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In Reply to: Re: Which Version of Vista? posted by Christine Tham on February 12, 2007 at 12:51:44:
Thanks. Since this computer is purely for audio (feeding my dddac)I don't think I need MCE. I do, however, want the ability to use room correction. Still need to figure out if Basic will do what I need.
Follow Ups:
The reason I suggested you should try Media Center is that it's a nice interface. It works even on tiny screens - for example, I have run Media Center successfully over TV output to a tiny 7" LCD screen. And you can navigate across artists and albums (or use folder navigation through a third party interface).Because Media Center works through Windows Media Player, which in turn uses DirectShow, you can get all sorts of non standard formats like FLAC, APE, Ogg Vorbis, etc. supported by loading an appropriate DirectShow filter and a third party plugin called WMPTagSupportExtender.
In summary, Media Center is not just for watching TV. It works as a very nice audio player frontend.
Thanks for the thoughts on MCE. Right now I'm using Windows Media Player because I'm playing around with the Burwen Bobcat, otherwise I tend to use J River and sometimes Foobar. I have my laptop by my couch with USB cable running to my audio rack. It works well, so I'm not sure I need functionality beyond WMP.BTW, Christine, thanks in general for taking the time to post so regularly. I've learned alot from you over the months as I've been putting together my PC-based system.
Regards,
.
Good luck with your new installation Christine.I have been curious about Windows Media Player because of my eventual desire to control my headless server via a UMPC (yes, on one of those tiny 7" screens...). MS has put out what they call the Origami Experience, a UI for UMPC's running Vista that is a very visually appealing interface.
It runs audio through WMP which has made me shy away from it as most audiophile oriented people here seem to run almost anything else as their front end than WMP (Foobar, Winamp, JRiver etc). Seeing you put in a plug for WMP makes me wonder if I have been right to dismiss it out of hand without adding it to my learning curve.
Are there issues with ASIO and WMP? Can one output bitperfect music streams using Vista and WMP?
Thanks,
The main issue for using WMP in Windows XP has been the penalty of going through kmixer. It doesn't support ASIO or kernel streaming. Other than that it is a pretty decent player, and can be extended to support non Microsoft formats (check out something called WMPTagSupportExtender, and directshow filters for FLAC, MPC, Wavpack, Ogg etc.).With Vista, kmixer is no longer an issue since we can set the default sampling rate for all shared mode applications. Given that, I don't see any real issues with using WMP (especially since Media Center is such a nice interface).
Thanks Christine.Very informative post as always. You have a great ability to educate with your posts.
I'll be keeping a closer eye on the Vista threads from now on. Was going to build my system around XP and wait for at least SP1 on Vista but may go the Vista route if the audio handling is de-mystified and seems bullet proof.
Best,
.
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