Sure, Microsoft already offers a slimmed down version of Windows 7 known as Starter which is light enough to run on even the trimmest of netbooks. Not to mention that standard version of Windows 7 are excellent performers as well but there’s always room for improvement and the Starter version of WIndows 7 doesn’t include things like Media Center. [...]
Though the demographic is likely small there are certainly a group of Media Center enthusiasts who have already started using a more centralized server setup to store movie media removing the need for a DVD drive on their actual Media Center machine. This goes for many main stream desktop machines as well, with the ability to buy practically any [...]
Are you one of the many Media Center users already running a Vista Media Center and planning to upgrade to a new Windows 7 install? If so, it’s likely that you’d want to move your recording schedule over as well. For those planning to do a simple upgrade the process should be automatic, however, if you’re planning a clean [...]
Just getting started with Windows 7 Media Center? Microsoft has created a short series of videos to help you get started using your brand new media experience. These videos are perfect for the absolute beginner to the Media Center experience. If this is you and you’re more of a visual learner be sure to give these videos a quick view [...]
We’ve already covered replacing the built in movie library with a third party plug-in like MediaBrowser or Open Media Library. There are even a handful of solutions to hide the default movie start strip and add our own, such as MC Studio and Mikinhosoft’s Hide Strips program. The one problem that has persisted, however, is that pressing the video [...]
Around here we love when someone comes along and creates an application to take even the simplest processes and refines them into an even easier single solution. Previously we covered creating your own bootable USB Windows 7 installation manually and today we’ve got a couple of applications that make the entire process a snap. Even better, both applications are [...]
There are a good number of guide to creating a bootable USB disk to install Windows 7 which is handy when installing on a system that may not have a DVD drive (or any drive at all). Some people like to keep their Media Center HTPC as small as possible and taking the disk drive out of the equation [...]
A default installation of Windows 7 already has incredible performance, capable of running on even the lowest end hardware. That doesn’t mean we aren’t able to eek out just a little more performance from a dedicated Windows 7 Media Center machine though. Windows comes ready to perform a wide range of functions but a dedicated machine really only performs [...]
Wish you could start Windows 7 Media Center without the startup animation, in media only mode or without the shutdown options? Missing Remote has the details on some undocumented startup switches that will allow you to do that and more. Windows 7 Media Center comes packed with a number of ways to start up your Media Center experience just [...]
Just getting started with Windows 7 Media Center and not sure where to start? Well, you’ve already found Hack7MC which is a good start! Windows 7 Media Center is a popular solution for beginning home theater PC users due to it’s simplicity out of the box. This means that to get started you really only need the hardware and [...]
Last week we covered tracking down tuner problems using recording history, this week lets go over a possible fix to the problem. Let’s take a look at changing the tuner priority for specific channels. If you are having trouble with a specific tuner creating bad recordings on a certain channel you may want to try using a different tuner [...]
Is one of your TV tuners giving you problems? Maybe some of your recordings are poor quality compared to the others, no audio or garbled video or audio streams? Track down the problem tuner by using the Recording History inside Windows 7 Media Center.
First note the recordings that are giving you trouble. Jot down the title and episode of [...]
You may have noticed that Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player have slightly different levels of black on your PC monitor (and possibly even your flat screen monitor). If you notice that your black aren’t quite what they should be while using Media Center the reason could be differing nominal ranges.
By default, for the majority, a television’s [...]
Getting an extender to work properly with your Windows 7 Media Center has become slightly easier over the course of the beta but can still prove to be troublesome for many. Though by default Windows 7 now has the ability to transcode many of the formats which once required third party software it’s still far from flawless.
The preferred method [...]
With the final release of Windows 7 coming ever closer we are stating to see a number of very nice tools being released gear toward the new platform. For Media Center users some of the most useful programs being developed are in the area of codec support. With Windows Media Foundation and the new pipeline used in Media Center [...]
From time to time it’s nice to have a go to playlist ready of preselected music for a certain occasion. Most of us would agree that using Media Center to build those playlists is far from ideal though. Many of us have multiple family members who’d like to create playlists from their personal PCs and be able to access [...]
This is a guest post written by Adam Plante, a Hack7MC reader. Do you have a guide you’d like to share with the community? Let us know by dropping us a line through the contact form or email mhealy@hack7mc.com.
This guide assumes you already have media browser installed and configured. Updated 6/3/2009 – This guide has been updated to include [...]
