Now. Now. Now. Don't be the FUD rucker.

Not only can you burn DVDs directly from MCE (using a Sonic Plug-in). You can also transcode into standard MPEG2.

http://home.bellsouth.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=16&groupid=131014&ck=&userid=1&userpw=.&uh=1,0,

I'm sure more will come.

Hey, man, I'm just passing on what MS says in their FAQ. But, I'm glad to hear the situation isn't so grim as the FAQ makes out. Thanks for the info!
- Craig

Whoops. I didn't mean to jump on you. Some people just have a tendency to slam MSFT for everything. I just like to balance the news.com effect. ;)

Your individual-archives pages seem to be running into an IE CSS bug. It manifests itself by a disappearing page. It was a bug that I had also. Good luck in fixing it. I eventually just reworked the whole damn page.

Funny...I've generally thought of news.com and CNET and ZDNet as very pro-Microsoft, chalking it up the significant advertising dollars that Redmond throws their way. I'm no fan of Microsoft's business practices, and I think that their claims of "innovation" are pure bunk, but I do use MS products a lot (WinXP is very good and Office is definitely best-in-class).

Steve,
Thanks for the note about the IE CSS bug, but I'm not seeing it (IE6).

Of course, I never use IE unless forced to (I rely on Mozilla browsers), so I wouldn't have noticed anything even if I *could* see it. ;-)
- Craig

It's a frustrating one. It isn't always there, but it is certainly there often enough for people to get annoyed by it. After enough people told me that they couldn't see my pages, I was forced to deal with it. The problem was that thousands and thousands of people just didn't say anything. :(

Just downloaded WinDVD Creator (trial) and it does recognize and record MCE files to DVD for use in regular DVD players.

John

Arcsoft Showbiz 2 will transcode dvr-ms to mpeg. When you import the dvr-ms to Showbiz 2 a window opens up asking to ok the transcoding. The software is an editing program, but I'm a novice to editing and cannot tell you how good or bad it is. This is a link to the simplistic breakdown of the dvr-ms filehttp://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/dvrfilechanges.asp

I have fianally been successfull in creating a DirectShow graph to convert the dvr-ms files to an AVI. I have done 4 or 5 several hour shows and have not seen any AV sync problems. Here are the steps and the files that I used.

Get the following files and install them:
Elcard MPEG decoder:
http://www.elecard.com/ftp/pub/mpeg/decoder/EMpgDec20.zip

Ogg Vorbis
http://tobias.everwicked.com

Divx Codec (I have the $30 pro version)
http://www.divx.com/divx/

Graph Edit
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/graphedit.html

Trobettworks Filter Configurator
http://www.trombettworks.com/FilterConfigurator110.zip

Start Graphedit.
File->Render Media File (select your dvr-ms file)
Insert the following filers into your graph:
Audio Compressors->Vorbis Encoder
DirectShow Filters->File writer (select your output
filename. Include the .avi extension).
DirectShow Filters->Filter Configurator by Trombettworks
DirectShow Filters->Ogg Multiplexer
Video Compressors->DivX 5.0.2 Codec

Select the Filter Properties of the
Filter Configurator
and set the properties for the DivX codec.

I used a bitrate of 500 and 1 pass quality. This results in an AVI file that is a little bigger
than 1/10th of the original file size.

Delete the Video Renderer and Default Direct Sound
device.

Connect the MPEG audio decoder to the Vorbis
encoder.

Connect the Elcard MPEG-2 video decoder to the
DivX codec.

Connect the Vorbis Encoder and the DivX
codec to the Ogg Multiplexer.

Last connect the Ogg Multiplexer to
the File Write. Now play your graph.

After it is done (it will take about the same time as the length of the show) you should be able to play the AVI file on any computer that has the right codecs installed

It is different doing this for the first time, but it gets easier, and it really gives you a first-hand taste on how movies are made!!

I dont know if any of you are having this problem, but when I try to view live tv OR dvds using media center, it tells me that I haveb a video decoder error and I should look at the hardware documentation about fixing the problem. Ive downloaded the tv tuner drivers and installed them several times and it still doesnt fix the problem. DVDs play fine with windows media player, but not in media center. Anyone know how to fix this video decoder problem?

I fixed it! WHen i first was setting up the computer, I uninstalled WinDVD...big mistake. I reinstalled WinDVD and that fixed the problem!

couldnt i just find some other program to record with all together instead of going through all this converting stuff?

I don't know if this will be of help to anyone, but I use DrDivx to re-encode dvr-ms files.

I got it working by accident, but eventually figured out how to get it to work.

Step1
Install DrDivx

Step2
Install Elcard MPEG decoder (see link above)

Step3
re-encode!

Anyway to create DVR-MS format FROM wmv or mpg?

a program called dvredit was planed to convert mpg to dvr-ms but it the creator is still working on it or stoped. It converts vob files to dvr-ms. So just find a way to convert mpg or wmv to vob (Nero encode) then use dvredit. But why go mpg or wmv to dvr-ms? also dvredit lets you enter the show info for the file you want to convert. find dvredit here at http://www.thegreenbutton.com/

media files r usually recocnized by their encoding rather than file extension. i think mpeg-2 encoded file will be recocnized by most softwares supporting mpeg-2 regardless what ever their extension is

the problem i have is using the inputs om my break out box (coax,s-vid,rca) for my laptop i realize it would be best for me to go firewire to cap my camera but i already have this usb breakout box, that only seems to work for coaxial inputs

please help

the problem i have is using the inputs om my break out box (coax,s-vid,rca) for my laptop i realize it would be best for me to go firewire to cap my camera but i already have this usb breakout box, that only seems to work for coaxial inputs

please help

I very nearly went out and bought a copy of MCE.

Fortunately the salesman was good enough to inform me of the very limited hardware it will work with.

My machine has more than enough grunt to handle anything MCE throws at it. But hardware that MCE actually supports is very limited, despite whether the hardware is any good or not!

You would think Microsoft would have enough brainpower to figure out they can distribute far more copies if it had the same hardware support as XP! I mean, How hard could it actually be! They already have all the info necessary, there wouldn't be too much homework involved at all.

Result: I'm waiting for a good LINUX variant to emerge. Linux may be more awkward to setup initially, but a linux media centre, once installed, would definately handle far more existing hardware. And like most Linux systems, it would be almost BULLET PROOF! and that's just a hard cold fact of life.

has anything changed? I bought a media center the other day, I was so impressed thinking that I could play all the shows when I wanted on my dvd/divx player upstairs. Little to my surprise I am unable to play them. I can play the dvd files but it takes about 2 hours to burn a single episode of CSI, This is a real downer.(FUNKILL) anyways if there is a fast and fun way could you let me know. I am not a tecno superstar so take it slow for me. Thank you in advance.

Well, in Vista you can use DVD-MS files in Windows Movie Maker and I guess most editing applications support the format by now.

Microsoft chose to record in a custom CONTAINER (the codecs are still MPEG-2 and AC3) because existing containers where limited (metadata and other), at least at the time. So it's understandable, but the previously poor support for the format was not.