Question #1 from Greg

Windows (RC) had a great Photo-wall screensaver where it would display your photos (seemingly any and all images), in black & white on a slowly moving wall (similar to the way album covers are shown while playing music), and then one photo would slowly turn to colour, and then cycle through a few photos from the same folder. It would then fade back to black and white and randomly float over the other photos until it found a new set to focus on.

I don’t actually remember doing anything originally to set this up, but now that I am trying the RTM version it doesn’t seem to be doing this any more.

Can you tell me what settings I need to get this working again?

Thanks.

Answer

Certainly, you can check out our recent guide to the Album Art background and the Photo screensaver right here which will give you instructions to enable and choose which photos you’d like displayed by default.

I’m not sure why the feature wouldn’t be enabled by default in the RTM version but I’m sure the instructions will get you setup in no time.

Question #2 from Brian

Is it possible to remap the "movie library" and "recorded TV" icons to their respective folders in Media Browser? I think this would be less confusing for family/friends as well as more aesthetically pleasing for me.

Answer

Unfortunately Media Browser doesn’t currently include support to enter directly into a specific folder though it has been requested. There is, however, a separate branch in development that includes support for this feature though compiling and installing branches can be fairly difficult for most.

I’m not sure if any alternative movie browsers contain such a feature at this point but you can submit the suggestion to Open Media Library as well.

Question #3 from Hunter

It used to be possible to use the My Movies plugin to rip DVD and Blu-Ray discs (as long as the user had AnyDVD-HD installed) to hard drive from within Media Center. Is it possible to have that same functionality in Win7 MC, or to replicate it using an alternative plugin? (If not, I may start working on such a plugin myself…)

Answer

I’m not sure if this is still possible in 7MC or not with the MyMovies plugin as I don’t have much experience with MyMovies myself. I personally would love to see a plugin that allows ripping to the hard disk straight from Media Center with good encoding.

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Question #1 from Steve

What is the purpose of NVidia’s PureVideo Decoder and is it beneficial to a HTPC setup for HD Movies/Games.

I installed it when I was running Vista before, however, I didn’t really notice a difference. Now that I am running Windows 7, I am debating whether I need to use this. Currently, all I have installed is the K-lite Mega Codec Pack.

Would I see any performance improvements from this software?

Answer

The answer to this depends on your hardware and the type of video you’re playing. If your using an onboard video chip and playing standard definition video you’re unlikely to see any benefit from changing codecs. If, however, you have a recent add-on video card such as this GeForce 9500 GT Video Card and are playing HD video the benefit could be a substantially smoother video playback utilizing DXVA.

Question #2 from Ken Prescott

I live in Southern Mass and have Comcast as my cable provider. I cannot after all my efforts get the correct guide on my Win7 machine. Ive tried all the listings it comes up with to no avail. Any suggestions?

Answer

I would try the recently reviewed Guide Tool which lists quite a few more listings than would normally be given by a scan from Windows 7 Media Center. If you still don’t get the listings you’re looking for you could easily use it to create a custom lineup.

Reader Submission  from Steve Washburn

I thought you might be interested in a How To guide I made on MediaBrowser’s forum. (http://www.mediabrowser.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2802) Maybe you wanted to post on your site.

It installs MediaBrowser on a RAMDISK to boost the speed and the display of the cached thumbnails. It works awesome. Thumbnails display instantly and graphic intensive themes run very smoothly ie. the Vanilla theme.

I love your site and hope I can make a contribution. I got the idea from today’s post.
Cheers
Steve (Washy)

Answer

Great guide! For those lacking in excess RAM you could also use a USB Flash Disk such as that used in the recent guide to moving the Live TV Buffer to a USB Drive as well. The number of uses for small fast media drives are certainly looking up for Media Center users.

Have a question or comment for a future Reader’s Question or Answer? Send it in Below!

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Question #1 from Frank

With the imminent RTM of Win7, is there a way to transfer scheduled recordings and channel lineups (I have an HDHomeRun tuner, and most channels have to be set up manually, which takes me at least a couple of hours) from the RC builds to the final?
Thanks!

