Is Vista Home Basic enough? or do I need Premium?

[blueroom]

Like the title says; is Vista Home Basic enough for running SageMC or do I need Premium or higher?

I'll be using SageMC to watch and record OTA ATSC TV.

I don't need or want the Windows Media Center.

[Clift]

Vista Basic will be fine. As a matter of fact it will probably save you some headaches by NOT having media center. Seems like you'll be recording either OTA or ClearQAM? The Radeon HD 4550 will be plenty and you shuld use the EVR renderer.

[blueroom]

Thanks, strictly OTA ATSC, no QAM as I want rid of Rogers Cable TV.

I found the 3300HD under XP to tear during playback so I dropped in a 4550 instead. Seems fine under XP but I'm told XP doesn't support DXVA so I'll try Vista Home Basic instead.

[stanger89]

XP supports DXVA just fine.

[Clift]

Makes sense. Under XP you were probably using VMR9? That's been known to have tearing issues that were fixed with the EVR renderer. The HD 3300 would probably have worked fine. But the 4550 is obviously better.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by stanger89

XP supports DXVA just fine.

I think he meant DXVA 2 with EVR.

[zoundz]

Forewarned is forearmed about one issue with Vista Home <either>. If you use network shares, you need to know that Vista Home <either> does not save credentials for accessing them. This means that you need to be logged on to Vista as a valid user of the network share or you will need to retype username and password for the shares every time you reboot the Vista system. AFAICT there is no workaround for this other than to have matching username and password on all network shares that the Vista machine will need to access. Additionally there are some problems with accessing Linux SMB shares that can be fixed with a little registry futzing.

[blueroom]

Gaak, so I need Vista Small Business (I DON'T want MCE) but I do want DXVA hardware support.
I've got XP Pro running and it seems fine with EVR but I'm told (other posts here) it does not support the video cards hardware acceleration.

[stanger89]

If it's working fine, why are you looking to "fix" it?

And there's no way I'd buy a Vista license today with 7 only a couple months out.

[Clift]

Well do you have network shares that you will need passwords to access?

It may be possible to do this using a VBscript. I remember seeing something on a google search that details how to do that by placing a script in the start-up folder.

[blueroom]

Yes I have a clarkconnect home server / gateway.

[sic0048]

Also, keep in mind that Vista Home and Vista Home Premium won't host a Remote Desktop session. So you cannot log into the computer from another computer. I'm not sure if this is important to you, but I find myself using it all the time. If I need to change something on my Sage server, I RDP into it using my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch watching TV.

I've read there is a hack to allow RDP with Home Premium, but I'm not sure if it works with Vista Home. Also, MS could plug the hole that allows the hack at any time, so if RDP is important to you, you might want to look at Vista Business or Ultimate since they allow RDP natively.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Also, keep in mind that Vista Home and Vista Home Premium won't host a Remote Desktop session. So you cannot log into the computer from another computer. I'm not sure if this is important to you, but I find myself using it all the time. If I need to change something on my Sage server, I RDP into it using my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch watching TV.

I've read there is a hack to allow RDP with Home Premium, but I'm not sure if it works with Vista Home. Also, MS could plug the hole that allows the hack at any time, so if RDP is important to you, you might want to look at Vista Business or Ultimate since they allow RDP natively.

I use VNC
www.realvnc.com

I find it to be much more powerful than remote desktop for a number of reasons:
1) VNC does not shut off the screen of the hose
2) It can actually output video if not using Overlay. this has helped me trouble shoot issues when I VNC into the server run the client and make sure I can get video

About the Clark Connect, I am not sure how you would handle that.

[stevech]

instead of vista, use Windows 7 RC1. free for a year. Very stable. Less bloatware than vista.

I'm using it.

I have network shares in Win 7 working as they did in XP. Hard to figure out, simple in hindsight. Have to manually set security attributes in each top level folder you share. Cannot share a whole drive.

I too use VNC. "UltraVNC". No login/password hassles.

[blueroom]

I tried Win7 RC1 but could not get it to display video, perhaps I need to use a beta version of Sage.

[viperdiablo]

I am using windows 7rc right now with sagetv (non beta) video seems to be working normally for me. I believe in a year though, windows 7rc must be fully removed and a purchased version installed. Wish you could just purchase a new activation code, instead of erasing all programs ect.

[stevech]

I've wondered. Some rumors are that the Win 7 RC1 will allow an in-place upgrade to the production version via windows update, and some means to evidence the license was purchased. Millions of RC1's are out there.

[viperdiablo]

Originally Posted by stevech

I've wondered. Some rumors are that the Win 7 RC1 will allow an in-place upgrade to the production version via windows update, and some means to evidence the license was purchased. Millions of RC1's are out there.

I hope that will be true, but according to the microsoft website http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/windows-7/faq.aspx (10th question down) you will need to to do a clean install.

[Wheemer]

I did an upgrade from the beta to the rc by editing one file and changing the version number.

I'm hoping it'll be that easy to install the final.