The interface looks great and it is very easy to nevigate. Here is what I want:

Customization:

1. Be able to add or remove stripes and tile (with no hacks or limits on the number of tiles). The only reason I don't add third party plug-ins related to TV (such a MiraWorld TV or TVTonic) is that they make the tile for MyMovies to disappear. So I can only use MyMovies and no other plug-in that will auto add a tile to the TV stripe.

2. Be able to determine which folders VMC will watch for video, music etc with the ability to choose different folders for each. As an example: All of the albom art I have appears on my pictures tile. I have no idea how to remove this while allowing the music tile to show all of my music.

3. It would be great if I can send a shortcut of programs or links that will appear on VMC as a tile, the same way I do when I want to send a shortcut to Windows Desktop. This will alow me for exaple to add an online radio stripe and send links to my favorite radio streams, each will appear as a tile. Right now the only way to be able to play the streams is to same them as a playlist, go to music tile and look for the playlist.

FirstSalvo:

Tight_Wad:

How about an ability to change the theme of it?  Background picture or color.

Third parties have already begun work in this area.  Blizo's done some great theme work already...

   http://www.mediacenterthemes.com/

His application is in the later stages of beta now.  I'd rather have MS work on an area that no one has conquered yet... complete customization control of the Start Menu!

Ms should have the best ablility to do it within vmc.  Not to do it with file mod or hack ( no offense to Blizo ment ) outside of vmc. 

I have tried the program, but after having vmc errors accure, and having to do a factory restore to my computer, It might have been just my bad luck, but I won't be installing it again until it goes beyond the beta stage.

Another vote for customization.

Items I would like to see

-be able to change the background like the wallpaper on the desktop of windows

-have recorded tv more organized: series, shows 1-?

-ability to remove unwanted icons

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Windows Vista Home Prem. SP1 x64
AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core CPU 5200+
G.Skill 3GB 240pin DDR2 800MHz
ASUS 7600GS 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express-2x
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500MCE
ECS Elite Group Socket AM2 ATX Motherboard

Likes:

• I generally think it works great
• Love the translucent start menu when watching live TV

Dislikes:

• Customization (lack of) - would like a simple UI to remove buttons, and move buttons around. Most important for me is to remove buttons, there are a few buttons I don't want to see...
• Photos/videos grouped together, I hate this
• Search - music search should be accessed in the music library, not just from the start menu. You can probably extend this to other parts of the product also, but I feel this pain mostly in the music library

What if you used the same type configuration menu that is currently in XP & Vista for the TASK BAR & START button configuration, you can check a box to have the "RUN" command on the start menu or "PRINTERS and FAXES".

Just locate a simalar menu under SETUP in the Media Center.

To see what Im talking about in XP Open Control Panel, then "Task Bar & Start" button icon, then click the "start menu tab" click customize. scroll down until you see the items list towards the bottom. Bassically those settings are a link to the registry.

If the same type menu was used in the Media Center module then we could "uncheck" items on the menu we dont want and "check" items we do want. I dont use half of the items currently on the list.

Last.... several buttons we could add using a "BROWSE" and locate an exe or com file. If the application doesnt work in Media Center allow us to just uncheck it.

 

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VMC: Intel DP35DP, Q6600 Quad Core, 2.4Ghtz, LG BluRay HDDVD, 7-500GB WD SATA II, ATI 3870 512mb PCI-E
2 ATI-650 Pro, 2 Verizon FIOS Set top HD's
Logitech Harmony 880 Remote

Overall, I love the Start Menu. My major gripe is the enormously TINY video in the bottom left hand corner. You know...if you're watching TV or RTV and you hit the green button to go back to the start menu it minimizes it so that it is so small you can barely see it unless you are 1 foot away from the screen.

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Key things for me are;

1) User customisation of menu options.  Alo ability to only search for certain types of media in certain folder. For example - only search for Pictures in a 'Pictures' folder (not pull pictures from albumn art under music, etc.

