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27-04-2005, 4:07 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2003
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XP Home or MCE 2005?
I assume for HTPCs MCE is the much better choice.
The PC I'm building is not specifically for HTPC. The only HT tasks it will do is copy the sky+ disk once full and play back, or edit the programs and then record to DVD. I don't really need it to work with a remote, although that wouldn't hurt. It doesn't have to have a media front end.
Is there much benefit for me to get MCE instead of XP home?
Thanks
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27-04-2005, 4:51 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Member
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Wokingham
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Triggaaar
Is there much benefit for me to get MCE instead of XP home?
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I would say not.
Put the cash you'd save towards a sweetspot capture card...
HTPC:Silverstone LC16m . AMD64 3800 Dual Core . Thermalright XP120 . Panaflo 120mm . 250Gb Samsung Spinpoints . Scythe HDD quiet enclosure . HP640i Lightscribe DVD . Gyration Ultra . Gigabyte 6600GT Fanless . PVR150MCE . 108MBps wireless . Elan Vital Greenager PSU .
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27-04-2005, 7:56 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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Member
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Location: Maidstone
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oem mce is cheaper than xp pro, so doubt there is enough for a sweetspot capture card. Recon £70 for MCE and as it has a resonable media centre on it, i'd say go for the mce.
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28-04-2005, 7:44 AM
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#4 (permalink)
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Member
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ahh but XP Home (£55inc) < MCE (£80inc) 
HTPC:Silverstone LC16m . AMD64 3800 Dual Core . Thermalright XP120 . Panaflo 120mm . 250Gb Samsung Spinpoints . Scythe HDD quiet enclosure . HP640i Lightscribe DVD . Gyration Ultra . Gigabyte 6600GT Fanless . PVR150MCE . 108MBps wireless . Elan Vital Greenager PSU .
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28-04-2005, 8:25 AM
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#5 (permalink)
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Prominent Member
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Warrington
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And Home is perfectly adequate. 
MCE is simply XP or, hacked down to remove some of the 'sort of server type' features and with a user-friendly replacement for Media Player. Exit the player and you're back to a standard XP desktop.
Robin ... but I answer to many names 
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28-04-2005, 10:07 AM
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#6 (permalink)
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Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2001
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MCE totally rocks if you use it as a full media centre
brilliant EPG, great music player , dvds,pictures and the TV quality and recording are superb.
Mine has never missed a show in 6 months.
if you dont want these features then maybe its not for you
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28-04-2005, 10:49 AM
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#7 (permalink)
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Prominent Member
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It seems a bit of a waste to buy XP Home now, when XP MCE will give you the same PLUS the option of using MCE, if not now, maybe in the future. I reckon its worth playing with for the extra few quid.
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16-05-2005, 6:35 PM
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#8 (permalink)
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Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Reading
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Quite right lisag, you won't get much hardware for the price differential but the MCE interface is great if you want simple Media functionality. Haven't had a customer yet that's regretted going for MCE.
MCE is XP Pro with the domain joining facility removed. You can however find a hack online to allow it to join a domain if you really want to. MS say that the domain joining has to be removed for "fast user switching" to work which is a requirement for Extenders to function.
Wouldn't be surprised to find that Longhorn home will include MCE functionality as standard.
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Office: Claritas MCE (AMD64 3200), Hiper MCE (Sempron 3000), Silverstone LC11 MCE (AMD64 3000), EZ-Buddie2 MCE (Celeron 2.8), Sanyo PLV-Z3, Final HT100i, Yamaha YSP1 & DSP-E800, AA Primo, Eclipse-TD 502 & Lulet, AE Aego P5 II
Home: Hiper MCE (P4 2.8), Panasonic AE100, Sony DBR940, Mission AV1
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