Recently I moved our Windows Media Center into a nice cool cupboard in the office, with the Xbox 360 in the living room taking over as an extender for TV/Media duties. For the most part this works very well but had one problem – our wireless network wasn’t fast enough to reliably stream HDTV.

We have a wireless bridge (two routers connected wirelessly with physical clients) between the office and living room. While Wireless-N clients can expect speeds of 70-80mbps a bridge will only see half of that. This is fine for streaming photos/music/videos/SDTV but borderline for HDTV and any interference or other wireless activity would cause the picture to breakup. Laying Ethernet isn’t an option so instead I decided to give Powerline Adapters a try.

There’s a variety of options on the market and I decided on the Netgear HDXB111 Kit for a couple of reasons. They’re based on the fast 200Mbps UPA standard, have status lights that display the current speed, and feature pass-through sockets which is handy. My second choice would have been the Netgear XAVB101 Kit which is based on a just-as-fast-but-different standard (HomePlug) but is bulkier and without the pass-through option.

The kit comes with two adapters and setting them up is about as easy as it gets. You just plug them in and they’ll magically find each other, then you hold down on the security buttons and they’ll pair for data encryption. There’s a CD with some software to configure QoS but I didn’t bother with this.

So how’s performance? Pretty outstanding as it happens.

After plugging in the adapters and receiving the green (80-100mbps) status light I ran some benchmarks and found the average speed was around 94mbps which is just shy of the 100mbps maximum. Fantastic! At times the status light will turn orange (50-80mbps) which I assume is due to interference from something, but even here the speed stays around the 65mbps range which is way better than a wireless bridge and more than enough for HDTV.

A+

From comments and emails it seems I’m not the only one who has teething problems. In this post I’ll list a few of the tweaks I made that improved the performance of Media Center in Vista, and the $40 hardware change that made a huge difference.

Power Settings

By default Vista’s power management is set to “balanced”, and in balanced mode the minimum/maximum processor states are set to 5%/100% respectively. This means during periods of inactivity or low utilization your CPU performance to 5% of the norm. This can seem like a good thing, particularly for a HTPC where heat/noise is a concern, but it can also cause problems. If sudden activity requires more CPU time (e.g bringing up the guide or a menu while watching TV) then there can be a noticeable lag while the processor attempts to ramp back up.

Depending on your processor I’d recommend you switch to the High Performance plan, or change these settings from anywhere between 50%/100% to 100%/100%.

This option can be found in Control Panel->Power Options->Change Plan Settings->Change Advanced Settings.

Indexing

By default Vista will index files stored on your hard-drive for fast searching. Normally this is a good thing, but for a HTPC it’s overkill. You can disable indexing on a per-drive basis. At the very least you should disable indexing for the drive or partition where your recorded TV is stored (keeping recorded TV on a separate drive/partition is a performance tip in itself

Computer->Right Click Drive->Properties->Index this drive for faster searching.

Aero

Aero is the name of the fancy new UI effects in Vista, which are partly the responsibility of a component called the Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe). I’m not entirely sure why, but with Aero enabled I found dwm.exe would be taking ~5% of CPU time, even with Media Center set at fullscreen. Disabling Aero by choosing “Vista Basic” as the color scheme disables DWM and removes this problem.

This option can be found in Control Panel->Personalization->Window Color and Appearance.

NAS (Network Attached Storage)

With MCE2005 I kept all of my media (Music, Pictures, Videos) on my Windows Home Server box which was connected by a Wireless-G network. Aside from the occasional stutter in a film this worked perfectly. Everything was also kept in a backed-up location accessible by all machines.

With Vista MCE this did not work well at all, with videos being particularly problamatic. When viewing a folder of videos Media Center will attempt to create thumbnails but does this in a decidedly synchronous manner – the interface stalls while each thumbnail is created. When you have a folder of 20+ videos on a network drive you can pretty much forget having a usable interface for a good few minutes.

It’s been said Media Center is not designed to access networked media in this manner although I contend that is an implementation flaw. Creation of thumbnails or meta data should happen in the background and be invisible to the user, whether it takes two seconds or twenty.

Because I didn’t have enough space on my Media Center machine to store videos I plugged in a 500GB external HDD and setup a nightly synctoy task to keep the media files updated with my Windows Home Server. An alternative would be to turn off thumbnails, or network your machines using gigabit Ethernet (sadly the latter is not an option for me).

Video card / MPEG decoder

Vista Media Center now comes with a built-in MPEG-2 decoder allowing you to watch TV out of the box without the need to purchase a 3rd party solution. This isn’t entirely an altruistic move by Microsoft. Providing their own MPEG-2 decoder ensures an end-to-end protected media path for DRM reasons. By default Vista Media Center will not even allow the use of 3rd party decoders such as PureVideo, although they are ways to force this.

