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DriverHeaven Article |
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Software Installation: Once you have your hardware assembled, these are the steps you should follow in order to get the OS and software up and fully running. 1) Install the latest motherboard drivers *NOTE: MCE users should check the hardware manufacturer’s website for drivers, which are MCE specific.
Tweaking your Windows options for best viewing Windows MCE is designed to look good on a TV and following the built-in setup wizard allows you to get a decent viewing experience upon first starting the application. XP; however, is a little different and there are two tweaks that are helpful for easy navigation in the OS when watching on a TV. First up is to ensure you have “Large Icons” enabled. The setting for this can be found by right-clicking your taskbar, selecting “properties” and then selecting the “start menu” tab. Next, click “customize”.
You should also enable large or extra large fonts. To do this, right-click the desktop and select “properties” click the “Appearance” tab and finally, choose your font size.
Once you have followed the above steps, you are good to go and it’s just a case of selecting the application you need to use at the given time. Nothing more, nothing less. Both ATI MMC and MCE2005 have detailed setup wizards that talk you through setting up your system for usage, so we won’t cover that in this guide. Recording and pausing TV is also simple on both products and is just a case of hitting the relevant buttons. There is no real difference in MCE to how you would manipulate a DVD by pausing, fast forwarding, etc. and with a few button clicks, you’ll have it mastered and setting up scheduled recordings, which is simpler than on most VCRs. What we will cover though, is the simple process to create a DVD using Sonic MyDVD. Creation of is simple, but it may help some of you to have instructions to refer to… DVD Creation step by step: Open MyDVD and you will be presented with the following screen:
Next, select “Create Project” and this results in the screen below being shown:
Unsurprisingly, the next step is to select “DVD”, which brings up the main DVD creation interface. From here, you will control all aspects of how your DVD functions and the media it includes.
The first step on this screen is to select a menu style and configure it to your tastes. The process is available by clicking “Edit Style” at the top of the interface.
Once you have that done, you can then move back to the main interface and the next step is to import video. You can introduce various sources for MyDVD, although for this project, we are using a TV broadcast, which was previously recorded in AVI format. You can both drag and drop the file into the interface or select “add files” and navigate to the required item. Once the file has been added to the menu, you can right-click it to choose any frame (or selection of frames) from the “button image” and crop the video to remove any extra, un-needed video such as trailers/adverts before, during or after the program you are creating the DVD for.
Finally, before you consider burning the DVD, you may wish to add chapters to each file. This is also a very simple process, just right-click the file and select “Add/Remove Chapters”. This brings up the following interface, and all you do is drag the slider to where you want a chapter and click “add”. There’s also a handy preview window, which displays what is happening at the point the slider has reached, which enables better choice of chapter points.
When your chapters are added, just click “OK” and you’re back to the main screen where you select Burn and away you go…
Well there you have it, everything you need to know to get a media PC up and running. If you have any questions regarding the article or indeed setting up a media PC, please feel free to post them in this thread and I (and of course our forum members) shall do what we can to assist. Have Fun!
Contacts: Reviewer:
Stuart
"Veridian3" Davidson
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