Windows Media Centre in Parallels?

talla

Just wondering if this is possible.
My Windows Media Centre machine in my bedroom is on its last legs. I've been thinking of getting an iMAC for a while (currently have a macbook) and was looking to kill two birds with one stone.
I've the NTL digital box connected to a TV card in the Vista machine at present but was hoping to buy a 24 inch iMAC, connect up a USB TV card and output a Parrallels desktop running Windows Media Centre (Vista) to the TV using the mini dvi to VGA adapter. Is this possible?
Front row or plex is not an option as I use the PVR capabilities of Media Centre with NTL digital and the media centre TV guide.

J-blk

I'm not 100% sure how things would work with the latest version of Parallels, but with the latest version of Fusion on a MacBook Pro with 3D acceleration enabled, the Media Center interface does not fully work - most things do, but video playback is an issue, especially live TV. I don't think it's possible I'm afraid though the "Green Button" forums might have more info on such a scenario:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/default.aspx

I used to have a similar setup to yours and that's the one annoying thing in Mac OS X - WMC is still much better as a complete PVR solution... You can use Eye TV on the Mac but it does not really integrate that well with other apps, the EPG stinks for Ireland and the deal breaker: there's no way to control an NTL Digital/Sky box like you can in WMC .

talla

Cheers for the reply.
After searching on google there seems to be a problem with the directx version in both Parallels and VMware fusion.
Well I purchased a 24inch Imac off the refurbished store today for €1370.
Going to try an alternative now, will see if it's possible to use parallels to record TV programs and am going to buy the slingbox classic from expansys when they come back into stock to view live TV.
If that doesn't work, will just buy a cheap dell to stick under the TV to run as a media centre box.

J-blk

That's a nice machine there - 24" iMacs are beautiful systems .

The DX support in Fusion and Parallels isn't problematic, just not up to modern standards - it's still only DX9, without some of the advanced features (shaders, etc) so it simply can't compare to a physical modern graphics card.

Funnily enough, I went down the SlingBox Classic route too, since I care more about Live TV, rather than recording - it works well (and can change the channels on the NTL box thankfully) but the Mac client software is still behind the Windows one... The most recent Windows versions now have some PVR functions, as they buffer an hour's worth of the stream, allowing you to pause, rewind, etc. There's no ETA on when Mac users may get those features unfortunately .

As for getting recordings done in Parallels/Fusion, you might be able to do it with your TV tuner's software (I believe if you can force video overlay on the tuner, via the software, then it works) but not through WMC. WMC can't initialize video at all in the VMs, even if it is not opening up a window for live viewing. I tried it in the past and it wouldn't work but I'd be interested to hear of any success you may have with it. Best of luck.

talla

iMac arrived yesterday. really is impressive. The only thing that let me down was it said the mini - DVI to VGA adapter was included in the package so I never bothered ordering this separately but it turned out it wasn't included. Not going to bother with it now as the iMAC is practically the same size screen as the TV.

Tried getting Media centre working within parallels but couldn't get the media centre setup to recognize the IR receiver so the setup will not complete. Will just have to use the slingplayer to watch TV while in OSX and boot into Vista via Bootcamp when I want to record TV.

Cheers for the help anyway.

J-blk

talla wrote: »

couldn't get the media centre setup to recognize the IR receiver so the setup will not complete.

That's odd - you can normally complete WMC setup without an IR receiver/remote combo. I've done that on a number of systems and it works fine, even using a keyboard for the remote functions. And are you using the standard Microsoft IR Blaster or something else? Because that works for me in Fusion.

Even so, that's the least of the problems - you'd have much bigger issues getting video to work properly, if at all.

As for the DVI adapter, if it said it should be included, then why not contact Apple and ask them for it? Just a quick email or something... you may need it later down the line.

talla

Yep using the standard IR Receiver for media centre. It got as far as detecting that the TV signal was Composite (but no picture of course) and next step was it looked for IR receiver which it could detect. Drivers etc installed when i connected. Unplugged the receiver and put it in a different USB port, drivers automatically reinstalled but media centre still wouldn't detect it. Works fine in bootcamp. It was just a test anyway. just wanted to see if I could get the programme recording working when media centre wasn't running.