Vista’s video rendering supports DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration), so if your graphics card supports DXVA and has the correct drivers you’ll benefit from hardware accelerated MPEG-2 decoding. Unfortunately, as of now most graphics cards don’t support this.

Under MCE 2005 all of my SDTV/HDTV decoding was handled in hardware by my Geforce 7800 and the NVidia PureVideo decoder. Under Vista, the PureVideo decoder was no longer supported and without DXVA support all decoding was performed in software. When viewing HDTV this put so much strain on my CPU that the UI would often become unresponsive.

I then tried to switch back to PureVideo (as mentioned there is a method to force Vista Media Center to use 3rd party decoders), after which hardware acceleration was again working. Unfortunately if Vista detects the broadcast-flag it will not allow playback via unsecured decoders, so to view premium channels such as HBO you must use the Microsoft decoder.

Fortunately ATI’s range of Radeon HD cards that support DXVA and HDCP under Vista are relatively cheap. The performance of the lower end HD cards for gaming may be questionable, but for decoding MPEG-2/4 they’re excellent and if you’re running an HTPC there’s really no need to buy a more expensive card. I picked up the Gigabyte Radeon HD2400XT for a shade under $50 which had the added benefit of being fanless. After installing it I was back to being able to watch all SDTV/HDTV channels with almost zero CPU usage.

Summary

I found the four tweaks above accounted for about 95% of the performance issues I was experiencing after upgrading to Vista. Depending on your system hopefully some of them will be of use to you.

Aside from the above tips there are also a number of guides on the Internet worth checking out about how to disable unwanted startup programs or services. In addition I have a nightly task scheduled that both defrags and reboots my system. I have no empirical evidence, but it seems to help everything stay nice and fast.

• The form factor is great. It’s very small and utterly silent.
• Linksys include a set of each cables (aside from HDMI) which is nice.
• The included remote feels much cheaper than those included with V1 extenders.
• Setup was super-easy and the non-extender setup pages are well implemented.
• Startup times are abysmal. It takes around 60 seconds over Ethernet and longer via Wireless-N. Powering down also takes a surprisingly long time.
• Video quality is excellent for both SDTV/HDTV, as well as XviD.
• The menu and selection transitions are painful to watch. Turning them off gives a much better experience.
• On an HDTV, areas such as the menu backgrounds and fonts are of a noticeably lower quality than within Media Center itself, or when using the Xbox 360 as an extender. These differences are largely unnoticeable on SDTV.
• There is no 4th Zoom option for watching a 4/3 video on a widescreen TV.
• All of the Media Center backgrounds, menus, and text appear embedded in the firmware. Due to this I feel it’s unlikely V2 extenders will be supported on the next major release of Media Center (and since the hardware already appears underpowered, this may not be a bad thing).

Overall I would say I’m neither impressed nor disappointed with the new extenders.  The experience is generally very good (once you turn off the transition animations) but at $250+ they feel overpriced and the startup time is disappointing.

If you’re looking for an extender for the living room, particularly for an HDTV,  then I’d suggest considering an XBox 360 (particularly the quieter model, or if you have a cabinet to muffle the fan sound). For a second extender in the bedroom then the Linksys V2 extenders are a good choice.

Footnote: I believe that the forthcoming extenders from companies such as D-Link are all based upon the same internal hardware, so the experiences are unlikely to differ much.

(One of the nice things about Windows Home Server is that you can do things like this, safe in the knowledge your old install is only a few clicks away .

Unfortunately my experiences so far have been largely negative.

The first problem was more of an inconvenience. When upgrading from MCE2005 some Media Center settings are preserved but others, such as the TV setup, are not. This is a little frustrating as it couldn’t have been that hard to implement, and it takes a good 40 minutes edit the channel list to reflect which of your providers ~700 channels you both subscribe to and want to watch. The method of making this selection has not improved since MCE2005 either and is still slow and cumbersome.

In terms of hardware I only came across one problem; the Microsoft IR receiver/blaster that controls our cable boxes would only emit a signal from one bud. After a couple of reboots I ended up uninstalling it via device manager and restarting, whereupon it was recognized as a new device and began working correctly.

The other problems I’m seeing are all performance based.

Under Vista, the Media Center UI frequently becomes laggy and often hangs/pauses for a few seconds. For example if I press Guide on the remote while watching TV there’s a delay of ~5 seconds before it appears. Other areas of the UI can become equally unresponsive at times, which leads to multiple button presses and general frustration.

