mikinho

[mikinho]

[quote=pittsoccer33]

Just say for the sake of discussion I go to Best Buy tonight and buy their most basic 8 port gigabit switch.  How will I connect everything to it, and what about it is going to disappoint me and make me wish I had bought a better one?  What is it about the Xbox’s non gigabit connection that will cause a problem, what types of issues would they be?

[/quote]

When using ANY Windows Media Center Extender (andor any 100Mbps device) you may get poor performance.  On the Xbox that means stuttering video, connection failures, etc.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929707 for some of the issues and fix.  The fix on the network card can cause other issues so I personally recommend fixing it by getting better hardware.

[mikinho]

[quote=skirge01]

Michael’s big on the enterprise hardware.  Personally, I say just pick up a somewhat cheap Netgear, like this one.  Or two of them.  I have two in my attic for my media closet and they work just fine.

[/quote]

That is only $15 saved compared to the product I mentioned 😛

Netgear is one of the better “cheap” gear as they also make some Enterprise level switches.

[mikinho]

The primary reason you’ll want a decentgood switch is to handle negotiating varying network device speeds.  Yes, you can turn on flow control on the network cards but even that doesn’t compensate for the issues you’ll see.

[mikinho]

If you use a HTPC and extender you definitely want something better than the Monoprice or Linksys.  Most 1st and even 2nd generation consumer Gigabit switches are absolute crap.  Even worse when you use mixed network devices like a Fast Ethernet based Xbox.  You would get better performance from a Fast Ethernet only switch.

Based on as little budget as possible I would recommend the HP J9559A#ABA V1410-8G

[mikinho]

How many ports do you need?

Based on the number of ports I would recommend either a HP Procurve (Unmanaged) or Dell (Web managed)

[mikinho]

I think it is as silly as a certificate being expired on one of the servers in the web farm.

Also note, it is not just WMC affected.  Other devices such as Boxee have been reported as affected as well.

[mikinho]

Thanks.  Turns out my OCZ drives are eligible.  Now I just need to find a time to be offline (they are in my routers) to do the update 

[mikinho]

Thanks for the follow up!  I’m always a bit weary when recommending audio equipment as perceived sound quality is very subjective and everyone’s taste will vary.

[mikinho]

[quote=umdivx]

[quote=topperdude]By extenders, are you referring to the Xbox360 as being able to play M2TS files natively (streamed from an MCE server or from a NAS)?[/quote]

Correct. I can play back M2TS files on my xbox 360 through the media center interface.

[/quote]

I don’t believe this to be technically correct.  They are not being natively played.  They are being transcoded by the Media Foundation framework.

 

[quote=umdivx]

[quote]Is this specific to a specific operating system or can an extender do this with any version of MCE (WinXP, 7MC).[/quote]

 

It very well could be. I am using Windows 7.

-Josh

[/quote]

Media Foundation Transcoding is only available on W7.  In Vista you could play files by using T360 but it was not a very reliable solution.

[mikinho]

[quote=oliverredfox]

I just got sucked into buying a bunch of stuff off Slickdeals.  Must repeat manta, “do not need, do not need…”.  This is going to be tempting me all day.

[/quote]

Lol, I know the feeling all too well.

[mikinho]

Check the below registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionMedia CenterSettingsAutoScan

_arSeenTVDrives

You’ll want all of the _arSeen*Drives to have a value of <<NULL>>

[mikinho]

Turn on “Fast Boot” and Disable Legacy USB in the BIOS.  I believe that has the same outcome.

Note: It does prevent you from being able to get to the BIOS…to get to it hold down the power button for a few seconds when turning the system on.  I do this on all my media systems once they are stable.

[mikinho]

[quote=oliverredfox]

I’m temped too.  Do you know if the two would overlap signals or if the dongles use a signature(etc) to keep that from happening?

[/quote]

I believe they have their own pairing that it comes pre-configured with as the keyboard has instructions to pair it with the dongle in case it is “lost”

[mikinho]

For this price I may pick up a second.  If that gives you an idea of the review (and I very much disliked the Logitech diNovo Mini)

[mikinho]

That is horrible. It is amazing how often this type of animal cruelty happens though.  My wife and I have done dog and cat rescuefostering and see it all too often.  Thankfully for every cruel person there are loving people going out of their way to help the injured animals.

[Author]

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