Advanced Media Extender tweaking

[Kraft]

So I broke down and formatted my second partition with Vista to see just how much more functionality I can get out of the media extender. I am rather impressed with Vista's performance in this area (though overall I will still boot to Ubuntu for the majority of my work)... but one thing might change that.

Does anyone have experience with turing their computer into a DVR and playing it over the 360 extender? Right now I am a tv tuner card and a backup HD away from having the capability but I don't want to spend the money to find that I get resolution drops or lackluster functionality.

I just moved back to st louis and am unfortunately stuck using CableUSA (subsidiary of Cox America) for my cable needs and absolutely loathe their DVR box, so if I can turn my PC and 360 into a good combo I might just ditch my crap dvr box all together... just looking for some input.

[BattleCruiser]

I have been using windows XP media center for over a year with a xbox and xbox360 media extender. My wife loves it. Only major problem I find is that I have to re-register a DLL once in a blue moon. Also the image can appear a bit grainy on a 50" TV but not as bad as VHS. You can also burn to DVD easily but it can take about 45min to burn a 1 hr show but image quality is very good. I do record on the best setting.

Also a good site for the media center functionality is http://thegreenbutton.com/default.aspx even though its forums can be a little slow. A lot of good information is available there.

[SamSmith]

I've been trying to set it up for ages; haven't managed to...

I have the extender, and a wireless thingy on my pc. Perhaps I need a router? I thought the two could act together as one.

[BattleCruiser]

I use a router for my network.

check http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/windowsmediacenter.htm
for instructions.

[Kraft]

I've found some interesting TV adapters for the computer that accept cable cards to record digital signals... only problem is my cable company enables digital cable from the box and I don't have a cable card for my DVR set... I might just buy a cheaper 20 dollar TV card to set it up and see how it looks for now.