Answer

If you’re upgrading from a beta version of Windows 7 you should be able to transfer your channel lineup and recordings schedule by doing a normal upgrade instead of a full clean install. Otherwise, you can backup your recording schedule using this guide but I don’t believe there is currently an easy way to backup and restore a custom lineup to a clean install of Windows 7.

Question #2 from Berry Schreuder

Is Media Center in Windows 7 actually dependent on the Windows Search Indexer? If the answer is yes, I’d like to get some more insight into the dependency and what would break if I’d disable it because to me it seems it runs fine with the service disabled.

Answer

No, Media Center doesn’t depend on Search Indexer to run properly and it can safely be disabled. The Windows Search Indexer is used for the search by title, search by keyword functionality in media center (TV Pack and Win7 versions). Also it is used by the wish list recording requests when you record by keyword. (via mikehayton) The Movie Library may see some level of performance increase by using Search Indexer when scanning for new movies but the impact would be minimal.

Question #3 from Andrew

When I hit the TV button on my remote, WMC always goes to recorded TV – I would prefer it to go to Live TV. There are another couple of minor button changes I’d like to make too. Is there a way to reconfigure the remote control so the buttons do what you want them to?

Answer

I understand that several people have had success getting ControlRemote to work in Windows 7 though I’ve had no luck with it myself. The other popular option is to use EventGhost which I’ve yet to try. Both of these options will be covered in depth here on Hack7MC sometime in the near future.

Have a question for a future Reader Question and Answer? Send it in using the form below!

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Question #1 from Brian Elgaard

What is the best codecs to use on a Media Center with limited resources? I have installed the PowerDVD codec for recorded TV using a guide on this site and it works fine except that I experience some stuttering now and then. Since CPU usage is pretty high, typically between 78 and 100 when I am recording, I assume that the bottleneck is decoding. I use NVidia’s codecs for playing recorded TV, but it seems that the settings screen does not work on 7mc? On the other hand, if this is not what causes the stuttering then how do I figure out what does?

Answer

If you find that your CPU usage is unacceptably high while decoding video and you have a video card capable of hardware decoding you may want to try a different decoder capable of utilizing your video hardware. PowerDVD does support DXVA but there are other codecs you may want to try including MPCVideoDec from Media Player Classic – HomeCinema if it’s not working well for you.

If you don’t have DXVA capable hardware you may also want to try switching to FFDShow or using Shark007’s codec pack. Beyond switching your installed decoders it can be hard to pin down the exact cause of stuttering during playback. Stuttering can ultimately occur as a result of insufficient hardware, failing hardware, background programs or any number of other factors.

Question #2 from Marc

how do you configure a 2 disc dvd in 7mc? i use my movies2 in vmc and there is an option i can use for 2 disc dvds. in the movies strip in 7mc it shows as 2 dvds with the same pic and name so you can’t tell which is disc 1 or 2.is there a trick/hack i can use to show only 1 dvd and point to the next disc when i need to? does media browser have that option?

Answer

There are a few options for solving this currently available. The first is Media Browser as you mentioned which is capable of displaying multi-file movies as a single entry. The other is to create a playlist and hide the actual files which will remove them from being displayed in the default Movie Library. Using the YAMMM metadata manager you can even set this up as the default behavior.

Under settings check the option to Create playlists for multi-file movies and then Hide playlist members.

Question #3 from Eddie Jones

I have many WMVHD files with 5.1 WMA. How can I get these to play out of the SPDIF in Windows 7 Media center. I have tried to use AC3Filter but it doesnt work.

Answer

I would suggest using FFDShow Audio to process WMA and send it to SPDIF if you aren’t going to use the built-in Microsoft decoder. WMA is disabled by default in FFDShow so you will need to select libavcodec under the Codec configuration and set your device to SPDIF in the Output options.

Have a question for Reader Question and Answer? Send it in below! Not all questions can be answered immediately so don’t worry if yours doesn’t come up right away.

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Now let’s get down to the questions!

Question #1 from Ryan

Is there any way to start Media Center directly into Media Browser? In other words, I want Media Browser to launch automatically when I start Media Center.

Answer

Well that depends on how you are launching Media Center. If you are launching the program via the remote’s green button then you’ll need to use a program to intercept the remote commands and reassign the actions. We’ll be covering a few of these programs shortly here on Hack7MC.

