Building a Windows MCE 2005 PC - Part 1

This is Part 1 of a set of articles summarizing my experience choosing the components and building a a custom-built Home theater PC running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (or "MCE2005" for short). Part 1 is an introduction, Part 2 shows a step by step pictorial guide to assembling the hardware, Part 3 details the software installation steps, and Part 4 contains some objective and subjective impressions of the result.

What is MCE2005?

MCE2005 is basically a version of Windows XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2, but bundled together with an application called Media Center that provides the following functions:

• Watch, pause and record analog/digital TV "over the air" with an integrated Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)
• Listen to and record radio (over the air or Internet-based)
• Play DVDs and CDs
• Rip CDs onto the hard disk
• View pictures and videos in a variety of formats
• Limited web browsing ("Online Spotlight")

In addition, there are various third party applications for the following (representative only):

• Catalog DVD collections (My Movies)
• Listen to Internet radio (Web Media)
• View recipes (My Recipe)
• View weather forecasts (mceWeather , My Weather , Simply Weather)
• Display status on a VFD/LCD display (FrontView for MCE)
• Home automation (HomeSeer , HAI Home Control)

Media Center (the use of the American spelling of "centre" is unfortunately prevalent in MCE2005) is optimized to look good even on low resolution TVs and is best driven via a remote control. In addition, MCE2005 supports synchronising with portable media centers and can serve content to Windows Media Center Extender devices. MCE2005 contains all the features of Windows XP Professional SP2 except for the ability for a computer to join a domain (this would apparently interfere with the ability to support Extender devices, although I found out it is possible for an MCE2005 computer to join a domain, provided you do so during initial installation).

Microsoft also makes a big deal about the DVD burning capability (integrated with Movie Maker 2.1) but there is no easy way of burning recorded TV programmes (possibly intentional, due to copyright concerns).

Previous versions of Media Center Edition were only available in the US and parts of Europe. MCE2005 is the first version that is officially released in Australia . However, you can't buy a copy of the operating system off the shelf, it is only available bundled with a preconfigured PC.

What's So Special About MCE2005 Over a "Normal" HTPC?

Well, first of all, there is no such thing as a "normal" Home theater PC (or "HTPC" for short). HTPCs are just "normal" PCs that happen to be used for home theater applications. They can run any operating system (eg, Windows or Linux), plus software for playing DVDs and software/hardware for watching/recording radio and TV. In addition, some HTPC users choose to use a front end application such as myHTPC/Meedio and XLobby (plus remote controls and automation programs such as Girder) to make the HTPC "living room" friendly.

Arguably the user interface of Media Center is no more powerful, or easier to use than comparable HTPC front ends. There are plenty of DVD player programs, with the two most popular ones (Cyberlink PowerDVD and Intervideo WinDVD) now in their sixth/seventh generation and supporting formats like DVD-Audio and featuring all sorts of video-enhancing features. What makes MCE2005 so special, since it lacks the advanced features and customisability of existing third party software?

One of the biggest benefits of MCE2005 over a do-it-yourself HTPC is proper support for "Studio RGB'", as opposed to computer RGB. Most PCs operate using Computer RGB, which means Black is (R,G,B)=(0,0,0) and White is (255,255,255). In the digital video world, however, things are a little different. For a start, video is encoded using YCrCb rather than RGB. ITU-R Recommendation BT.601-4 states that when YCrCb is converted to RGB, Black should be encoded as (16,16,16) and "Reference" White as (235,235,235). This is sometimes called "Studio RGB."

Many HTPC applications and video drivers do not support Studio RGB. Indeed, many will convert YCrCb to Computer RGB, which causes crushing of below black and above white levels. A common example of use of below black levels is the PLUGE signal on many video calibration images. Even worse, different software components in the playback chain may make different and conflicting assumptions about colourspaces, providing a non-optimal final result that is neither Computer nor Studio RGB.

MCE2005 out of the box, when used with certified MPEG decoders and video drivers, fully supports Studio RGB throughout the entire video chain. This includes desktop themes and the Media Center user interface.

Another big advantage of MCE2005 is the avoidance of tearing of video frames. One of the disadvantages of HTPCs over consumer video equipment is the lack of synchronization between video frames and video display refresh rates. This is particularly noticeable when displaying high resolution video. MCE2005 uses a customised allocator presenter over VMR9 (Video Mixing Renderer 9, the most advanced renderer in DirectX 9) to avoid visible tearing.

