MCE loses Guide and Channel information randomly

This can happen a lot. For me it has occured twice in one day! This seems to happen to me whenever I am waiting for a scheduled record - coincidence I am sure but still a serious stress. MCE asks if you want to scan for channels as there aren't any. Don't. The best thing is to restart MCE and they should all just appear as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

MCE Remote Controller "just died" problem

This problem is a real pain, the remote just seems to die - no backlight, no repsonse. This happened to me twice within a month but just cleared up before I needed extra help. Then it happen again and I couldn't get it working. After about an hour of searching on the web I found loads of threads saying that by removing the batteries for half an hour you could reset the controller and it would work again. This is NOT workable - what a rubbish controller.

And then the breakthrough, I found a thread at The Greenbutton Website that concluded with the following work-a-round:

One can reproduce the problem by pressing down all four arrow buttons and the OK button for a few seconds. One can ALSO have it back in less than a minute by removing the batteries, pressing down all four arrow buttons and the OK button for 10 seconds. Put the batteries in and voila, its working again.

Not an ideal situation but one that works and is nice and quick. Since trying this method I have had no problems with my controller.

Playing Quicktime (MOV) files in MCE 2005

My digital camera records video in .MOV format and I have had to convert all my little clips to MPEGs in order to view them on the telly within MCE. Needless to say this is a pain in the ass and low and behold - pointless!

I found this information HERE but it was such an important tip to me that I thought that I would mirror the information on my site

To play .MOV files in MCE 2005 you will need to install Quicktime Alternative. This has a DirectShow Quicktime plugin that will allow .MOVs to play within Media Player or even Media Center. However, for the .MOV files to even appear in MCE, you need to make the following registry edit (this may already be there in your registry):

In HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov create a REG_SZ called "PerceivedType" and name it "video"

To do this click "START" then "RUN" and type "regedit" and go from there

Restart the MCE shell, and you should be able to play .mov files from within Media Center. You will even be able to see a still preview of the video as a thumbnail

Getting the TV Tuner and DVD working properly in MCE 2005

There are thousands of combinations of hardware and codecs but the tool that was a real help was the Microsoft Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility. This tells you whether your video decoder is MCE Compatible or not, what version it is and who the vendor is.

The TV Tuner also required an up-to-date BDA driver that the manufacturers website specifically said was MCE 2005 compatible.

I finally got the highlights to work on DVD menus in MCE. It was all down to a new REG fix for my PowerDVD drivers (included with my DVD Players.

Some MCE 2005 helpful Links: | The Greenbutton | Microsoft | XPmce |

The DJ LINK DomaiN