Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

Lazy Man Joe’s » Blog Archive » Interesting registry settings for MCE

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Lazy Man Joe’s » Blog Archive » Interesting registry settings for MCE

Lazy Man Joe’s » Blog Archive » Interesting registry settings for MCE — Mon, 01 May 2006 22:01:31 GMT

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re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

tunji afonja — Wed, 10 May 2006 08:02:56 GMT

Nice work. However, is there a way to keep the top and bottom bar that are displayed when you go to window mode. They alway time out in about 2 seconds. Is there a registry key for this. I use mce a lot while on my office desktop( multitasking) I would like to keep this shell alway on. Thanks

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Tue, 16 May 2006 04:12:26 GMT

Hi Tunji - There is not a way to change the length of time or disable the timeout for the mouse controls that appear over the top of the Media Center UI. I'm not sure I understand why you would want them to always appear though. If you are using your office desktop system, simply moving the mouse will cause them to reappear.

If there is a scenario where you really want those mouse controls to stay visible all the time, you could write a simple background add-in for Media Center that calls GetCursorPos and SetCursorPos over and over to simulate mouse movements. That would have a side effect of causing the mouse controls to be visible even over full-screen TV/video as it is playing back, which can become annoying.

Remote Enter Button

NoVaSpY — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:16:58 GMT

I can't get my remote's enter/select button to work once I get into My Music for example. The enter/select button allows me into My Music but when I try to select an album, the enter/select button only makes the folder flash but that's it. So, the enter/select button only sorta work. Any ideas?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

DUrham Evans — Wed, 24 May 2006 01:16:54 GMT

get my video files (avi's) to display as thumbnails in mce2005 option on and off...

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

supermanesh — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:31:37 GMT

Is there a way to skip to a particular timestamp in MCE?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:13:08 GMT

Hi Supermanesh - Do you mean a fast forward mechanism to skip to an exact spot in a recorded TV file? If so, there is not a built-in way to do this. But, Stephen Toub has published an article on MSDN that talks about a way of implementing this functionality in a Media Center add-in if you're interested. His article is located at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnxpmce/html/positionchangeraddin.asp.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

Heula — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:28:41 GMT

I Would like to change the LastDVDid value in HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-484763869-562591055-682003330-1003\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\VideoSettings so there will be more dvd's playing where stopped.

Does someone know if this is possible?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 05:31:02 GMT

Hi Heula - I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish. Can you describe your scenario in more detail?

It is possible for you to change the LastDVDID value directly in the registry, but that just stores a value used to identify what DVD was most recently played, and Media Center uses this value to determine whether the DVD you start playing is the same as the one that you most recently played.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

Heula — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:10:31 GMT

Well if you play a dvd in MCE and stop in the middle and turn off MCE the next time you want to continue watching that same movie plays where you stopped and that's the function of the LastDVDid reg key.
MCE will only put the last watched dvd there so if I'm watching a adult movie but have to stop because one of my children want to watch a Disney dvd or someting for kids then MCE will store that dvd in the LastDVDid and my stoppint is gone and hae to start over with that movie and search where I stopped.
That's why I would like MCE to store more dvd's in that reg key.
Most standalone dvd players support that but MCE doesn't.

Hope this will be helpfull info.

Thanks Aaron.

Heula alias Alex from www.xpmce.nl

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:49:53 GMT

Hi Heula - Windows Media Center does not support that type of functionality. It only remembers the stop point of the most recently played DVD. We have heard this request for DVD changers starting with Update Rollup 2 and it is a feature we are considering for a future release. However, I have not ever heard of a standalone single-disc DVD player that could remember the stop point of a disc once you replace that disc with another one.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

Heula — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:11:33 GMT

I have a Philips dvd625 and this simpel standalone player has a 5-disk resume function. Play one of the last 5 discs that are stored in the players memory and it will play where stopped. There are Philips dvd players/recorders that have this for 10 discs.

So this is not new and should be a standard feature in Vista and perhaps there can be a small update for MCE XP as well?

Thanks.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 18:32:09 GMT

Hi Heula - That makes sense that it would be possible to do this for a finite list. I was originally thinking of it in terms of an unbounded list, which would be very difficult. As I stated in an earlier comment, Windows Media Center does not have a feature like this currently. We have heard this request in the past and it is something we are considering for a future release. I'm sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

Heula — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 13:04:38 GMT

ok, hopes are on Vista.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 06:13:20 GMT

Hi Heula - I'm sorry, but the Windows Vista version of Windows Media Center does not have this multi-disc resume function either. It is something we are considering for a future release though.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

downeya — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:19:04 GMT

is there a reg hack to enable the "add listings to channel" option under "settings > tv > guide"

i have at least 10 channels with epg data available that wont display data due to the way my cable provider is set up in mce.

