[Judas]

Ok i've used Windows XP Media Center Eddition 2005 and it's quite good yes.

But i'm finding vista's Mutli media center quite a nice jump better overall then it.

And it's Video quality and audio quality playback seems to be a damn good leap ahead of even PowerDVD/WinDVD's Abilities.

Anyone seeing this,

I'm just fooling around with a few tv's, i just got this 52" Samsung LCD 1080p lcd tv that i got hooked up (via VGA atm) and my gaud the sucker looks utterly steller. I fired up PowerDVD 7.2 and played back a few dvds but i wasn't to impressed with the video quality, it look much to fuzzy and looked like color banding almost in places. Changed each video setting individually and nothing seemed to improve, sure it changed, but it just didn't look quite right to me.

Fired up the built in Media center, walked through all the steps, and when the DVD played, i was quite stunned. Looked utterly beautiful, even being just a standard DVD (widescreen).

Anyone else find this? anyone else even try.

Considering that vista and HD dvd's were already in production, i wonder if Vista's Media center is capable (a patch provided? ) that will allow someone to play a HD-DVD or BR.

[kris23]

ya thats awesome then, so many people have been flaming vista for so long for many reasons. aside from the drm in the system, it sounds like a very good successor to XP. im getting it installed on my system probably tomorrow. i wonder how it will work for me......

do you think i should upgrade some stuff or can i run well enough as is? i want to avoid buying components i wont use in a few months

[nathanh]

i too have this set up on my 50inch toshiba dlp its my main monitor i find the vid quality to be amazing i am using dvi to hdmi cable and i am runnung hideff only at 1080i though .....
i have downloaded a few hd clips on the net and played it in media player and they look even more amazing (no patch needed) even for hd-dvds

[Judas]

While people seem to be stuck on the DRM issue, i've yet to experience any kind of issue that they talk about with DRM, every mp3/ogg/wma/wmv/etc. that i've created or ripped or whatever from within XP or Vista works flawlessly on any device i've hooked up or other machines no problems.

A find that the VGA or Component cables look overall much better then the DVI-HDMI cable connection, but that's likely something to do with the fact of the TV itself or just some other settings.


But i must say again, the image quality over XP and over using PowerDVD and WinDVD is several times better, the De-interlacing is several times better.