2) Ability to add cover art for video files also - i.e. tag to file as per music tracks

3) Ability to pick up Scart to Composite sources when scanning for TV signals - want to record from my Virgin Media box for example.

4) Ability to remove sample content (e.g. video files, pictures, etc).

5) Ability to add pin protection to specific files or folders as required (e.g. 4 digit pin to enter a folder/file) to stop youngsters accessing innapropriate material.

Thanks

What I'd like to see:

1. A way to put a set of user-hideable and/or user-configurable control buttons somewhere on the page.
1. Simplest:  up-arrow, down-arrow, etc.  That way, using a mouse could be a bit easier than the current way of trying to coax the interface to do what I want.
2. A way to add custom buttons that cause a learnable IR-signal to be transmitted by the computer.  So I can control volume on my receiver, change the receiver input, change the TV input, change the receiver 2nd room configuration, etc.  I use a second (cloned) display (7" touchscreen) as a remote control panel, so this would enable that second display to control everything in my system, rather than just the computer, and do so from the context of MC.
3. Add context-sensitivity for some of these (similar to the play, pause etc. buttons that appear when you play a song and use the mouse)
2. A "manage files" capability.  Imagine a multi-select window pane that shows a list of files / folders, and you can quickly go through and select the ones you want to move / delete / whatever, and then an action drop-down and target-selection interface for saying where to put them (if applicable).  Think picture sub-folders and picture mgmt.  A similar paradigm might work well for making playlists.  Yes, I can do this from Windows Explorer or WMP respectively, but not very well with nothing more than a remote and the TV.

While I'm here, some other things I'd like to see:

1. Pool Recorded TV from 2 machines.  I can write them to the same location; that's not hard.  But I'd like to be able to make it so that each computer is aware of the other computer's tuners, and they cooperate to meet recording requirements.
1. A starting point might be a driver that makes one MC be able to see a tuner in another MC as a local tuner, and be able to control it as a kind of guest.  Right now my XBOX can control the tuner in my 2k5 MCE, and shows the constraints that pertain such as recording conflicts.  I should be able to access the tuner on MCE from another MC as well, and change channels, see conflicts, etc.
2. A shared recording schedule, so that two computers with tuners can share recording responsibilities, and leverage each others' recordings.
3. A shared recording library.  This can kind of be done by simply looking for media files in shared folders, but it isn't very smooth w.r.t. the TV interface.
2. Second screen interface.  Right now MC shows up on the main display, and disables the extended mode "theater mode" capabilities of my GPU for the secondary display.

If I could have a control screen on one display (with no video larger than just the video in the little window in the corner, and the afore-mentioned custom IR control buttons), and full-screen video on the other display (or show control screen content when appropriate), I could very easily setup an extremely powerful home media control system with individual room control panels.  Right now there are no small screens capable of accepting 1080p or 1080i content, and even if there were the 10' display tends to make the on-screen controls too small for using the mouse features in MCE with a pointer on the touchscreen.  So instead I have to down-scale a 1080i signal using a TVone device.  And since I can't control non-MCE systems, I can't turn on/off the receiver or a zone, change TV inputs, adjust volume, etc.  If I could, I would have a complete solution.  Think a Logitech Harmony 880, but on a wall and with an interactive, context-sensitive, data-driven (my songs, my pics, etc) interface.  Without, I've been searching around for some device that can send IR signals to my other components and MCE together.  Not having much luck either.

All of that said, I really like the sounds and visuals!  They look sharp both on-screen and in my makeshift control pad.  I agree with others about the groupings in VMC.

I use MCE 2k5, so this may not apply to Vista.

It would save me a little annoyance if the right menu item was selected when I first launch MC.  My first choice would be to monitor which menu item I most use and select that, second choice would be a configurable choice of which menu item is first selected, third choice is to select whichever top-level menu item was last accessed.  It sounds like a trivial thing, and it is, but my universal remote makes this an issue.

