Wide World of Women

what I want to know is this.....where are the various computers made? USA, Japan, China , indonesia? from my much experience with stand alone DVD recorders/DVR's I can tell you that ANYTHING made in china/indonesia is CRAP....these are always the cheapest brands as well..(liteon, cyberhome) ....the best brands are japanese (panasonic, sony, etc).....so if a computer is made in japan/USA its good in my book.

THANKS daveTV and guys for the added info!....

after my search today the only PC that meets my needs is the $1100 or so sony mediacenter with S-video outputs and inputs AND a remote and PVR.....Im going to hook my computer up to my sony TV...NOT a moniter.....but its still about 3-4 months till I buy one so Im still looking...

Since you are going to be getting the media center, take a look on the site below. This guy has a nice review on it. I got it and love it, as he has said, he doesn't know why anyone would get a new computer without the media center.

It is like 2 computers in 1.

You get XP Pro (Pro with Dell, not sure with other makes), with it and then the media center. All you do is hit a green button and it takes you to the media center. You can run both at the same time on your screen, thats where the Hyper Threading comes in good for and another thing I like is the program guide, you have 2 weeks of programming instead like on directv where you only get 3 days. I could go on but if you read that guys write up, he tells you about it.

As far as hooking up to your TV, you can do it that way. But I like it better hooked up right to the satellite reciever

You better make sure you get Hyper Threading, and large hard drives

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/win ... ce2005.asp

I have built computers for myself and friends since '97, plus help with upgrades and tech support for the ones I built and others. I have used both Maxtor and WD hard drives this whole time. Probably in the neighborhood of 50-70 hard drives. I have never had a problem with a Maxtor or WD drive. I have used both retail, off the shelf drives and OEM drives from different internet stores.
The only hard drives I ever had a problem with was 2 IBM drives. And they became famous for failures and nearly killed IBM's hard drive unit.
The tech guy you spoke with I am sure has seen more HDs, but I can only go on my experience.
In my main computer I used for recording I run a 160 gig HD with two partitions. I use this for my OS, programs and data I am keeping. Then for recording I have 2 200gig drives. I record between 14-21 hours a day on it. So the drives get a real workout. Having 2 drives, or more, gives you more flexibility.
I know about running RAID 0 and RAID 1. I have built systems like that for gamers, and for people that had data they didn't want to loose. I have also built RAID5 systems. Personally I don't like RAID0. It is too easy to have data become corrupt, and you really have very little real boost in speed. When drives were slower it wasn't bad. But with the faster drives and built in cache of 8 or 16MB it really doesn't matter. You are better off running a SCSI hard drive.
A video card has much more to do now with being able to not drop frames than the speed of a hard drive.
If I had to make a guess on why they had so many hardrives failing I would say there are even odds that the systems didn't have good airflow to keep the hard drive cool and that the power supply was probably too small. When I have seen hard drives go bad they were either running too hot or under powered.

It's just not Dell the HDs are going bad in. They are going bad in all computers that run them and it is not just the raid 0s it's all maxtors HDs he is seeing

This guy works for a company that Dell gets to come in and do the work. He does not work for Dell or did the first tech that came out (so he sees all makes of computers not just Dell), cus we do not have a Dell company around here just like most of America. I guess that is why he could say in so many words he doesn't like Dell and that they are a cheap company

What he and Dells phone tech was saying is that maxtor was good, but now they have more problems with them then ever before and that is the reason Dell will not use maxtors anymore.

He did tell me that he would never buy a maxtor anymore as long as they are having these problems. He even said it is a rumor that with these problems, maxtor is going to go under because alot of people that knows about this will not buy from them

Like I said, I can only go by my experience. I have bought 2 maxtors in last 6 months and they have been fine.
But if someone doesn't like maxtor then western digital is a good brand too.

good info guys.....slowpoke & malone, some questions:

1) how easy is it to edit shows you record? taking out commercials and burning to a dvd?

