Category: Media Center

No Audio on WTV files in WMC7

The other day I had a weird problem with my Windows 7 Media Centre PC. The audio worked fine for all WMV and AVI (divx) files I had, but when I tried to play any WTV files, there was no audio.
The video played OK, just no audio. Files I had recorded on that computer, files I had watched a few days ago with audio, no longer had any sound.
After a little bit of searching on the web I thought it might be a driver problem.
So I uninstalled the drivers for the two sound devices, and then rebooted.
Upon reboot it detected the two devices again, reinstalled the drivers.
Then everything was working again. Sound on all WTV files.

How to change the default TV recording location

Photo by James Good
Photo by James Good

I recently got myself a USB TV tuner and have started recording TV with it and Windows Media Center in Windows 7. It is fantastic! I love how well Media Center works its so easy.
One thing I wanted to know was how to change the location where Windows Media Center records TV to. It’s quite easy,
Method:

  1. Open Windows Media Center.
  2. Click on Settings.
  3. Scroll down to TV and click on it.
  4. Click Recorder.
  5. Now click on Recorder Storage.
  6. Change Record on drive from C: to the desired one.
  7. Click Save to save the changes.

How to change the default TV recording location.
I haven’t actually changed it myself, because I had planned to change it to one of the USB drives I have plugged into my media PC. But I haven’t had time to see if and how recording to the USB drive effects recording performance.

“Optimize” Option in Media Center 7?

Image by cleverswine
Image by cleverswine

If you’ve had the chance to try the new Media Center in Windows 7 you may have noticed that there is a new Optimize  option ‘hidden’ on one of the menus.
I turned the option on, but wondered what it did. After a little digging I how a post on Ed Bott’s Media Central blog“ that explains it. It basically just restarts Media Center.