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[sKiZo]

Haven't got any, but might be a handy place for them.
Post em if you got em! <G>

Situation: I'm currently installing W8 (64bit) as a dual boot on my trusty old XP system. That should bypass any compatibility issues. I plan to install only MC on the W8 partition for now.

Question: Should I be installing the W8 Media Center addon? Not sure what exactly it brings to the table. If it's just a player frontend ... don't need it. If it's doing any actual tweaking to the OS that improves sound handling and playback ... need it. This is all about getting to taste the improvements in WASAPI that I've been hearing about.

I'd install it anyway, but I just found out my FREE! copy of the media center addon isn't free anymore. I musta missed the cutoff date to get it up and running.

Hep me!

[phytio]

Hi,

I have the Media Center upgrade, but it's not really necessary if you use MC18. Media Center is basically exactly the same as Media Center on W7, you might install it if you wanted to play DVDs, which W8 isn't able to do out the box, but MC18 handles that pretty well, I think. I don't think it does anything to improve sound quality, or what not. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Hope this helps!

phytio

[6233638]

I have the Media Center upgrade, but it's not really necessary if you use MC18. Media Center is basically exactly the same as Media Center on W7, you might install it if you wanted to play DVDs, which W8 isn't able to do out the box, but MC18 handles that pretty well, I think. I don't think it does anything to improve sound quality, or what not. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You can play DVDs just fine on Windows 8 inside JRiver MediaCenter. I don't think you have DVD playback support inside Windows Media Player, unless you have the Windows Media Center add-on installed though.

Personally I prefer Windows 8 to Windows 7 by quite a lot. There are a lot of little new features that all add up. (explorer is a lot better, task manager is much improved etc.) But I had to buy Start8 to bypass the Metro start screen, as I don't like it at all.

But if all you're running on the system is MC18, then it probably doesn't matter whether you are using Windows 7 or 8 I suppose.

The only outstanding issue I have with Windows 8 is that, with Nvidia at least, when the graphics card is connected to a TV, it only outputs 59.94Hz or 23.976Hz. I have been unable to get it to output 60.0Hz or 24.0Hz as I could on Windows 7. If you are using VideoClock, it doesn't really matter, but I would much rather it output 24/60 rather than 23/59.

[sKiZo]

The wiki has a good writeup on WASAPI and MC.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/WASAPI

"Event Style" in the list of options is what had me digging around for more info. Doesn't seem to have much effect on my system as it's been clean and tight using WASAPI since upgrading to W8. From the description, it seems technically superior, and it does work with the optical out on my DAC, so what da hey, eh.

And zounds ... the difference from Direct Sound on my XP MCE install is beyond amazing! I went directly from XP to W8, so can't comment on whether it's better than W7. I do know there ain't no way no how I'm going back ...

Also ... yet another ? on MS getting rid of the start button. Fortunately, it's a popular enough peeve that there's plenty of options to get around that. I used this ...

http://www.iobit.com/iobitstartmenu8.php

Clean, quick, free, no nagware or unwanted addons, and it even lets you turn off the corner pointers. A few clicks and it's like tiles and metro never existed, which is fine by me. If I do get curious, one more click brings it all back.

[sirganty]

The only real advantage I've found in win 8 is the fact that the universally "hated" metro screen can be fully navigated using an mce remote.
Very useful in a proper htpc setup if you have a few remote controllable apps to use besides MC.

Currently I use xbmc for some plugins like iplayer & itvplayer, I use slingplayer to stream my TiVO from the other room, kylo for internetting and metro makes it easy to switch around

from an audio perspective, I can;t say I noticed any difference at all to win 7 (going via my audio-gd usb dac or via hdmi)

[6233638]

from an audio perspective, I can;t say I noticed any difference at all to win 7 (going via my audio-gd usb dac or via hdmi)

As far as I know, there shouldn't be any difference if you are outputting WASAPI. There are some minor performance improvements, but other than that, sound should be the same as Windows 7 SP1 as long as you have this hotfix applied. (not that it affects anything MC18 is doing)

For most people there's probably very little to justify the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 now that the price has gone back up, but if I was not already running 7, I would rather be up to date. All the minor feature improvements/tweaks, performance gains etc. are worthwhile in my opinion.

[phytio]

For those wondering about any advantages of W8 over W7, I may be imagining it, but I think W8 is a little snappier than W7. Not sure. I doubt I'd get W8 now the price has gone up. If you dislike the Metro bit, you can use Metro apps in the desktop with a programme called Modern Mix from the same people who make Start8. I haven't bought it yet, but I think I probably will. Apparently it's pretty good.

[JimH]

Win8 Mail discussion split.