The major drawbacks of MCE2005 in comparison to third party applications are the sort of drawbacks you would expect given that it comes from Microsoft: lack of customisability, use of proprietary formats, and a fairly draconian implementation of digital rights management.

MCE2005 out of the box is not user customizable at all, apart from the setup settings accessible from within Media Center. If you build your own MCE2005 machine, you can choose your own software components, drivers and decoders, but that's about all. If you use the Software Development Kit, you can further customise the Media Center menu items and add your own plug-ins. However, many die-hard HTPC enthusiasts lament the lack of the ability to fully customise the playback chain, such as the ability to add video processing filters (i.e. the open source ffdshow).

TV recordings are in a proprietary DVR-MS format rather than standard .MPG. Furthermore, if the copy protection flag is set in the TV broadcast, these files can only be viewed on the machine that originally recorded the content. However, there are utilities that will convert DVR-MS files to standard MPEG-2. Far more serious is the restriction on component video output. If your graphics card supports component video output, then MCE2005 will not display copy protected DVDs at a resolution higher than 480p. Good-bye scaling to native display resolution on HDTVs!

Why Build My Own MCE2005 PC?

I was not really that impressed with the initial set of preconfigured PCs that were available. First of all, they all look like PCs (complete with a mid-tower case) rather than home entertainment devices (apparently the sexy set top box-like designs for the second generation is "coming"). Secondly, they all come with accessories like LCD monitors and speakers which I didn't really want (I wanted a PC to connect to my existing home theater system, not a home theater in a box). Thirdly, none of them had exactly the specifications I wanted - in particular, bunding an analog TV tuner card when I wanted a digital one, and using Intel integrated graphics and ATI Radeons instead of a graphics card based on the Nvidia Geforce PureVideo technology (more on this later).

If you are really keen on building your own MCE2005 PC rather than buying a pre-assembled one, it is possible. Several online web sites (including www.auspcmarket.com.au ) are willing to sell you the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) version of MCE2005, plus the accompanying remote control kit, provided you also buy at least one other PC component from them (such as a motherboard, CPU, video card or hard disk).

On the downside, you get no technical support for your own custom built PC, and no help in making it all work together.

From my perspective, the two major technical benefits (Studio RGB support, plus no video tearing) outweigh the disadvantages, so I have decided to build my own MCE2005 PC based on currently available components.

Choosing the Right MCE2005 Hardware and Software Components

Microsoft's minimal requirements are a PC configured with a CPU of at least 1.6GHz, 256MB memory, 60GB hard disk and a 64MB graphics card, with a DVD-ROM drive and a modem connection to the Internet. Yeah, right. Of course, it's possible to run MCE2005 on such a machine, provided you are not interested in watching HDTV.

For optimal performance, Microsoft recommends a special form-factor PC (preferably designed using low noise components) with at least a 3.0GHz CPU (especially if MPEG-2 is encoded and decoded without hardware acceleration), 512MB memory, as large a hard disk as you can afford, an audio card that can output analog 5.1 and S/PDIF simultaneously, and a 128MB AGP 4X graphics card supporting DVI as well as analog video outs (composite and S-Video). In addition, Microsoft strongly recommends a TV tuner card, the special Microsoft-designed remote control, a broadband Internet connection, a DVD writer, a media card reader and front panel status display and controls.

I chose the following hardware components for my MCE2005 system (as usual, the prices paid are historical and the components should be cheaper at the time of writing):

Total hardware cost came up to $1,609.00 (excluding the E-mu 1212m which is not required for MCE2005) ; this is quite reasonable compared to preconfigured PCs with similar configuration.

Note that particular attention was paid to minimizing the noise generated by the PC, using a combination of careful choice of components and passive cooling where possible. The difference this makes is remarkable: the result is a PC that is quieter than my projector, the air-conditioner or even the fridge.

In terms of software, this is the current version numbers of various components (and prices where applicable):

As you can see, apart from MCE2005 and a compatible MPEG2 decoder, all the software I use can be downloaded free.

(Reprinted with Permission)

Visit the other parts to this 4-part series:

Building a WindowsXP Media Center Edition PC: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4