Another problem is that VMCE’s handling of video thumbnails seems to be very poorly implemented. Our videos are stored on our Windows Home Server, with shortcuts placed in the "Videos" folder on the Media Center, and browsing these folders from within MCE results in the UI hanging for considerable amounts of time.

For example when I opened the folder containing Heroes Season 1, the UI hung for around five minutes while thumbnails were generated for all of the files. This problem never occurred in MCE, nor does it while using Explorer in Vista, so it’s definitely something within the Media Center UI. As far as I can tell the UI spawns a copy of Media Player in the background to generate the thumbnails, but does so in a very unfriendly way. The episodes themselves stream fine (although there’s still no way to fast-forward xvid files) so it’s not a bandwidth issue.

Speaking of thumbnails, I have very mixed feelings over the "Wall of thumbnails" that Vista Media Center uses for the UI in the Music/Video sections. While it looks fantastic it sacrifices usability to do so. The only way to see the title of a video/album is to select it, so although the UI fits more items on each "page" than MCE2005 it can take longer to find the file you’re after. There’s an alternative "List" view which shows the content as a list of names, but you then loose the thumbnail image and looks boring (strangely the ‘list’ option in Recorded TV includes a mini thumbnail, but not so in Music/Videos).

On the flip-side the new UI looks fantastic and is generally better organized than MCE2005, which now looks very dated.

I’d really like to like VMCE but at the moment the experience is far below my MCE2005 install. I’m going to push on with it for a while longer and see what I can do to improve the performance issues, but so far I’m rather underwhelmed

I figured all I’d need to do is find the URL for their Wii/PS3 friendly flashplayer and set it up in Media Center. Since all three are designed to be used with a TV my theory was the player should work equally well on any of them.

20 minutes later, after much spoofing of both PS3 and Wii browser agents, I’d drawn a blank. No matter what I tried I always ended up with the regular, and somewhat un-TV friendly, web player that PC users get.

So I fired up my Wii, downloaded the latest Internet Channel and visited the Virgin website. Whereupon I realized the problem.

There is no Wii/PS3 specific player. Virgin’s regular player just happens to support the Wii and PS3. Bah!

So, how hard could it be to knock up a quick add-in for Media Center that supports Virgin Radio?

About eight hours hard.

Starting with a regular HTML page I created the four channel buttons and wrote the JavaScript/CSS needed for navigation via remote control. Then I added the code to play the audio streams via Media Center and to generally make the page exist nicely in the Media Center shell.

Yay, I had my working proof of concept! Since it was going so well I decided to get ambitious and embed the AJAX stream Virgin use to display images and song info in their regular web player. This was a bit tricky but thanks to Virgin’s excellent player most of the hard work was already done, my part was reduced mostly to trial and error.

After that it was just a case of messing around till I had a look I was happy with, and that seemed compact enough to fit on TV’s of different sizes.

I’ve been using my new player for about a day now and already I’m smitten. I have a lot of fond memories of listening to Virgin from when I lived in the UK and it’s great to be able to listen to the station from 5000 miles away on a TV.

Oh James just came on. Fucking A!

You can download the setup program here. It also includes options to setup XM Radio/Live-365 in Media Center, something I did a while ago to make that process a little easier.

I’d be really interested in knowing if this works using the XBox 360 as an extender. As it works on my Linksys extender I’d imagine it does…

The list of radio stations will grow over time as I add more of the stations I listen to. The current list of supported stations are:

• Virgin Radio UK
• XM Online
• Live 365

XM Radio and Live 365 are supported courtesy of the MCL file these companies provide for Media Center. The installer simply creates the appropriate link in the “Radio” section to avoid the need to traverse through Online Spotlight or manually edit files.

Virgin Radio support is via a custom HTML page designed for access using a TV and remote control. Audio is played natively through Media Center, the artist photos and information are pulled via AJAX from the feed used to power the “Listen Now” page on the Virgin Radio website.

Known issues:

• On first listening you may be prompted by Media Player to confirm streaming from the Virgin Radio site. If Media Center is running full-screen they may be hidden
• The Virgin Radio interface has been designed for access via a Remote control – literally. There is no support for navigating the interface via mouse, though the arrow keys on the keyboard may be used.

Coming soon:

• More stations

But what about the alternative? Are there reasons to stay with MCE 2005?

I would say absolutely yes. Vista MCE is certainly new and improved, but depending on your situation there are some very good reasons to hold off upgrading for a few months, if not longer.

