed the WAF test. She was especially pleased when she muted a programme to answer the phone and subtitles automatically switched on. Very cool.
The only issue I have so far is that after some use if I try to play music streamed from my WHS, it plays out choppy, as if there were latency issues. There shouldn’t be since it’s connected via Gb Lan. Anyhow, if I then reset media centre it plays fine. Doesn’t appear to affect video.
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Now that Windows 7 RC has been available for a week or so I thought I would ask your thoughts on how Windows 7 is working for you. I have moved over the HP Touchsmart to Windows 7 which is connected up to my Xbox 360 as my main system. This was one of the last machines I have moved over to Windows 7 due to having issues with my Nova-T 500 tuner, it works most of the time but about one in three recordings are blank as the tuner seems not to release after it finishes recording. So I am using the built-in Avermedia tuner in the Touchsmart which works fine but is only a single tuner. The improved Media Center UI is great on the 360, little things like the video thumbnail when using the skip function makes it Windows Media Center very nice to use as do the enhanced movie features and guide improvements. One of my favourite features is Home Group, I love being able watch recorded TV on devices with no tuner. I can sit in any room in the house and watch anything recorded on my main Media Center system. All that is missing is a Webguide replacement!
I’ve found it really buggy. It has failed to record several programs, stopping half way through saying low TV signal quality – I’ve never had that with Vista. There’s no sound for the first 20 seconds of watching a recording. It has also randomly crashed while watching programs a few times, which takes it’s WAF down to zero, so we have gone back to Vista.
I’m working toward upgrading to it, but I’ve not found a lot on how to migrate Media Centres. MS say a clean install is recommended, but how do I make a backup of my list of programmes to record and other settings?
It’s running great for me so far (clean install). No real issues have come up either locally or via the 360 extenders.
It’s more stable than the earlier betas, but it still needs some work.
MS Beta is no longer accepting bugs that do not cause a crash. :-\
I love it. After using VMC with TV Pack for a few months, it was killing me how unstable and buggy it was. Now I am running the same extender-only model with 3 xbox’s and it is very stable, and everything is there, including movies, without a single 3rd party add-in. I even convert WTV to DVR-MS and remove commercials without it touching the 7MC interface. Same with Movie Meta-data, all on the back end. It’s the best ShareWare I’ve ever used!
I must say I am finding it is working very well, have been using it on my main media center system since the beta’s and have never switched back to VMC.
However having said that I do not use it as much for TV recording as a lot of you seem too, (to be honest there is no that much worth watching on freeview in the UK), but I have certainly hit no issues and am now running the RC with no problems.
I’m having a few UI issues, nothing major. For example in Recorded Tv when I delete a show that is in a group of multiple shows of the same show it will come straight out in the main recorded tv section. If a show is deleted that is not in a sub-group it will sometime bounce me back out to the main menu. A little annoying but nothing major.
One or two semi-imortant problems, but on the whole its been VERY stable…..
Interestingly I had to install it twice. The first install was a horror show, with problems from day one. The second one has worked pretty much perfectly. How odd!
Did an upgrade install from Vista as I hadn’t had time to install the beta. So far so good. Most importantly, it’s passed the WAF test. She was especially pleased when she muted a programme to answer the phone and subtitles automatically switched on. Very cool.
The only issue I have so far is that after some use if I try to play music streamed from my WHS, it plays out choppy, as if there were latency issues. There shouldn’t be since it’s connected via Gb Lan. Anyhow, if I then reset media centre it plays fine. Doesn’t appear to affect video.