Windows 7

[venkatcr]

Man, you guys have guts to try a beta version of MS OS. I, personally dont goto any MS OS and service packs till atleast its been in the market for quite some time and had time to stabilize. MS is notorious in releasing bugggy initial versions of softwares and waiting the customers to do the testing for them

With XP and Vista, MS OSs don't crash anymore. Even if they do, with a bit of care, you can ensure you will never lose your data. I, touch wood, have never lost a byte of data in 25 years.

So if a promising new OS comes along, what is the harm in trying? Worst case, I can always go back to my reliable XP. I find a bit of adventure is good for the adrenalin rush.

Cheers

 

[Rem]

jus a myth people have or created by certain section of the people that all MS OS's crash and all the other OS's dont I myself have used linux, all flavours of windows and linux and I can say that if used properly by a person with decent knowledge of computers you are not gonna lose any data (of course if you experiment too much you may need to know how to recover from crashed systems(linux & MS) as well).

testing beta versions is always fun you never know waht you gonna get moreover I do it in a diff system all together even if i want to get rid of it (Windows 7 works till August2009) i can always format the whole thing without effecting my data.

 

[Rem]

Guys,

Thought you might be interested in this article about multimedia capability of Windows 7 from PCMAG



Multimedia in the Windows 7 Beta - Reviews by PC Magazine

 

[spirovious]

I found that MP on win7 doesnt recognise DD/DTS sound all time.
Few DVDs played with5.1 & others with 2.0.
It cannot add VOB files as video files in playlist.If you select DVD mov manually ,it plays but cannot use curser to FF.It you select next file manually,it starts from start.There may be special settings,dont know.

 

[Rem]

Extract from the article I listed above


"You cannot directly play ISO or VOB filescontent containers on DVDsbut VOBs can be assembled into one large file and renamed as an MPG for playback. This renaming prevents fast-forwarding or rewinding within the interface, but using a utility such as the creatively named VOB2MPG to convert them to MPG enables this. "

About DTS I guess its a bug VOB's too they got to play without all this process described above I guess they would fix it in the final edition

 

[spirovious]

Thanks for reply,
I will got to the link you gave.
These were my basic odsevations 2 days back & not used Win7 since then.
XP is nice.

 

[gobble]

which are the best free OS / linux for this application?

XUbuntu 8.0.4.2 with XBMC is your best bet. XBMC Media Center

Still troublesome compared to M$ Windoze, only recommended for the die-hard Free Software activists or those hassled by sluggish desktop and viruses.

Regards

 

[gobble]

jus a myth people have or created by certain section of the people that all MS OS's crash and all the other OS's dont I myself have used linux, all flavours of windows and linux and I can say that if used properly by a person with decent knowledge of computers you are not gonna lose any data (of course if you experiment too much you may need to know how to recover from crashed systems(linux & MS) as well).

I agree. I use only Linux today but I tried win2K and XP and it never crashed on me for years. The problem was due to Indian grey market of hardware and dealers palming of buggy stuff when customers bargained for that extra 100 rupees discount. So Windows got the bad reputation.

I use XUbuntu because it is better than Gnome or KDE and more slick and speedy than M$ XP. But M$ has produced a great platform in Win2K and XP no doubt.

Cheers

 

[Krish82]

Windiws 7 did not recognize my SB Live sound card, i had to install a third party writtren driver, and this works fine.

The Media player seems to be providing better quality.The Aero interface is superb. No crashes so far, some setting changes the wallpaper every 5 mins or so.. will get back after more usage.

 

[thevortex]

With XP and Vista, MS OSs don't crash anymore. Even if they do, with a bit of care, you can ensure you will never lose your data. I, touch wood, have never lost a byte of data in 25 years.

So if a promising new OS comes along, what is the harm in trying? Worst case, I can always go back to my reliable XP. I find a bit of adventure is good for the adrenalin rush.

Cheers

Venkat - I agree that not everything that MS does is crap. But Vista is a disaster, really.

And if you like a bit of adventure I would suggest Linux. They are fantastic for HT purposes too although you probably want to check if your sound card (if you are using one) and display card (again if you are using one) are compatible with the drivers available in the particular Linux distribution.

 

[thevortex]

XUbuntu 8.0.4.2 with XBMC is your best bet. XBMC Media Center

Still troublesome compared to M$ Windoze, only recommended for the die-hard Free Software activists or those hassled by sluggish desktop and viruses.

Regards

I would actually suggest distros like Sabayon, Dream Linux. Even Ubuntu has a Multimedia specialist edition DVD. At least it used to have. I got one in one of those Chip or Digit DVDs and that was simply awesome.

For those who like the Apple look and yet would like the security of Linux without any compromise for a HT system, do look at DreamLinux. Its simple yet effective.

 

[gobble]

Venkat - I agree that not everything that MS does is crap. But Vista is a disaster, really.

And if you like a bit of adventure I would suggest Linux. They are fantastic for HT purposes too although you probably want to check if your sound card (if you are using one) and display card (again if you are using one) are compatible with the drivers available in the particular Linux distribution.

