Your turn: I want to hear how you want Media Center to integrate with Windows Home Server.

Some ideas: A tuner farm, where all your tuners are stored and you watch TV on other Media Centers or Extenders throughout your house?

A single location (basically, a network share) for recorded TV, music, photos, etc, and your tuners are on other Media Centers in your home?

Other ideas?

 

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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

JessZahn:

Some ideas: A tuner farm, where all your tuners are stored and you watch TV on other Media Centers or Extenders throughout your house?

That sounds about right.  Media Center seems to be moving the direction of being a server with extenders anyway. Why have two servers when one should be capable of doing both.  I don't even see much reason to support playback of Recorded TV on a WHS/MCE combo system, it just need to be able to record and serve it out to the extenders.

In the interim, having the ability to record to a WHS or other network share woould be nice. 

- the Hun

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Please don't hate me because I typo

JessZahn:

Some ideas: A tuner farm, where all your tuners are stored and you watch TV on other Media Centers or Extenders throughout your house?

A single location (basically, a network share) for recorded TV, music, photos, etc, and your tuners are on other Media Centers in your home?

I definately prefer the former where the tuners are in the server, simply because I'd see the WHS machine as my "always on" box and I could stop worrying about shutting down my personal system or having it be otherwise busy.  Bonus points if I can trim video and burn DVDs right from the server, too, but I don't mind having to copy the movie file over for as much as I have to do that. 

With a shared video repository, the concept of user ownership of recordings or, at least, parental controls becomes more important, too.

It probably adds another layer of headaches for, say, Zune synchronization but that's another team's headache. ;)

Hi Jessica
Last night I set-up a seconed MCE PC, and had multiple MCE PCs recording over a network to WHS at the same time, all of the TV recordings showing up in my Recorded TV list in the two MCE PC, and on the 360 extender.

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Richard Miller Media Center MVP 2006

Yep...BOTH!!!
TMG

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Vista Ult x86 | ASUS M2N-SLI Del | AMD 64 X2 5200+ | 4gb RAM + 4gb RB | MSI 8600GT | 3x HVR1800 | LC13-S | JVC 56" | PD 8.0 | FFDShow | 180.24 | VGP-XL1B | Harmony880 |80,500,750gb | WHS | FIOS

License Management
The ability to locally store your digital liceses and 'authorize' your local lan for playback.

Tuner-Farm:
All tuners in the server for the MCE client boxes to use and pool for access.  I would ok with the server not doing the recording-service.  Client MCE boxes would record to their own drives then push the finnished recordings to the server for storage.  Think of it like IPTV for your home but much better.

Twist on the above.
Allow the WHS to share "channels" as Windows Media Connect compatible streams.

I prefer actual Vista systems to act as extenders due to the extended versatility, codec support, ability to add HDD-DVD/Blu-Ray Drives and the ability to run Windows games such as HL2, Halo2, etc.

JessZahn:

A single location (basically, a network share) for recorded TV, music, photos, etc, and your tuners are on other Media Centers in your home?

Slight expansion on that idea - have WHS automatically work out where to put the media - i.e. span drives and partitions automatically and basically find somewhere to fit the recording/media/file without the user having to worry about where it went or how to get it back.

 

 

Since this might involved  core change :)  Heres my wishlist.

so its a storage device, yes it should just integrate in automatically if it find the WHS client installed to pull pictures, music, etc to/from it.

Ideally:

1. should be a plugin for adding tuners/recording tv.
   
2. smarter, it should try to detect other tuners based on whats already been installed.
   
3. support for DCT or other possible protected content tuners.
4. ability to plug in dvd changers and watch movies anywhere.
5. ability to add a provider/channel lineup PER input on each tuner.
6. plug and play..  say a new tuner is plugged in usb, you should just detect it, see if its matches a pre-installed one and just notify the WHS clients that a new tuner has been added and autosetup as "analog cable comcast basic" for example.
7. ABILITY TO PLAY DRM RECORDINGS FROM ANY MEDIA CENTER MACHINE.  most important.  I don't want ot be locked to 1 machine to play these back..  any windows machine in the house should be able to play all the tv recorded.
8. shared epg..   
   

Forward moving:

1. developer api to allow post record processing to run. (think dvrmstoolbox but mce could alert plugins that the file is ready).
   
2. developer api to introduce new tuner types without a core update or microsoft.
   
3. developer api for custom conflict resolution addons

EDITED TO ADD:
- remote record support.  actually, make an entire web based epg/etc..  you have access to that as part of WHS.  

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

In addition to what Accident's wishlist -- more Media Center related.

Since it's a network share... most of the issues I've seen that I've seen with network based storage.

1. Better support for audio/media library. should test against say 10K files? Caching of thumnails locally? Sync? WHS aware maybe for MCE?
2. Unlimited or higher number of tuners insted of 2. Better yet, allow users to select # of tuners. If it's a tuner server, I would assume all the media centers in my house would plug in there. I have 8 tuners for 4TVs. Kids wants to record their show and adults want to watch our shows.
3. Better Recording interface and conflict resolution. Since there's multiple tuners, can MCE determine which tuner provides the better quality (ie. SD,HD, etc).
4. Stream any-any. streams to any device from any tuner. PiP anyone?
5. If two family members to record the same show, it should "alert" or some kind of resolution system in place to reduce duplicate recordings and free up tuner.

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Vista Ultimate x64|MSI Custom Built Low Profile|AMD 5800+|4GB DDR2 800Mhz|4x500GB Sammy SATA2 RAID-5|HPG 1600x2|HDHomeRun|HDMI|SPDIF
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Comments posted here are not the opinion of my employer.