Easy there guys.... we need to stay on topic here.  Charlie asked us about our thoughts regarding the START MENU... not to dig into all other aspects of VMC functionality.

Its great to see Charlie & MS soliciting inputs from us here on this forum... lets not bombard him with stuff off topic.  We want him to keep coming back!

Love the start menu but would like to be able to customize the start menu. Hide items that I don't need or for example have a guest mode if some one wants to play around and for them not to be able to delete pictures or recorded tv or music. Also add games strip where I could drag and drop games. Make video box in the lower left bigger.

i'm w/ the general concensus...modifying the layout of the start menu to your liking (adding/removing/positioning buttons and strips).

not sure if this applies to the start menu, but would love to disable the "delete" button for all the media available...don't need kids or nephews deleting nething :D

1. The options within a category should cycle as you continue one direction or the other. For example, when you scroll right in the TV category and reach the end to the "Search" item, if you continue right, you should be able to get back to the beginning to "more TV".
   
   
2. The clock is WAY too small. Even with my glasses on, it's hard to see the small clock in the upper right hand corner. Making the clock bigger wouldn't interfere with any other interface items
   
   
3. For that matter the selected category box is too small. And much of the text throughout the Media Center interface is too small to be seen on an SD Tv set.
   
   
4. Videos is placed with Photos, which is okay for home videos, but it's not good if some of your videos are movies/tv shows in a file format other than dvr-ms (like the AVI format)
   
   
5. There should be able to customize the start menu. I should be able to hide items that I don't want to see. I'm not into sports, so I'd probably hide that feature. And perhaps you should be able to rearrange the order of the items within a category. For example, maybe someone would prefer the "live TV" option left of "DVD Library". Or perhaps someone would like "live TV" as the default TV option instead of "recorded TV"
   
   
6. Plus, it would be nice to add optional features within a category that are not currently available. For example, being able to add "scheduled TV" to the main start page might be useful to some.
   
   
7. It would be cool if the thumbnails of "recorded tv", "dvd library", "pictures library", etc, actually represented files within your media library.
   
   
8. For the Music, it would be nice if the latest played playlist was one of the music category's options.
   
   
9. Perhaps adding different color schemes other than blue: black, red, green, etc.
   
   
10. It would also be nice if there were 2 separate categories for "TV shows" and "Movies". These categories could include recorded programs (dvr-ms), ripped DVD files, avi and other video files formats . For example, if I choose "TV shows", it would be nice to see the episodes of Scrubs I recorded, the episodes of South Park in avi format, the DVDs of House I ripped. Likewise, if I choose "Movies", it would be nice to see "Pirates of the Carabbean" that I recorded from TV, the movie Batman Begins I have in avi format, and the DVD movie "Mission Impossible" I have ripped onto my computer. Some things like the recorded TV programs (dvr-ms) can be categorized into these 2 separate categories automatically based on the meta data, but some of the other videos (i.e. the ones stored in avi format) would need to be categorized by the user.
    

For the most part we really like the Vista Media Center start menu.

Some improvements my family and I would like to see:

1. Provide a much larger preview window for the currently playing video.  It needs to be big enough so anyone can still watch the show while someone fiddles with other things such as searching and scheduling a recording.  On our 51" HDTV something like 12-15" would be a reasonable minimum to keep my wife and/or children from "screaming" when anyone schedules a new recording.
   
2. Separate the folder selection for photos and videos.
   
3. Add on the main start page a 2 day weather forecast, including current temperature.
   
4. Add a menu item for a 5 day weather forecast, complete with text details (amount of snow expected, etc.).
   
5. Make the start menu customizable.  In our case we specifically want to be able to remove Internet TV.  Since no Internet TV is available in Canada having this item in the start menu is simply an annoyance.  I suspect that most users would like to add/hide some start menu items.  This needs to be available through a settings GUI within MC that is easy to operate.

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote