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[DWAnderson]

I am mindful of the caveat with each recent build: "We're just starting work on Media Center 11.  We appreciate your feedback on it, but MC11 may not work as expected and we can't yet fully support it.  When upgrading from MC 10, you will lose your settings.  Some plugins still do not work."

I currently am a happy user of MC10, but at some point will try to build part of my HTPC around MC. Theaterview in MC10 was somewhat lacking, so I haven't used that. But I'm intruiged by positive comments about Theaterview in MC11.

How stable is MC11? Is it likely to trash my tags or a new library I create? Are the new features of MC11 worth the move at this point?

It's hard to tell from just the descriptions of the new fixes and features that come with each new build, so please help me out.

[Robert Taylor]

I've made the changover to MC11 about 2 weeks ago.

When I installed I just dumped my old database (hey, I've got the time to re-create my handful of playlists / smartlists), de-installed 10, installed 11 and re-built the library from scratch. I noticed nothing untoward with any of my tags etc.

I have Media Server server running on my "house server", and I access my music from 3 other PCs around the house.

I use the G-Force Gold visualisations. I DON'T use it for any of the following:

Document management
Video / TV

It is purely for music management / streaming throughout the house.

Early in the piece I noticed a few strange things, but nothing overly upsetting.

I'm currently running the latest build.

It's been working fine.

[jleerigby]

I've been casually watching MC11 progress before I consider an upgrade.  There are certainly some nice new features mentioned along with some stuff that doesn't seem to fit in a Media Center program or doesn't add a great deal of value.  I don't remember seeing much in the way of Theatre View improvements though but maybe I missed it.  The lack of work in MC9.1 or 10 on this unfinished aspect of MC was a major cause of frustration for me and led me to investigate other products.  Thankfully a NetRemote interface into MC came to the rescue so I no longer care whether Theatre View gets properly finished, and I think that's probably just as well.

[LonWar]

I have been using 11 since the first day it came out... There were some problems but there mostly gone...

BACKUP YOUR LIBRARY, then install MC11,
if you don't like go back to 10 and restore your library.

Listening to: 'Invaders' from 'Number Of The Beast, The' by 'Iron Maiden' on Media Center 11

[hit_ny]

I have been using 11 since the first day it came out

Out of curioisty, what does v11 do that v10 does not ? Do you use any of the new features ?

i know you have a changelist of both, but would like to hear a summary of your experience.

[LonWar]

For me to write something like that out would take a while...

For me...

Doc Handling
Improved Column Sizing
New Tile view - --- Still a work in progress
When you make changes in the DB it no longer holds up the whole program... You can now do anything while the tags are updating

And a bunch of others that I missed...

[Jaguu]

Well, so far MC11 contains a set of very nice, innovative features, but they are more like interesting ideas that they are planning to implement (such as document management, zone synching, localization, tile view etc.).

I don't think any of those new featuers are really done yet. Just note it is alpha not even beta. But if you want to follow the development process, you can easily upgrade to MC11. It is built upon the very stable MC10 and it does not seem that they are making fundamental changes to internal structures, but rather adding missing or new extra features. The only exception was a big improvement to the database, but this seems to be done by now.

So, if you are not interested in following MC11 development, stay with MC10. Personally, my productive environment is still MC10 and I have MC11 on a test pc. They were also promising to implement parallel installation of MC10 and MC11. It was a hot topic a few weeks ago, but for the time being it has descended their priority list.

[bedessy]

I tryed v11 And desided to took the advise of the staff. an weight until that beta and alpha is taken off and make it a official release. Because what i when throw with beta 10.01 throw 10.99. I'm going to hold off until, I think there at 11.34version now. When they get up to 11.80 or 11.90's then i'll upgraded. Because of the time-out's and stuff. Unless you got update-I-diss. Go-ahead try it out. Keep in mind that time-out minds it will last maybe a week then you will have to download the next or latest version. And make sure you save this form site in internet exployer in your favorites, so you can come back to this form, and download the latest version. Because the icon on your desktop for Media Center WILL NOT WORK AFTER A TIMEOUT. GOOD LUCK. SAVE THIS FORM IN INTERNET EXPLOYER.

[LonWar]

I have tried all there alpha beta versions from 9.1 till now..

I have NEVER had a problem with the timeouts... NEVER/

[bedessy]

there a hassle to me i'll stick with a version that works until a full release is ready. I had enough, testing alphas and betas suck.v10.50 will work for me. Differnt strokes for different folks.

[SouthsideIrish]

I just upgraded to 11, and it was a fairly painless process. I expected it to take awhile, but I had everything up and running in a matter of minutes. I did decided to import my old library and upgrade it, but I have way too many playlists to do it manually.

Oh, and I did backup the registry settings and library, so I can go back if necessary.

Bill McNair

[jleerigby]

...I don't think any of those new featuers are really done yet.

Neither is Theatre View and that was a v9 or earlier feature  

[AoXoMoXoA]

I know they said that it was not advised to have BOTH MC 10 & MC11 installed because that was not finished and may not work, but they are both residing happily on my PC and I've had no apparent problems as a result.  
I am however afraid that I might accidently open one while the other was already openned . . . . .  as I do not know what to expect.
The total global destruction or the Earth perhaps??  

[slikvik]

I've been casually watching MC11 progress before I consider an upgrade.  There are certainly some nice new features mentioned along with some stuff that doesn't seem to fit in a Media Center program or doesn't add a great deal of value.  I don't remember seeing much in the way of Theatre View improvements though but maybe I missed it.  The lack of work in MC9.1 or 10 on this unfinished aspect of MC was a major cause of frustration for me and led me to investigate other products.  Thankfully a NetRemote interface into MC came to the rescue so I no longer care whether Theatre View gets properly finished, and I think that's probably just as well.

I totally agree with JLee on this. I have now decided to move for my HTPC and will not upgrade to 11. Although I got 10 for a great upgrade price over 9.1 there wasn't too many changes that worked for me and I can see the same thing happening with 11. MC is still a great media management app and I will continue to use v10 for the task. For what its worth here is a list of features that MC is missing as a MEDIA center (I think MC is still very much MP3 centric.)

Better control over video/DVD codecs such as codec selection, adding ffdShow etc. The freeware Media Player Classic has all this.

Theatre View should not mirror Standard View. I don't want 3 audio folders (Artist/Album, File Type, Disk Location) AND a list of Genres (because it's in my initial Audio Scheme) all on one page. (Add 2 tick boxes to the  Scheme edit page, one to 'Show in Theatre View' and one to 'Hide from Standard View'.

Please tweak theatre view - for example,  add a back button and lose the 'left cursor back' (its not very good for new users)

Allow us to choose any codec we like when recording TV programs. Maybe add an encode later function for slower codecs like Divx 5.

Can we please add proper DV use for TV viewing and Timeshifting. Lots of people now use DV Convertors to watch TV as the picture quality is much better than any TV card.

TV Guide maybe.

Better HotKey/Button/Remote support. I want to be able to choose how a song is added to playing now when a press a button. Although you have 3 different play options, you have to change them in the settings window. I dont always want to replace what I'm listening to and I dont always want to 'add to playing now'. Also I still have to right click to record a TV channel.


Anyway...sorry for the little feature moan. Basically I think MC needs to decide if it's going to be a file manager (document support!?!) OR media player (HTPC, feature rich Video playback etc.) I know you cant please all the people all the time but at the moment I feel you almost wasted your time adding video/dvd playback and theatre view because I dont use any of them. Unfortunately I would still rather play a video in MPC (Quicker), play a DVD in MPC (ffdShow), record TV with iuVCR (select my codec).

Thanks Guys

Vic