Comments on: Vista Media Center – So Far, So Not Good

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:09:13 +0000

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for commenting again. I think the main issue is not how long it takes to generate the files, but the fact the UI becomes totally unresponsive during this time.

If you view the same share in Explorer then the thumbnails still take a while to appear but they’re generated on a background thread so the user experience is not interrupted.

MCE2005 just seemed to do this a lot better unfortunately.

By: Charlie Owen

Charlie Owen — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:52:48 +0000

Stephen, I’ve asked some folks on our team where we cache the video thumbnails and will post here when I get an answer.

By: Stephen Melrose

Stephen Melrose — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:40:59 +0000

How come it doesn’t cache the thumbnails? That would at least help!

I might do locally so to clarify I am talking about network folders.

By: Charlie Owen

Charlie Owen — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:29:56 +0000

Generating thumbnails over the network is liable to take longer than with local files. Windows Vista SP1 made some good improvements to network performance, particularly file copy operations which may improve the performance here.

The pure List View is available in the Music Library and Recorded TV galleries only — sorry for the confusion. I’ll bubble up the inconsistency to our teams.

Carl gets the award for most mature posting in the history of blog comments.

By: Carl

Carl — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:01:58 +0000

Vista Media Center sucks big time. I can’t beleive how they can make such an application that just looks good but is totally unusable. Which genius thought of the thumbnails idea and didn’t even think of the consequences. Is it so hard just to add an option to list filenames instead?? Idiots. The amount of time having to wait for thumbnails to display is riddiculous. Every time I start Media Center to watch a movie, I end up on the internet googling for stuff about how to fix things with this lowsy program. Getting a bit tired of it now.

By: Stephen Melrose

Stephen Melrose — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:48:36 +0000

@Charlie Owen

Hi,

I have the same problem as Geoff Smith. I have a small and large thumbnail option, but no list option.

Does this have anything to do with Vista Home Premium vs Vista Ultimate? If so, that was a poor decision by Microsoft to split the functionality. (I am on Home Premium)

By: How to optimize Windows Media Center on Vista :: Shiny Things

How to optimize Windows Media Center on Vista :: Shiny Things — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:09:43 +0000

[...] been using the Vista version of Windows Media Center for a little over a month now. Initially I was underwhelmed, but after a lot of tinkering, some media reorganization, and a small hardware purchase I feel [...]

By: Geoff Smith

Geoff Smith — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:29:19 +0000

@Charlie Owen

You say you can turn on a list view with the More button or a right click. Is this supposed to work in the video libray?

The only options I get there are small thumbnails or large thumbnails, I have no list view option.

It’s very poor usability, I can’t see which episode is which without selecting a thumbnail.

By: Steve North

Steve North — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:44:14 +0000

Tim
Ive got 2 PCs running vista ultimate. One is a quad core in the living room under the TV. The other is a dual core athlon in my office. I get exactly the same Rewind and FF lag problems on both, so I dont think the quad core processor is the issue.

BTW, I read somewhere that AVI streaming is officially not supported by the XBOX360. I’m guessing MS only loaded it’s only codecs on the 360.

By: Tim Shaheen

Tim Shaheen — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:22:13 +0000

I have the same problem with lags in the UI and not being able to stream AVI video using my Xbox 360 as an extender. I have a new quad core HP with 3 gb ram and I’m connected via ethernet. My only guess is that there is some compatibility issue with Vist Media Center and some components in these new PC’s. Could it be the quad core processors? I’m hoping software / driver updates are forthcoming.