Media Center is great except for the not able to view media thing

January 15, 2007 8:02 AM

Radeon 7000 Series wont play nice with Media Center 2005

Media center will open, but not before an error of "Your video card or drivers are not compatible with media center"

After MC opens, everything works except anything involving video playback (MyTV, My Videos). I was able to set up MyTV, ie I was able to download the guide and updates, but cant view video.

When I attempt to view Live TV or an existing video (only in MC, video is fine in regular XP environment), I get "VIDEO ERROR: Files needed to display video are not installed or not working correctly. Please restart Media Center and/or restart the computer"

Both of those suggestions do not work.

I have no problems playing any videos when NOT in the MC environment.

Under the device manager the "Device Status" is "This device is working properly"

I have downloaded and installed the latest Driver version "8.252.0.0" dated 5/3/2006 and the ATI Catalyst Control Center

I have been to the ATI website and registered for tech support. I submitted a ticket a week ago and haven't heard back. Phone support is a 900 number and $1.50 per minute, and I'd rather not par for tech support unless I'm 100% sure they can fix this.

So I come to you, hivemind. Any ideas? Oh, one other thing, this never worked. It's not like it did then stopped.

From Device Manager"
RADEON 7000 Series
Device Type: Display Adapters
Manufactirer: ATI Technologies Inc
Location: PCI Slot 3 (PCI bus 2, device 5, function 0)
Driver Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher
No Conflists

posted by sandra_s to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I think your video card is too old, and therefore is not Media Center compatible. Here's the list of cards that will work; the ATI's listed are much newer than the 7000 series.

Consider MythTV. It has all the functionality of XP Media Center without the stiff hardware requirements. That being said, the GeForce 5*** series cards do work with Media Center, and can be had on ebay for less than $50, so it might be worth it to just upgrade.
posted by jtfowl0 at 8:45 AM on January 15, 2007

First result for Googling +"Radeon 7000" +"MCE".

Apart from that, looks like you'll need a better video card (the Radeon 7000 doesn't support DX9?).
posted by Pinback at 8:54 AM on January 15, 2007

I'm pretty sure you're also using the wrong drivers.

When you select your download you should enter in your proper card info (Ati.com -> Support -> Downloads)

The 7k series do not supoprt the 8.x drivers. When I navigate to the proper downloads for the 7K I get

Catalyst Software Suite 6.11 Nov. 15, 2006.

Which is to say, you most likely need a new DirectX 9.0 capable card to actually pull this off. You should be able to pick up a card like the 9250 for under $50, and it comes in AGP and PCI flavours, depending on how old your board is. Of course, the newer the card the longer it will last before having to be replaced, but also the more expensive it will be.
posted by tiamat at 9:08 AM on January 15, 2007

Also, have you installed a mpeg2 decoding software of some sort? If not, that explains the second error message you are getting. MCE doesn't come with one, but one has to be installed to watch video or live TV. I have had the best luck with the NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder (which works with both ATI and NVIDIA cards).

That being said, if you have any DVD player software (WinDVD, PowerDVD, etc.), then installing that onto the MCE computer should take care of it. Your unsupported video card still might prevent everything from working, though.
posted by jtfowl0 at 9:21 AM on January 15, 2007

A note. Even with a 9250, I got the error message. I had to download the drivers that were specifically designed to work with Media Center.
posted by evilcolonel at 5:14 PM on January 15, 2007

What jtfowl0 said -- be really certain that you have an MPEG2 codec that is compatible with MCE.

I've kind of gone away from playing with MCE, but I do recall getting an error message very much like that once, because I forgot to install the MPEG2 codec when I was rebuilding the box. The error occurred when attempting to play any video, regardless of whether it would play back correctly in media player, etc.

Also, not all MPEG2 codecs are supported by MCE -- sometimes it's only specific versions of specific codecs.

There is a free MS utility out there (thegreenbutton would probably be a good place to look) that will examine your codecs and tell you whether they are compatible, and let you select which one you want to use (some are more stable than others with certain video cards, etc.)
posted by nonliteral at 9:34 PM on January 16, 2007