"film four" instead of "film4" being the prime example.

a fix is identified here, but i dont have the partiular option needed

http://www.salloway.org.uk/mceblog/WelcomeFilmFour.aspx

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:11:04 GMT

Hi Downeya - Unfortunately, I am not aware of a workaround to enable these types of channels other than the one listed in the URL that you linked to.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

HT Slider — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 06:37:10 GMT

One "feature" of Media Center that drives us crazy wasn't able to be controlled with any of these. Maybe there is another registry setting that can be tweaked??

We are a family of 4 and use Media Center for all TV functionality (5 Media Center PC's networked). My wife likes to have the latest of a few of her shows available, while the rest of us just want a couple of each of our shows available.

We have only one satellite reciever and one tuner (configured) and we have 60 series configured to record. To keep the main HTPCs work load possible we have almost all of these 60 series configured to record a maximum of 2 shows and to keep them until watched.

This works perfectly in that we pretty much always have 2 of each of our TV shows available to watch at any time. What drives us crazy is the 10-20 "series limit has been reached" messages that appear every day.

Is there a way to disable this message or configure it to automatically go away after some (very short) period of time?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:08:45 GMT

Hi HT Slider - Unfortunately, there is no way to disable or configure this error message in Media Center 2005. This dialog has been removed from the upcoming version of Windows Media Center in Windows Vista. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

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re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

aaron_knapp — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:19:52 GMT

I was wondering if you might know of a registry setting in Vista Media Center to fix an issue I have been having since I switched from 2005. I currently have a Xbox 360 connected to my Media Center PC (via a gigabit router, cable, etc.) With 2005 I had no problems streaming HDTV. But since I installed Vista there is a large amount of pixellation during the first few seconds of playback and the first few seconds after I skip and resume playback. I have checked the network performance and I don't see any problems and I am not getting any network congestion errors. After maybe 3 or 4 seconds the picture stays clear until I skip again or stop and restart playback. I wasn't sure if there is a registry setting to specify the amount buffered at the start of playback or perhaps a setting to enable or disable buffering for playback. Any suggestions would be appreciated because both my wife and I like the Vista's media center interface but this issue is driving us crazy.

overscan amount change?

mnewman — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:21:41 GMT

I've managed to change the margin* settings that change things like the position of UI elements.

I've also found that there's a key uncer HKCU\software\ms\windows\cv\mediacenter\settings\MCEperusersettings called "optimizeFor". This seems to change the actual VIDEO overscan and is set when you choose the display type in Vista MC's setup. For instance, I've seen "Television" and "ComputerMonitor" as values.

It seems that when I'm using Television, MC pulls the video in and there is less video image lost to overscan than with ComputerMonitor, which would make sense.

(ComputerMonitor seems to be used when you specify a flat panel display.)

Is there however a registry setting that tells it by how MUCH to pull the video in - because by windowing the media center display I can see there is still more picture to see.

Ideally I'd like to tell MC to pull even more of the video in than it does. Is there a way?

re: margins

audiogeek — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:03:17 GMT

I tried the following with no luck.

Bottom Margin - How many units should Media Center pull in critical elements from the bottom of the screen?

Registry key - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.PerUserSettings

Registry value - marginBottom

Registry value data type - REG_DWORD

I would like to "move" the transport controls up about 1/2" and to the left about a 1/2". Is this possible? What values should I enter?

Thanks!

Chuck

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:37:15 GMT

Hi Audiogeek - I believe you have to enable overscan before the margin settings will have any effect. Can you give that a try and see if it helps on your system?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

audiogeek — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:11:54 GMT

Thanks. That worked.

No TV Signal

YARG — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:41:51 GMT

Hi,

Unfortunately my TV signal isn't great and sometimes it takes a few seconds as I switch between channels. This has been OK with my UK Digital Freeview box but now that I’m using MCE2005 on a Sony XL202 I sometimes get a “No TV Signal” error. Now I know the signal is OK, if I stop MCE2005 and restart it the signal is there. I guess there is some registry timeout setting or something that I may be able to use in order to increase the timeout delay?

Cheers

Steve

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:05:20 GMT

Hi YARG - To my knowledge, there is not an officially supported way of configuring the "no TV signal" timeout value in the registry. You may want to post a question at one of the following locations to see if there is something unofficial that folks have used in this type of scenario in the past:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/83/ShowForum.aspx

You may also want to look into some kind of hardware to try to boost the signal strength in your area to help eliminate this issue on your system.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

YARG — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:58:20 GMT

Ok thanks for your prompt feedback astebner

Caption question

xdriver — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:54:44 GMT

I MCE2005 running on a sony VAIO without a tuner card. While I watch a dvd I would like to be able to turn the captions on. The problem is that while watching the movie, if I right click -> settings -> TV, that it says "tuner not found." Is there a way to get around this with a registry tweak of some nature? Thank you.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:27:53 GMT

Hi Xdriver - I haven't heard of an issue like this before. I don't know of a registry tweak to avoid a "tuner not found" error. Do you have a tuner configured on this system? It might help to try the steps listed at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/02/17/534559.aspx, but I'm not positive.

