After finally having all TV channels available (I failed to mention I downloaded Mediaportal to do a channel search - I couldn't find TV4 when searching Malmö, but it showed up when I tried Hörby) it is now time to get the rest of the system in shape. I put some TV shows in a directory watched by Media Center and enter it. Boom. Media Center crashes.
Search the net and find something about Nero being a problem and bad codecs. Then I couldn't find my media since Nero had kidnapped the registry settings for that. To make a long story short (and it was way too long) I uninstalled the piece of utter crap that is Nero and hope to never look back.
Next to get thumbnails working. More searching and I found a fix. Using only the value for .avi I now have working thumbnails again. Unfortunately the thumbnail is based on the first frame of the video which makes it kinda useless (often black). Will take a look at that later.
Then I told the kids we could go out and play and come back and watch Bolibompa (Swedish children's show) once we were done. I paused live-TV and went away. Big mistake. It seems only ~40 minutes were stored so we couldn't start watching from the beginning. So we started at the earliest possible point, which was fine for a while but then we jumped forward in the program with no way of going back. My guess is that the buffer for pausing live TV is a fixed amount of HDD space and not an amount in minutes. Which means the buffer can grow and shrink depending on the compression of the stored material. I'll look over at thegreenbutton and see if they have anything to say about it.
Am I pleased with having an HTPC? I think I will be. Earlier today I was ready to return the unit, but now I feel and can get it to work. Albeit with quite a lot of time and work on my part. It is definitely not a plug'n'play solution and I wouldn't recommend it to many people without a lot of warnings.
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