ATI's Multimedia Center 8.8 - The Home Multimedia Server
by Andrew Ku on December 16, 2003 10:49 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
New to Multimedia Center 8.8
EazyShare isn't the only thing added to MMC 8.8, though it may be the most noteworthy. Due to the popularity of the format MPEG-4 and its ability to maintain high quality and small storage footprint, it was long coming for ATI to implement MPEG-4 encoding in its MMC. In the past, there have been some that have provided hacks for MMC to support formats that weren't originally programmed. While it has taken some time, ATI has covered a lot of ground with the implementation of DivX encoding. ATI makes encoding easier by allowing the Library to export between file formats: VCR to MPEG-2 or MPEG-4, MPEG-1 to MPEG-4, MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 (Note: MPEG-4 cannot be exported to other formats).
Another edition in MMC is the slide show options for MMC's File Player. Now, users can add audio to a slide show, set slide durations, play order, and effects. Audio will not be specific to a playlist, but to slide shows in general. EazyLook will not be able to play a slide show generated from the Library with audio until it is set up in desktop mode.
We should note that TV-On-Demand support in this build of MMC is kind of iffy on All-in-Wonder users, which is all related to the EazyLook mode. When TV-On-Demand is activated in EazyLook, it runs fine the first time, but when you start TV-On-Demand the second and third time in that same session, it goes to a blank screen. Audio is still playing, and the client can still view TV (assuming the TV app was initiated in desktop mode first on the server). TV-On-Demand needs to be turned on and off several times before video starts displaying. One fix is to play around with the position track backwards and forwards when there is no video displaying. This seems to work if you play around with it long enough (about 15-30 seconds). This isn't an EazyShare issue, just something that seems to be specific to MMC 8.8, as earlier MMCs work fine. We hope to see this fixed in the web release of MMC 8.8.
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jman037 - Sunday, January 18, 2004 - link
I have an ATI AIW 9700 Pro on the server with Catalyst 3.10 and Multimedia Center 8.8..and none of my clients can find any servers running on my wired 100base-T network.I've totally uninstalled and reinstalled ALL ATI software on all machines several times. I've un-shared and reshared drives. I've tried every different setting I could find. I tried running the client after turning on TV on the server and switching to TV on Demand..(TV on Demand just stutters BTW).
I'm running an AMD barton 2800+ with 1.5GBof DDR ram. Frankly I've spent over 8 hours on this issue and am at my wit's end.
Zoomer - Saturday, December 27, 2003 - link
#4, it should be the same except you would need something else to change channels.I would like to see the AIW component of ati's cards be seperated from the video card. I can't justify paying hundreds more every year or so when I upgrade graphics cards just to have the tuner.
It would be great if it could be split into 2 components. Perhaps with the AIW part as a daughterboard that's connected internally?
belboz - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
Sorry if I missed this in the article, but how does this all work if you use an external tuner like a cable box or satellite tuner?belboz - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
Vanners - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
But does 8.8 solve my audio synch problem when capturing to DivX?vailr - Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - link
Any info on the ATI "E-Home Wonder" TV tuner card?Will it be released, either retail or OEM, for sale to end users, without the necessity of also having WinXP MCE? (In case you weren't aware of this card, this PCI card includes a hardware MPG2 encoder, as well as analog TV tuner.
http://www.ati.com/products/ehome/index.html ). Would seem to enable EasyShare at much lower CPU usage, if it were available as a retail product. And, if it worked with MMC 8.8.