If that doesn't help, I'd suggest posting a question at one of the following locations to see if someone there can suggest any other workarounds:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/83/ShowForum.aspx

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re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

andypennell — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:36:11 GMT

Changing SkipAheadInterval appears to have no effect when running wvx+mpeg content on an Extender. Is this expected? Is there any other way of changing the 29s interval?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:09:50 GMT

Hi Andypennell - The SkipAheadInterval setting is located under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Extenders log in using their own user accounts, so you need to make sure to set this registry value in the HKEY_USERS hive for the extender user account. Could you give that a try and see if it helps? Also, just to be sure, can you confirm that this setting works on the console as opposed to via an extender session?

Windows Media Center Registry Tweaks

Robert McLaws: Windows Vista Edition — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:58:48 GMT

I was re-configuring my Windows Media Center the other day (don’t ask) and I wanted to adjust the “skip

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re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

oma — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:09:42 GMT

hello guys, any one know y media centre dont work when i click live tv?the recorded programs work apart from live tv. used to work b4 but i dont know wat happen since its been a while since i used it. am probably think that the registry keys must be missing or corrupted, but stil dont know. am on windows Xp media centre edition version 2002 service pack 3. plz help, thanks, oma

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:26:40 GMT

Hi Oma - There are some troubleshooting suggestions for this type of error in the links at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/articles/487537.aspx. I'd suggest looking at some of those items to see if any of the workarounds listed there help in this scenario.

If none of those help, then I'd suggest posting a question at one of the following locations to see if anyone there can help suggest other workarounds for you to try:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/83/ShowForum.aspx

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

oma — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:06:23 GMT

thank u astebner,for yo response but nothing seems to work in my situation. i also forgot to mention that no error message is displayed when i click into live Tv, its like it doesn't respond or the live tv button not working. but no error message cos the recorded programmes work. hope that gives you a picture.thank u

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:58:25 GMT

Hi Oma - The behavior you describe sounds like it could be caused by a driver problem, so I'd also suggest searching for updated drivers for your video card and TV tuner card(s) to see if they help.

If that doesn't help either, then If none of those help, then I'd suggest posting a question at one of the following locations to see if anyone there can help suggest other workarounds for you to try:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/83/ShowForum.aspx

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

oma — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:22:45 GMT

hello Asteb, u may be surprised that i aint found a solution to solve the media centre problem i posted days earlier but i think i may know wats causing it. i scanned windows with RegCure application and found out i got a couple of registration keys either missing or invalid for media centre. it came with some thing like this:The key pictures MRU under media centre listing them like MRU #0, MRU #1, > > MRU #2,.i dont know how it got caused neither to get them back. hope u can advise me on this. thanks

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:03:56 GMT

Hi Oma - The MRU registry entries are used to add links to the Media Center start menu. I don't think those keys would cause any issues with being able to view live TV within Media Center.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

oma — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:15:55 GMT

hi astebner, thnks for yo info regarding MRU registrys. to my ignorance i thout they may have caused the malfunction when viewing live TV. i stil cant get around this issue i tried updating the turner but to no avail.Am using a PCTV pinnacle media centre version 110i but it didnt help.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:13:38 GMT

Hi Oma - I'd also suggest re-running Media Center TV Setup after updating your vidoe and TV tuner drivers to see if that helps.

If that doesn't help, then I'm not sure what other suggestions I can provide. It would probably be best to post a question at one of the forums that I posted links to previously:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/83/ShowForum.aspx

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

joe_geo0 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:40:41 GMT

Hi,

i am trying to automate windows media center testing.

when we execute media center for the first time, there is a settings page that comes up.

due to that setting i cannot directly play the video, first I have to bi pass this settings page.

i didnt find a perfect way to bi-pass that introductory/settings page.

Note:

the page shows up differently in vista and in windows7.

Can you please help?

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

astebner — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:21:09 GMT

Hi Joe_Geo0 - I don't know of a reliable, supported way to automate the configuration of the settings that are controlled by this page that appears the first time you start Media Center on a system. You may want to check on the Green Button forums to see if any folks there have any suggestions for you to try - http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/83/ShowForum.aspx.

re: Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

joe_geo0 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:21:57 GMT

Thanks astebner for pointing me the Green Button forums.