Too experimental for the end-user. Buy any high-end card and you will find the linux drivers only support basic output, and all the support for features that make the card expensive are missing. Why? Nobody cares to write fully functional drivers for them, at least not the vendor whose primary responsibility it is. The " write code in spare time" free software developers only do enough to make it functional, can't blame them though.

I would not recommend windows end-users to move to Linux for a few years yet.

Cheers

 

[thevortex]

Too experimental for the end-user. Buy any high-end card and you will find the linux drivers only support basic output, and all the support for features that make the card expensive are missing. Why? Nobody cares to write fully functional drivers for them, at least not the vendor whose primary responsibility it is. The " write code in spare time" free software developers only do enough to make it functional, can't blame them though.

I would not recommend windows end-users to move to Linux for a few years yet.

Cheers

My setup is somewhat recent and I have no problems running Linux distros - Live CD or straight off the hard disk. But mileage does vary. I have seen ATI display cards to be a real pain most of the time.

And the most problematic aspect when it comes to Linux drivers is probably related to printers which I dont have at home

But really, I would wholeheartedly recommended a distro such as DreamLinux. The average Windows user is going to sit up and rub his eyes at the panache and poise along with the performance that Linux has.

Also DreamLinux comes with some of the proprietary codecs installed. So for the newbies it is an easy introduction although the Linux stalwarts are known to frown on this policy. Do try the distro out if you have not as yet.

 

[thevortex]

A HTPC setup powered by Geexbox - HTPCs cannot get more simpler than that. And to have this sytem powered by Geexbox you dont need more than a Pentium III machine!

Mythbuntu too is making rapid strides in this direction and is worth checking out.

 

[Rem]

Venkat - I agree that not everything that MS does is crap. But Vista is a disaster, really.

And if you like a bit of adventure I would suggest Linux. They are fantastic for HT purposes too although you probably want to check if your sound card (if you are using one) and display card (again if you are using one) are compatible with the drivers available in the particular Linux distribution.

Thevo,

I agree that Linux especially some flavours of it are real fun to work with, I myself used to work with it when I was in my college and school days that was a good 7-8yrs back I have tried Slackware, Mandrake, Fedora, Red-Hat(the one they had before fedora came). Once I started working I found it more and more difficult to make it as productive as my Windows system coz I needed to devote more time to find the right software or if its a new hardware that I have got needed to find the right drivers or make someone get or make one for me(I had a few frnds who were good enuf to do tht ).

Once you start working I guess you tend to have very little time to devote for all this. This is just my view, I always was a lot lazier than most around me .

 

[Rem]

Tell you what thevo wateva you guys have written till now is tempting me to try the newer versions of Linux. You suggest one for me which one do you think is best for multimedia setup. will get it up and running tomo

 

[thevortex]

Tell you what thevo wateva you guys have written till now is tempting me to try the newer versions of Linux. You suggest one for me which one do you think is best for multimedia setup. will get it up and running tomo

Well, Geexbox and Mythubuntu are specialist HTPC distros. These will suit your purpose but I would imagine they may take some setting up especially if your HTPC has some pretty new hardware. In specific problems arise with the sound cards and display cards.

But if you want to just wet your feet, I would recommend looking at DreamLinux. It is simple and ready for your use straight out of the box.

I also find Slax to be very very intuitive. Their package management feature is just about the best I have come across - in terms of ease of deployment.

 

[venkatcr]

Venkat - I agree that not everything that MS does is crap. But Vista is a disaster, really.

For some funny reason I was very averse to switching to Vista and have stuck to XP till today. So I had no issues with Vista as I never used it.

After looking at this discussion between you and Rem, I have decided to try out a version of Linux. Will bring back memories of days when I used to write drivers for printers and other accessories.

Cheers

 

[thevortex]

XP, it is for me too! There were legitimate reasons many years ago to make a switch from 2000 professional or 98 to XP. Today I find no legitimate reason to make this jump from XP to Vista. It is really as simple as that.

I do hope that Windows does not commit a similar mistake with Windows 7. It really must be an improvement over everything that XP is - starting from the filesystem to the windows explorer functionality, making the search function more robust and integrated et al. Otherwise making tweaks to the browser IE and expanding the codecs on Windows Media player is not going to improve its chances for success. At least those are my thoughts.

Also I was going through a few of my earlier posts. I should have mentioned that distros was short for Linux distributions. In contrast to Operating Systems such as Windows or Apple, Linux has different variations on offer. The differences between what are known as flavours of Linux can be as small as in the interface that you interact with or as far reaching as the file system in itself and operation thereof. This diversity actually adds to the beauty of Linux while still presenting a ticklish choice for the users in choosing their distribution.

In short this is the kind of thing that the average audiophile would love - choosing and sorting from hundreds of options and then rinse and repeat! The excitement is all in the hunt, eh?

 

[Rem]

Thevo,

m planning to try it in my 5yr ol laptop so dont thk there should be any issue with drivers if at all any driver problem is there i got the weekend for it will go thru those threee distros and see which one i like.

welcome aboard Venkat join the fun.


Thanks a lot Thevo and others. Btw vista s**ks, XP with SP3 the best for normal computer users,linux for ppl like us; think Win 7 is gonna rock as well. cant read too much into a beta version.