Upgrade just for Media Center? Yes/No?

[Spudley]

I’m sure like many of us, tinkering with the TV in the house can cause grief. My Windows 7 media center PC with extenders works fine. In fact, I think I am at the point where my wife & kids have forgotten the fact that it is even a PC. I know "if it’s not broke, don’t fix it!” But my curiosity is strong and I would like to get some ideas from the community to see if it’s worth upgrading (Reinstalling fresh) to Windows 8. Keep in mind, this is a dedicated PC, its only used for Media Center, I was wondering what (if any) changes have been made to Media Center that would make it worth breaking the golden rule of "if it’s not broke, don’t fix it!".

[mcewinter]

Speaking for myself, I have no plans to upgrade to 8 at least for a while. If something blows up and my HTPC needs to be rebuilt then I'll consider it but I pride myself in that my HTPC has been up and runing without incident for well over a year when I upgraded to a SSD and it ran tip top for a year prior to that.

I would only consider upgrading to W8 if/when something is offered specific to that OS.

[foxwood]

Nothing new in Windows 8 that makes the HTPC upgrade worth the hassle. if your Extenders aren't XBoxes, then you really don't want to upgrade (Linksys and HP extenders no longer work with Win8, and even if they are XBoxes, some people seem to be having a lot of trouble getting the XBox Extenders to stay connected).

By all means upgrade your own machine, but leave the HTPC alone.

[pduncan1963]

I upgraded to Win 8 and have no regrets. As a hole, the reaction time is quicker, especially with XBOX extenders. I understand that MCL is working to extend the guide rows on media center 8 like they do with 7. Am running InfiniTV with Win 8 beta drivers, pretty satisfied.

[mcewinter]

^I think you meant "whole".

[staknhalo]

I would only consider upgrading to W8 if/when something is offered specific to that OS.

Storage spaces and the speed improvements is that for me. Until more plugins from WMC7 become available on 8 though; I can't.

[mcewinter]

Storage spaces is intriguing though my MCPC does not act as a server... but my server does.

[staknhalo]

Storage spaces is intriguing though my MCPC does not act as a server... but my server does.

Yeah my main/living room HTPC is the 'server'/gaming HTPC, with the bedroom one acting as an extender-ish one. With only 2 HTPCs, I figure a server isn't worth it. Plus that would be something else to always have on.

[Spudley]

I have a VM running on my MCE and in that VM is a server OS that i use as my DC. Home drives map back to the space on the MCE PC and I have a script that auto starts the VM after my MCE has booted up. I too had a concern about leaving "another" host always on.

[staknhalo]

I have a VM running on my MCE and in that VM is a server OS that i use as my DC. Home drives map back to the space on the MCE PC and I have a script that auto starts the VM after my MCE has booted up. I too had a concern about leaving "another" host always on.

That's a thought; but the gamer in me wouldn't allow a VM running in the background when I'm trying to game lol. Plus the rig couldn't handle it. The main HTPC wakes when the second one is trying to access content; and any metadata that can't be read off of the first one is auto synced to the second one. So for all intents and purposes, except for a centralized control point and maybe some back up features, I'm not missing much.

[mcewinter]

Storage spaces is intriguing though my MCPC does not act as a server... but my server does.

Yeah my main/living room HTPC is the 'server'/gaming HTPC, with the bedroom one acting as an extender-ish one. With only 2 HTPCs, I figure a server isn't worth it. Plus that would be something else to always have on.

If your HTPC crashes, so does your server. If your server crashes then so does your HTPC. ...but the savings in A/C and equipment could out weigh that notion I guess.

[staknhalo]

Storage spaces is intriguing though my MCPC does not act as a server... but my server does.

Yeah my main/living room HTPC is the 'server'/gaming HTPC, with the bedroom one acting as an extender-ish one. With only 2 HTPCs, I figure a server isn't worth it. Plus that would be something else to always have on.

If your HTPC crashes, so does your server. If your server crashes then so does your HTPC. ...but the savings in A/C and equipment could out weigh that notion I guess.

Yeah, plus I'm in the living room most of the time anyways. Bedroom HTPC is for falling asleep/hungover days. So if Rig 1 goes down I'm usually aware of it immediately/right on top of it. Rig 2 has it's own tuner so incase of an emergency recordings can be done on there (don't have CableCard, so I don't need to worry about that). The only other content I would ever care about losing that isn't backed up in the cloud and/or to disc are my Movie/TV show rips. But even a server wouldn't quell that concern. All I can do is catalogue it all and re-rip if I ever have to.

I stated a while back if I ever went to 3 HTPCs I would consider a server. Auto syncing works fine for my 2 HTPCs, but 3 is where I think my MacGuyver setup would start to hinder me.

[scyto]

I did the upgrade (fresh install on new asus z77 system. Can't say it is essential, but everything is working great.
I have customized MCE menu. recorded TV HD plugin, mymovies plugin, air server,used MCE Reset Toolbox to fix EPG rows and make custom menus. Used event ghost to seamlessly launch steam big picture from MCE and to seamlessly pause MCE when I send airplay content. Only thing I am waiting for is ceton extender to work with it (that's still hooked to my win7 box that has protected content I still need to watch.

This men's I can watch all my tv, DVDs,Blu-rays, AirPlay content, steam games, etc all from one interface.

Plus I can use Xbox music and video apps if I want to - this is the main benefit over 7 (I have Zune pass).

[Beerman]

I'm building a new box and plan on keeping the extender for the upstairs bedroom and will move to W8. It's not great but it is faster on my other box. We use a DVR for the main TV (don't ask, you know the answer) but I'm not paying for another one in the bedroom. So, extender it is.

[staknhalo]

(don't ask, you know the answer)

I lol'ed

[gcoupe]

I've upgraded to W8, but to be really honest, I feel like the Red Queen. I've had to faff about with batch files and what-not, just to get back to where I almost was with WMC on W7.

The real reason why I've done it is to position myself for the possibility that, at some point in the future, something, based on Metro or something that is well-supported, will emerge that will allow me to switch from WMC to an equivalent experience.

Frankly, for all its past attractions, WMC at the moment feels like something that Microsoft really wishes was dead and buried. The trouble is that Microsoft has nothing even half decent to replace it with.

[barnabas1969]

The trouble is that Microsoft has nothing nobody has anything even half decent to replace it with.

Corrections above.

[Venom51]

Simply...NO.

[tman]

Definitely NO. There is zero benefit 'upgrading' a fully working 7 HTPC to 8. I have no plans to upgrade my dedicated 7MC. I might change my mind if MS were still actively developing MC, and were offering new features, but as has already been said, MS have killed MC, and I would be honest and say it won't be appearing in Windows 9 at all.

[slowbiscuit]

The trouble is that Microsoft has nothing nobody has anything even half decent to replace it with.

Corrections above.

If you don't care about protected content, MythTV runs rings around WMC and has for years. Yes it's more involved to setup and run, but it blows away pretty much everything in WMC, extenders and all. You could've said the same about Sage before the dev sold out to Google.

To answer the OP's question, hell no.