Here’s why:

1. Cost. Aside from any required hardware upgrades, Vista will cost between $100-$400 depending on the version you choose. This isn’t going to change, but if you’re considering a new machine it could be worth waiting a bit longer, especially with CableCard supporting machines on the horizon.
2. Extenders. It can cost less than $100 to put a wireless MCE2005 extender in a room, but the only Media Center Extender (MCX) that works with Vista is the XBox 360. Cost of a 360 + decent cables + remote + wireless adapter? Around $450-$500. Do you really want to spend $500 to watch recorded TV in the bed?
3. No Remote Desktop. All versions of Vista come with a Remote Desktop Client, but only Vista Ultimate has a server (which surely should be the other way!). Unless you buy Vista Ultimate, which is overkill for a dedicated MCE box, you won’t be able to use Remote Desktop to administer a headless machine.
4. Functionality. Sure, in many ways the interface is nicer but there’s little Vista MCE does that is not already available on MCE2005. CableCard support require you to buy a whole new PC, and although Vista MCE is a better platform for developers there are few, if any, must-have applications at the moment.
5. Stability. Aside from some recently fixed overheating problems, my MCE2005 box has been running unattended for months (with a scheduled reboot and defrag). Upgrading to Vista and having to install new drivers is almost certain to cause a period of instability, and there are already hotfixes appearing for MCE issues in Vista. 

I’ve been using Vista on my desktop PC for a while now and I’m HUGELY impressed, as far as I’m concerned Microsoft have really hit a homerun. However, until there’s some real benefit to upgrading, and I can put extenders in rooms for less than $500, my Media Center will be running MCE2005.

Windows Home Server surprised me. It has promise, but like Chris Lanier, I would have really liked to see a “Windows Home Media Server that could act as a dedicated Media Center PC, with support for TV and streaming content to Media Center extenders. With the need for machines that support CableCard (and presumably, if it ever appears, DirecTV) to be pre-built and certified, this would have made a lot of sense.

Such a machine could also have gone a long way to unifying Microsoft’s digital home strategy.

Instead, it’s all becoming a little confusing.

• IPTV is coming to the XBox 360, which will offer DVR-like functionality for viewers. There was however no mention of IPTV support for Media Center.
• Windows Home Server can stream content to devices that support Windows Media Connect, but no mention was made of support for Media Center PCs or Extenders.
• Aside from two third-party devices, there appears to have been little mention of Media Center Extenders for Vista. Devices that support Media Connect are prolific however.
• Despite being touted as a success on the XBox 360, and further content partners being announced, there is still no Microsoft-provided way for PC and Media Center owners to download TV shows or movies.

I understand why Microsoft are pushing Windows Media Connect. As it’s basically streaming over HTTP it’s relatively easy for hardware companies to support in a variety of home devices – a winning situation for everyone.

But what’s the future for Media Center?

If a company like Tivo were to release a DVR with support for Windows Media Connect, would I still consider Media Center? The DVR box would do everything I need, would likely support CableCard, and would probably be cheaper to boot.

Will Media Center one day become just a pretty frontend for PCs to view content delivered by Windows Media Connect?

As I said, confusing  

Aside from the occasional Windows Update there hasn’t been any additional software, or hardware, installed in months. The machine reboots itself every night, and all non-essential startup tasks have been removed.

The problems are:

• Time slots in the guide will occasionally be shown as blank. Restarting the MCE interface fixes this.
• Very occasionally a scheduled recording will only be 1 minute in duration
• Randomly, MCE will ignore all input from the remote (volume, channel change, pause) for a few seconds, then process all the commands at once.

As I mentioned, aside from media functions the machine does very little else. I did notice the drive where recorded programs are kept has become quite fragmented, but this is a separate drive (due to that problem) and shouldn’t impact the OS.

If these problems occur on a dedicated PC, I can’t imagine many people are running Media Center on PCs they use for other tasks.

HDTV.

The contrast and clarity of HDTV programming is stunning. Sometimes it’s enjoyable just to sit and an HDTV program, regardless of the content, and marvel at the picture quality. It’s only after watching an HD program that you appreciate just how low quality SD (standard def) TV is.

I only receive OTA (Over The Air) channels in HD, but luckily most of the programs I watch are on the OTA channels such as NBC, ABC, Fox etc. I’ve been tempted to get the DirecTV HD package for movies and HBO shows such as Rome, but without paying $1k+ for a DirecTV HD recorder I wouldn’t be able to record them. That’s extortionate, particularly as I already have a Media Center PC that does such a good job with SDTV/OTA HDTV.

Back in January there was an announcement that Microsoft & DirecTV would offer a solution (such as a tuner card) for Media Center, but nothing has been announced since. I also suspect that, as with the Cable Card support in Windows Vista, this will only be available for ‘certified’ (read: sold by an OEM) Media Centers making it useless for those of us with existing systems

Would it be cynical of me to suggest that forcing people to buy new systems would be in the interest of everyone other than the consumer?