If you are launching Windows 7 Media Center via a shortcut you can alter the shortcut to load directly into Media Browser. Open the properties window for the shortcut by right-clicking the icon and selecting properties. Then enter the following into the target box: %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe /entrypoint:{ce32c570-4bec-4aeb-ad1d-cf47b91de0b2}\{fc9abccc-36cb-47ac-8bab-03e8ef5f6f22}

Press OK to save the changes. Now each time you use this shortcut to launch Media Center it will open up directly into Media Browser.

Question #2 from Spontex

I would like to convert some WTV recordings in high definition (H264) and multi-channel to an open standard (e.g. hi-def multi-channel MKV or standard-def DVD-Video or XVid). Is this possible? Thanks

Answer

There are currently a couple of ways to convert WTV into MKV that we’ve covered here on Hack7MC. Each method takes some work to accomplish since the format is still relatively new however. One method is to use the latest beta of MCEBuddy to convert your WTV files to one of the supported formats.

The other way is to setup DVRMSToolbox to do the conversion which may be difficult since I don’t believe there is a premade profile for accomplishing the process at this point. You may want to look into the WTV to DVR-MS profiles created by abuttino which could help you through the process.

Question #3 from mor

One of the most frequent question we have about 7MC is how to show external subtitles (srt,sub) in it.  I am using WIN7 32BIT, with the latest FFDSHOW INSTALLED with SUBTITLES ENABLED. (i also installed the gabest splitter after your post mkv for minimalist). Now I understand that the problem is with WMP127MC loading their default codec which doesn’t support sub srt subtitles. 
I tried changing preferred DirectShow filters in Windows 7 using Doom9 "Tool for changing preferred DirectShow filters" after reading about it here and also using the MCDU tools after you suggested it in a replay to someone with no success …
the file i using is a standard :
Video: XviD
Resolution: 624×352 23.97fps
with an external SRT file which works perfectly in VLC 
I also tried posting few questions on the subject in few forums and found no answer, any idea how to fix the problem??
thanks.

Answer:

You are correct that the problem here is most likely the use of Microsoft’s native codecs not supporting the srt format but forcing it’s way into the decoding process. The best solution is to use a subtitle decoder that will load alongside these default codecs and process subtitles. There is a recently published guide here on Hack7MC that details using DirectVobSub in this situation to enable subtitles to be loaded without altering the default codecs.

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Question #1 fromwickham40:

How can I check which version of Media Browser I have.
I installed 2.1 and I switched on auto update but I don’t know if it is updated or not. I cannot find the version number at all.

Answer:

To find which version of Media Browser you’ve got installed enter the configuration panel from inside Windows Media Center. Once you’re inside the configuration you should be able to find the currently installed version number in the upper right hand corner.

It should be noted that even with automatic updates and beta updates enabled that it takes a few days following the availability of the downloadable patch or update before they are marked for automatic distribution. This is done to ensure that the best quality updates possible are distributed through the automatic update.

Question #2 from Ken:

I really like the album art waterfall that W7MC displays while playing audio files. One major change that I’ve noticed between the beta and the RC is that it has slowed to an almost glacial scroll rate. Is there anyway to adjust this?

Answer:

Yes, I noticed this as well. Unfortunately the scroll rate isn’t easily edited by the end user as it’s packed inside the ehres.dll file. If you’ve got a copy of Restorator installed you can open the ehres.dll file found in C:\Windows\ehome and edit the file under \html\albumartbackground.xml. You will find the variable to adjust the speed of the animation called TimerForScrolling. Adjust the Interval in milliseconds to increase or decrease the scrolling speed, a lower timer will increase the speed while a higher number will slow it down.

Also, we have a patch available for download here at Hack7MC that you can install the set the timer interval to 1000 (1sec) which seems to be roughly the original speed from the earlier betas. It should be noted that the speed was likely decreased due to performance problems with lower end machines however.

Question #3 from Nick:

I just wondered what you take was on running a disk defragmenter on your media center. Would there be any benefits?

Answer:

While it certainly can’t hurt the benefits are unlikely to be very noticeable on modern systems. Also, by default, Windows 7 performs a disk defragmentation weekly already. You can also enable Windows Media Center to automatically perform basic system optimization on a daily basis through the Tasks –> Settings –> General –> Optimization menu. This should keep your system in good running condition if you’ve got a dedicated home theater pc running Windows 7 Media Center.

