I was recently was given a Dell Dimension 8250(2.4ghz P4, 512mb, S-Video out graphics card) for free so I decided to dip into Windows again and try out their media centers. It’s been a long time since I have actually done anything in Windows but it hasn’t changed much…

Long waits for updating to SP2, installing all the necessary add-ons such as DirectX 9c, the .NET framework, and a ridiculously tedious amount of security patches and updates. Once I got through all of that I realized that a fresh installation of Windows XP is really not as bad as I remember, but then again I haven’t browsed any sites other than MediaPortal, Microsoft Update, and a few Dell Drivers pages so there’s not a chance of any trojans, viruses, etc… but I did spend about 6-7 hours installing updates.

MediaPortal is very nice, it reminds me of how much I liked XBMC. Maybe because a lot of the developers doing This application started out doing XBMC, lol. Plus they had drivers for me to use my old Xbox 1 remote control and it set up very easily. Again, other than the hours upon hours of updates so that I could get MediaPortal running, it has been a very smooth setup.

The thing that I am really glad to have again is the database that MediaPortal has so all you have to do is point it to your folder of movies and it automatically downloads all sorts of good Movie Covers, Actors, Summary, and more from IMDB.com. It really helps out the user experience when you can see the cover the of movie your about to watch instead of FrontRows’ method of just using Quick Look to preview a single frame a few seconds into the movie.

I did run into a few problems with trying to stream my movies and tv episodes from my MacMini using Samba but once I pulled my head out of my ass I realized it was a lot simpler than what I was doing. I think I was so caught up in the Windows mindset where I have to dig and dig for a preference file in the back corner of hell to make it work and when I tried to configure the mini I was still trying to dig instead of just going to the File Sharing and click the options button like it should be.

I also set up uTorrent so that I can have a little more reliable RSS torrentcasting for a free TiVo. Plus the new WebUI is fantastic and with the iPhone plugin for the WebUI I can check on all my downloads from anywhere. I give props to the WebUI and WebiPhoneUI guys, they did a great job.

I think I will do a series of how to set up a worry free MediaPortal setup with uTorrent, Making a Xbox remote adapter, installing MediaPortal, and explaining some of the problems I ran into so check back soon!