I am back to using Vista as my Media Center PC…
Windows XP MCE 2005 was running Ok, but there was the occasional random error that popped up (under the display so I didn’t see it until I was shutting down) and some random failures to play videos. Sunday I was showing a friend and I was unable to play any of my HD (in H.264 MKV format) videos. I tried to fix it and I got to the point where nothing would display on my TV save for the cursor. I installed VNC to try to remedy this (assuming it was out of range/frequency) and everything looked fine- I could even move the cursor on the TV while viewing everything else in VNC- very strange…
I formatted and installed Vista Premium from a Dell OEM CD I have (I will need to activate within 30 days or it will shut down). The 1st install was going Ok- until I updated the motherboard BIOS (Abit Fatal!ty F-I90 HD) and everything wend BSOD- Note: always update the BIOS BEFORE installing the OS (when possible). I did another format and re-installed Vista…
Another note: configure the MCE environment screen resolution AFTER you install the final video driver! I set the MCE to 1080i with the default driver (from Microsoft) and I had an unaccessible environment once I installed the Catalyst v7.4 drivers- I had to unplug the HDMI and access the system via VGA (which reset it back to 1024×800) to get back into the MCE area. The new Catalyst driver does allow custom HD (overscan/underscan) resolutions.
After an install of the most recent Vista Codec Package, everything seems to be working smoothly (even the TV- which was a deal-killer for the last install). Why is this one better? Not sure; maybe better MPEG2 decoders or (perhaps) the MCE environment doesn’t run very well in 1080i (I am in a custom 720p at the moment.)