Windows Media Center

Duckie wrote on 10/27/2006, 2:07 AM

Is there any truth to the rumor that Windows XP Media Center is not a great operating system for Vegas Movie Studio 7? The system requirements call for either XPhome or Pro, but don't mention media center. I am editing HDV and am experiencing extremely slow and jerky preview (usually about 3 to 4 frames per second) with no change after I render to intermediates. My processor is a P4, 3.2Ghz hyper threading w/ 1 Mb ram. I am using only a single 300 Gb hard drive. I bought a 500 Gb second drive, but upon opening the case, I discovered that there was not an open space for it. I downloaded a free trial of Vegas 7 and it seemed to preview a little faster (maybe 7 or 8 frames per second) but still not very good.

After reading a lot of FAQ's and many posts on different forums, I have discovered that I am not the only one having jerky preview problems. Anybody have any thoughts? Thanks.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 10/27/2006, 2:17 AM

Media Center isn't so much an OS as a suite of applications that Microsoft includes with the OS. Most likely you have a lot of extra Media Center background processes running. Turning these off will help enormously.

Duckie wrote on 10/27/2006, 9:33 PM

Thanks. I'll try to figure out how to disengage the media center applications.

ritsmer wrote on 10/29/2006, 5:52 AM

Normally the Media Center programmes and its interface can be switched off so that you end up with a normal XP pro.
Before you bother figuring out how to stop different programmes etc. just do this and/or press CTRL+ALT+Delete one time to get the task manager and look under processes if there really are any processes that uses any CPU-time. If they do not - then do not bother killing them :-)