Have you got a question for a future Reader Question and Answer here on Hacking Windows 7 Media Center? Drop us a line below. Remember it may take some time to respond due to the number of requests each week but rest assured we’re looking into your question as quickly as possible.

Question #1 From Jean

Is there any way that I could improve the audio volume in Media Centre. Music volume seems to be working fine, but as soon as I try to watch a movie, the volume is very low. This has been a problem for me on previous versions of Media Centre as well, on different machines. I really have to crank up the volume of my speakers before I can watch a movie in Media Centre.

Answer

This is a common problem with many of the machines I’ve encountered as well. It’s caused by different leveling across media types and can be solved by using a decoder that supports normalization.

To accomplish this, you can use FFDShow for decoding both types of media. Install FFDShow Tryouts then set playback with the Using FFDShow Audio in Media Center guide. Then open the FFDShow Audio Configuration and select the Volume section.

Under the Volume section enable the Normalize, Regain volume and Reset on seek settings. Now as long as the format your playing back is setup to use FFDShow (which you can setup using the Preferred DirectShow Filters Tool) the volume should be normalized properly.

Question #2 from Dave

I downloaded internet radio player RadioTime. The download is an .mcl file. It works great if I launch from Explorer, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get it on a menu within media center in windows 7

Answer

The RadioTime plugin website also provides an installer for download which I would suggest over the default .mcl download. This installer will place a RadioTime icon in your extras menu inside Windows 7 Media Center. Also, look for a RadioTime article coming to Hack7MC soon!

Question #3 from Greg

i have a large collection of music videos. is there anything that will let me queue them up and shuffle them like i can with audio files?

Answer

I have quite the music video collection going myself but haven’t found any plugin just queuing up a random selection of them for playback like a personal music TV station. Maybe one of our more ambitious readers can take on the idea as a Media Browser plugin or a full featured Media Center plugin!

Have a question for Hack7MC? Send it in below!

Question #1 from Mark

Hi, I followed the instructions on how to switch the default codec to FFDShow in order to display subtitle tracts and everything works great; however I am experiencing significant audio sync issues. Is there a fix or how can I troubleshoot this problem? Thanks for all your great work!

Answer

If you have setup audio playback using FFDShow then you can adjust the audio timing form FFDShow’s Audio Configuration. You can find a guide on some of the basic FFDShow Audio settings here on Hack7MC. To setup an audio delay you’ll need to open the Audio Configuration and enable the Delay option. You’ll then need to adjust the delay on each channel until your audio syncs correctly for your video.

One possible reason for this delay, however, is FFDShow’s video decoder is using more resources than are available for your system. Since FFDShow Video doesn’t use hardware acceleration it can become highly CPU intensive. If you have any number of options enabled in the FFDShow Video Configuration you may want to try disabling them to see if the situation improves.

Question #2 from Stephen

I find some congestion with disk when recording tv while also streaming to different PCs. Is there a way to designate the “scratch” folder for recording as separate from the media library that stores the fully recorded TV?

Answer

It’s possible to setup something similar using a third-party program such as DVRMSToolbox. You would need to set your Media Center’s recording folder to the hard disk you’d like to use as a scratch drive then using DVRMSToolbox’s FileWatcher setup a processing condition that automatically moves each completed .WTV file to your desired storage drive. Afterward, edit your library settings under Tasks -> Settings –> Manage Libraries and add your storage folder to Recorded TV.

You can find a general guide on using DVRMSToolbox to convert WTV files here which should be able to guide you most of the way through the process. You’ll just need to create a profile that simply moves completed WTV files to another directory then setup a WTV condition that calls the profile.

Question #3 from Jim

Hi,I live on MC in the evenings but it’s a pain turning on another PC or minimizing MC to the desktop to check emails. Are there any extras or plugins to show emails?

Answer

I haven’t personally used any plug-ins for checking email from Windows 7 Media Center but I know that in Vista there was a plug-in that would let you check your pop3 email from Media Center called Media Center Mail. The program is still available from OABSoftware and it’s very possible that it may still work in 7MC.