2) can you combine parts of shows into one show....like say getting 2 minutes from one and 5 minutes each from 4 shows and combining them into one show? I do this on "playlists" on my stand alone panasonic DVD/HD unit with both the hard drive and RAM discs.

3) both the sony and HP Ive seen do not give you the option of choosing specific bitrates & resolution on recording....they have 4 preset "qualitys" just like all stand alone recorders.....can you set specific bitrates and resolution with dell or other media center computers?

Thanks..

All three depend on what software you have.
I have never used a "Media Center" computer so I can't speak about the bitrates it offers.

From Forbes.com

Maxtor Posts Second-Quarter Profit
07.27.2005, 04:28 PM

Maxtor Corp., one of the leading manufacturers of computer disk drives, on Wednesday posted a second-quarter profit, reversing a year-ago loss, as sales of its data storage products rose 13 percent during the period.

Net income rose to $$9.4 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $26.5 million, or 11 cents per share, last year.

Revenue rose climbed to $925 million from $818 million in the year-ago period. The results came in higher than Wall Street projections of a loss of 3 cents per share on revenue of $948.6 million.

Gross profit margin improved to 13.2 percent from 10.9 percent in the first quarter. The company said its drive shipments in the quarter totaled 12.1 million. Desktop drives totaled 11.1 million, which included 1,065,000 drives shipped to consumer electronics original equipment manufacturers.

"Our results were primarily due to a strong enterprise performance. During the second quarter, we shipped 926,000 SCSI drives, a 20 percent increase over the first quarter volume," said C.S. Park, chairman and chief executive, in a statement. "Our performance also reflected the incremental benefits of our efforts to drive quality improvements and cost and expense reductions on our desktop products."

Shares of Maxtor added 7 cents to $5.67 in aftermarket activity after closing unchanged at $5.58 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Looks like Maxtor Co. is doing ok.

burning to dvds is easy. As far as taking out commercials, if it's a way I have not done it or tried it. I just record shows to put pics up, then delete. I have a DVD recorder for my TV. That is what I use to keep recorded DVDs
I saw software you can get to edit your recordings


I know what about The Playlist and love it, I use it alot on my panasonic. As far as can you do it with the computer, once again, if it's a way I have not done it or tried it.

Might be able to do it with that software. It told all you could do with it


The media center should be the same no matter what make you have. It is a extra that comes with the computer. The best way I can think to explain it is, you have your windows XP that runs the same as a computer that does not have the media center. When you want to go to the media center, you can hit the icon or use the remote and hit the green button. Then it takes you to another screen. You can run and view both at the same time or just view one.

I don't know what extra stuff is in the windows xp that comes with the media center. And what I mean be that is, the reinstallation disc is a DVD
not a CD for computers without the media center.

All the techs on the phone and 1 of the 2 that came out here never saw the DVDs before. 1 of the guys on the phone kept trying to tell me I was wrong, that they only come in CDs After about 45 minutes he looked it up and said that was a new one on him. That is the kind of stuff I delt with almost everytime with the Dell techs. BTW, the reson it mattered was, at the time my DVD drive was not working and he said to put the disc into the CD drive that does not play DVDs. The tech on the media center side told me that he hears that stuff about them all the time

But then you get a disc that has the media center on it. The Media Center is not on the DVD. The tech on the media center side said they had to put windows xp that comes with the media center on a DVD. I didn't ask, I guess I will next time I call

You can record 2 shows at the same time if you got 2 tv tuners or a duel tv tuner. But you will need 2 cable or satellite boxes that have the same channel line-up

You can also record a show like QVC and watch a movie and be on the net at the same time if you want to. I will put some pics up in epson this weekend of some of what you see in the media center

You should e-mail the guy on the link a few post back. He should know what you can and can't do and what the new media center will be like

I have edited out comercials by using the windows movie maker. Windows movie maker will load a raw clip and segment it. You can chose which segments you want in your clip and also edit each segment. Once you got all of the segments in the clip edited as you want, then you can save your clip with an intro like I do.