Here's what I need:

8 CableCard tuner support or 8 TUNER IPTV support.

At least 4 extender support.

DVD/HD-DVD backup/streaming

:)

Jess,

I'd say "me too" to what folks have said. I'd wager that a tuner farm architecture may be more involved than improving network support in MCE but it may be easier to *cough* "brign em to market":-)

-First-class easy support for recording directly to WHS or to a network share

-Ability for MCE to signal to WHS that a show finished recording. Upon the signal, WHS can then pull down the recording to WHS's store.  This could be an option alongside scheduled copying. This feature could be made available as a developer API (as someone else said) so we could do custom actions upon the signal/callback ie. stripping commercials or transcoding.

-First-class support for adding network shares/WHS shares as WatchedFolders for RecordedTV. No manual registry/ file ACLs or account manipulations.

-Refresh RecordedTV gallery upon entering it (similar to DVD Gallery)

-Support for DVD Streaming to Extenders.

- DVD Gallery as a first class feature

I acknowlege that these some of these might be unrelated or not "sexy" enough but together it makes things more connected and would make WHS more atractive to me.

I think Media Center as an application needs to exist in both Windows client and Windows Home Server products.  Why would we still need it on the Windows client?  Because it adequately serves certain markets such as college/dorm students or single person/pc households.  It also serves as an entry-level solution.  However, in family/multi-pc homes the Windows Home Server/Media Center can offer more of a premium experience.  That said, I'd like to describe a future customer experience...

Lets say I bought a Vista Premium laptop and like the functionality of Media Center but want a setup that is more available & dedicated.  My next thought is to buy a v2 WHS with the same Media Center capabilities I am already familiar with.  So heres the experience I would like to have...

1. Same form factor and plug-in experience that the current generation of WHS units provide.  No keyboard or monitor needed.

2. Unique to the v2 WHS unit is that it has a group of (4-6) USB ports on the back specifically for peripherals that are not to be part of the WHS storage pool.  I plug-in my USB based tuner(s) into those ports.  Thats it (I did not setup Media Center or install any drivers at this point).

3. After installing the WHS Connector software on my laptop and other home PCs I decide to test out the Media Center setup on WHS.  To do that you must have either Vista Premium, Vista Ultimate or a Media Extender.

4. Since my laptop is running Vista Premium, I launch Media Center and I see something new (that WHS Connector software installed).  I get a prompt that lists the available Media Centers on my home network.  I could choose my laptop that is listed there but instead I select the name I gave to my WHS.

5.  After connecting, I get the standard LargeScreenUI and prompt'd to complete the first-time Media Center configuration.  When I get to the tuner configuration screen, I notice it has automatically detected the USB tuner(s) and is requesting if it may proceed to download/install certified drivers.  I click Ok (assuming it would get those from Windows Update Services) and soon after told the installation is complete.

6.  Now that the installation is complete, I am able to verify Live TV is operating as expected.  All looks good and I'm finished.  I notice in the Media Center client there is a "Connect to Media Center" option.  Selecting that prompts me with the list I saw earlier, listing all my connected Media Centers.  I select my laptop to return to local Media Center operation.

7.  So now might be a good time to transfer my previous recordings to the Windows Home Server.  I go into Videos, select folder and a menu pops up.  The option "Transfer to Media Center" is what I want.  And selecting it presents me a list of Media Centers on my home network.  I select WHS and a progress bar is displayed as it is processing my request.  Also, I could go through the same process with my laptop's Music and Pictures if necessary.  This "Transfer to Media Center" is vital for centralizing content.

8.  Finished installing, verifying and transfer my previous recordings.

Note:  All the things I could do like Remote Scheduling through MSN TV is still possible with WHS.  Even installing Media Center applications on WHS.  However MC Application installation will need to be done via the WHS Console.

Bonus:  It would be a nice touch to have a small LCD/SideShow display on the front WHS.  This could be useful in displaying the status of backups, network and a host of things around recordings.

hate to have a simple response, but yeah, for me just the tuner farm would be fine. allowing me to just take all my tuners from my systems & throw them in the server. This would allow me to have my server be huge, and then basically my client box would only need to be the cpu, mobo, video card & the smallest hard drive possible for the OS.

now of course, to allow this integration, you have to allow streaming of LiveTV to a client system...since now all my tuners will be in my WHS box...which is stored in a closet.

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Mike Garcen
TGB Moderator | MissingRemote Editor/Reviewer| Microsoft MVP - Media Center
My MCE Setup

I realize that this will probably never happen but...

CableCard on existing pcs, I don't care if the files are encrypted so they can't be shared. Also rather than not recording CGMS-A (not sure if thats the right set of letters, the do not record flag) encrypt the file so it can't be "shared" online.

As far as DRM, if I can watch my TV on my MCE machines and my Extenders I'm happy. I don't care if it is otherwise encrypted.

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- Matthew Newman
- Pentium D 2.8 Dual Core EMT 64 * Vista Ultimate * 1 Gig Ram * 500 GB Local HD * 2 x ATI TV Wonder Elite (550)
- Core 2 Duo 2.4 EMT 64 * Vista Ultimate 64 * 2 Gig Ram * 250 GB Local
- Xeon 3040 * SBS 2003 * 1 Gig Ram * 260 GB Local

I have 4 Vista Premium and an Xbox 360 acting as an extender; my personal system is "the" Media Center machine and therefore must be on 24/7. And last I have a WHS that is also always on.

The perfect enhancement for me is the following:

1) Add Media Center functionality to WHS, allowing the WHS to record, store and support extenders. (No direct viewing)
2) Allow any Vista Premium or Ultimate PC to act as an extender.

Simple, then we could have one true server instead of the MCE functionality being locked to my PC.