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Question #1 from Patrick

Ever since I switched over to Win7MC (build 7077), my recordings in .wtv format no longer show a thumbnail view in the "recorded tv" windows. The older recordings that were still in dvr-ms format are fine, but all the newer ones just show a blue square instead of a screenshot of the recording. Any idea how to show a screenshot again?

Answer

This is a common problem in certain versions of the Windows 7 beta including the RC version (7100). There are reports that it has been fixed in later versions. The consensus is that the issue is caused by codecs not playing well with the thumbnail generation method used in Windows 7. The issue is definitely being addressed by Microsoft and should be fixed before final release. For even more information you can follow this thread on The Green Button Forums.

Question #2 from Clayton

This guide was great and I got everything working on my Win7 64 bit machine with one problem. When I play MKV files with multiple soundtracks (for example the MKV file has the English movie sound track and the Director commentary sound track) through Windows Media Player or Media Center they both play at the same time. I can’t figure out how to turn one off so I can just switch between them.

Answer

When using FFDShow to playback your movies with multiple audio tracks you’ll need to enable the audio stream switcher. In FFDShow’s audio settings select Stream Switcher on the left and enable it by checking the checkbox.

Now you’ll be able to switch between multiple audio streams. Unfortunately, Media Center doesn’t have support for switching streams from inside the interface however and in most cases you’ll simply be presented with the default stream. The only way to change the audio stream currently is to use the FFDShow audio tray icon. Right click the icon to bring up a menu that will list all the streams allowing you to select the one you’d like to hear.

Have a question for a future Reader Q & A? Send it in below! Remember, your question may take some time to track down the answer to and quite a few users submit their questions each week so don’t worry if your question doesn’t get answered right away!

Question #1 from stavarotti

Currently, is there any way to stream online radio stations in mediacenter? Webmedia is not available, and that is what i used on vista to stream online radios to both wmc and my extenders. Any help will be appreciated. Oh, additionally, i tried creating individuals .mcl files and using radio stations added through WMP12, however they do not work on the extender. Thanks.

Answer

There is a plug-in available for streaming shoutcast radio stations called mcShoutcast. It’s a paid plug-in ($10) but there’s a two week trial version available and is well worth the money. The plug-in is regularly updated and has a very rich feature set, especially for a streaming radio plug-in. It allows for favorites, artist info, lyrics and works on extenders as well.

Unfortunately at this point there are no plug-ins for other services such as Last.FM and with Last.FM begining to charge users for API access it’s unlikely that one will appear in the near future.

Question #2 from Mo Heb

Can I play iso files in media center?

Answer

Yes, the Media Browser plug-in allows you to load and playback ISO files by mounting them in Daemon Tools. You’ll need to install both Media Browser and Daemon Tools then use the Media Browser configuration tool to set the location of the Daemon Tools software. However, I’m unsure of the status of Daemon Tools for Windows 7 as in earlier betas the program didn’t work properly and alternate programs were the only option.

Question #3 from Mitch King

Ive read the tutorial on how to get Win7MC to use the new Cyberlink PDVD 9 Codecs as the default for TV and DVD playback. I assumed this tutorial was created because the old Vista Decoder Utility would not work in W7. My question is, I have followed the tutorial and everything seems fine, except I cannot see any of the improvements to the video Cyberlink featured in their decoder. Such as up-scaling and refresh rate changes. Is it possible to get these to work in 7MC or will I only get the basic features of PDVD 9. if this is the case, I will undo my changes for the sake of not fixing something that wasn’t broken. HUGE congrats on a fantastic site. It has been so helpful you have no idea!

Answer

Once you’ve setup playback to use Cyberlink to can set the basic defaults by using Filter Manager but you won’t get the more advanced features of the Cyberlink codec. These features aren’t a part of the codec itself and are only available in the actual Cyberlink software.

Question #4 from John

I download a lot of shows from the internet, the subs are in srt file format, I have converted them into smi (which is microsoft’s default subtitle format). They play well in WMP. but they dont load at all into WMC 7 is there another way to load these subtitles? or a setting that has to be configured? Thanks

Answer

Setting up subtitles will depend on your codec setup. You may want to try installing DirectVobSub. For most people this will get subtitles working in almost any situation. If you are running FFDShow you can also check out this guide to setting up subtitles.

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