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My MCE 2005 Upgrade
I pretty much figured that pigs would fly before Dell would support the 2005 upgrade. This was pretty much evident in the fact that they’ve been using the low end ATI AIW 9000 low profile card for a majority of their MCE 2004 machines (what I have in my Dimension 8300). The older AIW cards will not be supported in 2005 since they don’t have mpeg 2 hardware encoder. So, to upgrade to 2005, Dell would have to tell you that you need a new video card and a new TV tuner card.
I have two MCE machines; I use an older Dimension 8100 as my guinea pig. It’s a P4, 2.6ghz, non-HT, 768Mb, (2) 80gb HDD, external 250gb Western Digital drive for Recorded TV, Plextor 708 CD/DVD burner, Turtle Beach sound card.
My upgrade to MCE 2005:
- MCE oem discs: $$ (should be free; here’s where Dell screws you most)
- Video card: ATI 9600XT: $148 on eBay
- TV Tuner card: ATI eHome Wonder: $68 @ at Newegg.com (I got two, since 2005 supports dual tuners)
- Video decoder: nVidia DVD decoder: $20 from their website (apparently the new Cyberlink Power DVD decoder will work too)
I did a clean install of 2005 os once I had installed the cards and tested everything. It all went pretty smoothly. I used the ATI Catalyst 4.10 drivers from their website. The video quality is great for all aps. The Radio button popped up automatically and I have FM and MSN Radio + working inside MCE now….nice, since Dell never bothered to support Radio! I’m gonna upgrade my Dimension 8300 after I have everything working smoothly and the Hauppauge PVR 500 (dual tuner) comes out!
Good luck!
scottsanders
1 Message
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Posted November 11th, 2004 22:00
where did you get the MCE2005 OEM disk?Does the ATI 9600 SE card work with Windows Media Edition 2005? The 9600 SE is cheaper than the XT so would be preferable for me. However, I checked the ATI page http://www.ati.com/buy/promotions/mcesolutions/index.html and the SE chip isn't specifically mentioned. Would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks,
Chris
- you can compare the two cards directly on their websitethe SE does not support their hardware mpeg encode assist; don't know if this is critical to MCE 2005. I'd check other forums (TGB; XPMCE..) and see if anyone has the 9600SE working.
Thank you Structos for the advice to download the Catalyst Driver from ati(Very Important). I was having a problem displaying video or playing my DVD of MCE 2005. appreciate it.
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wxp-w2k-ccc-8-071-041026a-018719c-english.exe
Also, downloaded the Framework 1.1 and installed the same.
I have ordered a ATI eHome from newegg.com and I should be all set to go.
Phew!! what a relief .
Thanks Structos,
Functoid.
Message Edited by functoid on 12-07-2004 12:59 AM
Message Edited by functoid on 12-07-2004 01:01 AM
- structos--excuse my ignorance but doesn't ATI make an all in one card that would be the tv tuner and video card so that i don't have to buy both (you sugeested 9600XT AND a tv tuner card--can't you just buy one card that does both? Is there a reason to buy both? I have a Dimension 8300 with AIW 9000 and want to just replace it and was thinking-"just buy a new AIW card that works with MCE 2005 and I'm done". Too naive? Isn't the AIW 9000 a tv tuner/video card all-in-one (hence the name?) Seem like you're buying extra stuff. Maybe you did that because you wanted 2 tv tuners? (i.e., 1 video card and multiple tv tuners so you got them all separately? i.e., I was thinking I'd buy a combo tv tuner/video card and later on just buy another tv tuner for when iw ant to use that functionality. Is that a bad idea? I guess just let me know how it goes in the dimension 8300 or let me know where I'm confused. Thanks in advance.)
- I also have a Dimension 8300 with the ATI AIW 9000. That machine is currently running MCE 2004 and works fine. The ATI 9000 is an older card with tv tuner onboard. It uses software mpeg 2 encoding; MCE 2005 does not support software encoding! If you try to get drivers for AIW cards on the ATI driver download site, it tells you to go to your oem, but they only work for MCE 2004 (legacy drivers)!So....you have a couple options if upgrading to 2005:1 - some peolpe have kept their ATI 9000 and simply un-installed the tv tuner drivers and bought a new tuner card (hardware encoding) that is supported by MCE 2005. They're using the 9000 as their video card only and are using hacked 2005 drivers. If you do a search on this forum (or TGB or XPMCE) you will find threads that tell you where to get the video drivers.2 - buy a new video card and a new tv tuner card as part of the upgrade. This is the option I've chosen for my machine...why continue to use a video card (and hacked drivers) that are not optimized for 2005 video upgrades.to each his own....;)
Structos-my only other confusion is: can't I buy another all-in-wonder card to replace my 9000 instead of a separate video card and tv tuner card? I know you're not the ATI sales person, but I trust you more than those people as you have first hand experience in what I'm dealing with. In short, I really just want the top-of-the-line card(s) so that I won't have to deal with this kind of thing for at least another couple of years and have it work with MCE 2005 and just work right (I'm almost to the point of just buying a new system from Alienware). ATI sells too many cards and I want the best one for my system that will work in all the ways it should while still being able to use MCE 2005 (I'm also thinking it would be easier to uninstall MCE 2004 and just install XP Pro without MCE and buying a separate software that I know will work with whatever hardware (card) I buy. Hence the Alienware ultimate hassle-free solution.)
As an aside, if I ran Alienware (or another Dell competitor) I would monitor these community forums for this type of stuff and just get more customers...
Thanks again in advance.
structos
14 Posts
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Posted November 11th, 2004 22:00