I don't know what that software was called that I saw. I know it didn't cost much.

Thanks for the info rocky and slowpoke.....cant wait to see the pics of the media center screen...

For burning dvd's, the Sonic software I've got will allow you to edit as much as you want. I import my vids from dvd's, but any type of video file will work.

I checked today and all the Dells we have have Western Digital Hard Drives. I called our Computer guy and he said they specified that when they ordered through Dell and Dell had them custom built for the county government that way. He would not take an order if they had maxator hard drives in them. We did buy in bulk 15 at a time (4 times over the past 2 years to upgrade evey computer from iMac, Gateway and Compaq) and we have never had a hard drive failure. We also run a hugh server that runs Western Digital Drives. Also on my systemax I have a maxator 80GB that has never had a problem and 2 80GB external Western Digital Hard Drives that work great. I use 1 external to back up my computer system and the other one is used as an MP3 jukebox.

davetv13

I'll just weigh in on the topic so far:

I used to build my own computers, but have since decided to let someone else cut their hands up on cases, so I have been migrating to Dell. Have not have any problems with them. I prefer Western Digital drives, but have not always bought them. I think you take your chances with just about any drive.

Hardware-wise, I would get 1GB of RAM and eliminate the Windows swap file. I would get two hard drives, an 80GB or 120GB for the OS and software, and a 250GB dedicated to video capture. I have had a significant amount of lost video due to HD fragmentation. If I had a second physical HD, I could just format it and have a clean slate.

Software-wise, I capture to MPG using the ATI software that came with my ATI TV card. I grab the screen shots in Zoom Player from the MPG files. I crop and resize in Photoshop because of its batch capabilities. If I need to cut or splice MPG files, I use TMPGEnc (freeware). TMPGEnc is pretty low-level, so if it's too confusing, I would recommend Windows Movie Maker. It's able to segment clips into different scenes automatically, which is a pretty cool feature.

I usually start the TV capture before I leave for work and when I get back I have around 10 gigs of video to sort through for good caps. Zoom Player is nice because you can seek very quickly and you can also step through each frame to find the best quality shot.

http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIn ... &vt=vp&pw=

Here are some pics of the screen in the media center. I think most of it you know what is what.

The pics with the TV in the lower corner was live while I was getting the pics. You can have it on or off. When I viewed that 007 movie I clicked on watch and you could see it changed to the channel that was playing it.

About movies, you can program a movie, if it is in the program guide it will tell you the day time & date that it will record. The program guide goes 2 week ahead on most if not all channels. Like on HSN, thier site only tells you for a week at a time, the MC TV guide will show you 2 weeks of HSN's guide

If it is not in the guide the media center will store it and when it comes on, it will record it even if it's a year or more before it comes on.

If there is any qution, just ask and I'll try to explain

BTW, you can resise the size of the screen from full screen to as little about 3 by 5 inches or right around there

THANKS for those screenshots!....I see that in the best recording mode you are using about 3.2 or so GB per hour. I see you had 465 GB left over!....do you have one 500GB drive or 2 250's??

if you want to burn some shows to DVD does it do them at 3.2 GB per hour or can you choose the bitrate??

2- 250GBs

I have never burned DVDs with the media center. I use my DVD recorder I have hooked up to the TV for that stuff. I have burned DVDs in the DVD burner. It does not take long at all. If that is any help

If you mean like the recorders that you hook up to your TV and you send a show from the hard drive to a DVD for recording. No it's alot fast then that.

It would not take anywhere near an hour to burn a full DVD (on mine), which is what 4.7 GBs or right around there. I guess it would depend on what you have in your computer and the DVD burner on how long it takes

slowpoke, I also wanted to ask about viewing the shows you have recorded on the hard drive in the media center....can you view playback in 2X, 10X, 30X, or 70-100X speed?? (like I can on my panassonic HD recorder)....Thanks

yes and go backward also