HTPC Update

So I figured I’d put a little update on my HTPC experience.

For one, I updated the original post and added pictures to the bottom of it showing the case, inside the case and some pictures of the Vista MCE interface (taken with a camera, too lazy to screencap & copy to my main PC which is where I’m posting from (nicer keyboard)). 

You may want to read my initial post on my HTPC building experience if you haven’t, just so you are up to speed.

The Good

• I love Vista MCE.  The interface for the most part is superior to MCE 2005, and IMO, far superior to Myth (some might argue, but they’d be wrong).  Yes, Myth can do more, but it’s interface is just not up to par, Microsoft spent a good amount of time on those ”little touches”, like the navigation in the MCE start menu, or the nice graphical look & feel.  It just looks better.
• “OMFG, ZOOMG!!!1!”  The picture quality is amazing.  This is in no small part, I believe, due to a combination of the Hauppage TV Tuner and the nVidia 8600GT video card.  But it really does look better than the picture on my DIGITAL cable did.  the digital cable was pixilated at times, especially if there was a lot of text on the screen like the weather channel or CTV NewsNet. Even DVDs look better.  By far better than played through my 360 (which everyone knows blows as a DVD player) and my PS2 (which is better than the 360, but not by much).
• I love gaming on a PC from my couch.  Granted, it may suck with an FPS, trying to use that bloody trackball.. sec going to take a picture for you…
  
  The picture shows the Keyboard & my remote.  Anyway, yeah gaming is awesome, and the 8600GT has no problem handling pretty much anything I throw at it.  I’ve been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights 2 with everything turned up to max.  Looks beautiful, and runs like butter.
• I love browsing the web from my couch ;)  Google Reader is awesome on my HDTV.

The Bad

• Vista Issue: Microsoft decided that the ability to extend one drive with another (turning two 500 gigabyte drives into one big terabyte drive) should cost you an extra $150-$200 so they show you that you have the option to do it, but don’t enable it unless you have an Ultimate/Business license. WTF?  It was enabled in MCE 2005 & in XP Pro…  Petty MS, very petty.  You can however “mount” a partition as a folder (you can’t extend the folder, it has to be a new empty folder).  Unfortunately, you can’t directly copy anything into that folder unless you also create a drive letter for that folder and copy to the drive.  Every time i try to copy directly to the “mounted” folder I get an error message saying that i don’t have the rights to do that.  I’m a frakin admin! Stupid.
• Vista MCE Issue: When browsing video files (not movies in the “TV & Movies” section, vista seems to like to tile the movies out showing a captured from from each video & no text to tell you what each “tile” is. If you have a tile currently selected, the title appears at the bottom… see the image blow, again sorry, its taken with a Rhonda’s fancy new digital SLR, and I haven’t messed with the settings in it to take good pictures of TV images.  Screen captures seem not to work in MCE… go figure).
  
  As you can see, the tiles are there for each movie.. you tell me what each is.. (minus “Beerfest”, it’s selected… btw: I’ve yet to watch it, I just downloaded it because it was there). This is a very irritating interface.  They NEED to offer a “list” view or something with the text title!
• The wireless keyboard (pictured a ways above) is great for simple searching and small messaging email, but is uncomfortable as a main input device, especially for my endlessly rambling blog posts…  The trackball is sufficient for games like Neverwinter Nights 2, Eve-Online, etc, but would be unacceptable in an FPS.  However, it is small, lightweight and gets the job done very well.  I definitely recommend it as an HTPC keyboard. (see my main HTPC building post for details on parts)

The Ugly

• Hardware Issue: My Biostar TF7050 motherboard doesn’t detect my Western Digital WD5000AAKS SATAII hard drives unless I disable the Quick Power-On Self-Test.  Still fighting with Biostar & Western Digital over who’s problem it is.  Biostar at least gives me the time of day.  western Digital seems happy with sending me form-letter reply after form-letter reply, ignoring my actual issue.  They have by far the worst customer service I’ve ever dealt with.
• Hardware/Driver Issue: Unable to use HDMI.  For video or Audio.  I can’t use it with video, as the nVidia drivers seem to think my TV should always be on unless the computer has put the video card to sleep.  This is not an issue with the TV (or at least, ATI cards work right with the TV).  Audio, on the other hand is choppy and horrible.  This is also from what I understand a driver issue, and apparently Vista’s fault.  Should be fixed in the next few months (both issues).

Conclusion (for now…)

Overall, I’m VERY happy with my setup.  I just added a second 500gb drive I had unused in my Main PC so it (the HTPC) has a whopping 1 terabyte of space for me to fill with movies & music!  and games…   I’ll add updates over time to update on how things are going and what other irritating things i run into & hate’s been resolved.

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