XP or Windows 7?

[R1Dave]

I'm going to rebuild my PC in the new year. It's got so much stuff on it and i think i have a suspect hard drive. It will then be used almost exclusively for npvr. I currently have a license for XP but i'm just wondering if there is any benefit in me upgrading to Windows 7 at the same time? I'm thinking that it probably isn't worth it but thought it was worth asking because this will be the perfect opportunity.

Thanks

Dave

[mikeh49]

If this PC will be used for playback (rather than a server) I would definitely go with 7. My HTPC experience has been far superior with 7. The key I think is the EVR renderer. Also, the MS DTV-DVD video decoder works great for me, so no need for a codec pack etc. Just need AC3 filter for AC3 audio. This is for US HD Mpeg2 files. No mkvs, h.264, etc. UK might be different, especially regarding the video decoder selection.

[ShiningDragon]

It's not easy to answer, because everyone has other priorities. Additionally to mikeh49 post, there were 2 questions i would ask, before deciding anything.

How old is the hardware? Is it modern, featurerich, energyefficient and more then one cpu core? One point for Windows 7. If the hardware is older, like AMD socket 939, 754 or even Socket A area, then i would stay at Windows XP. In this case you didn't have any advantage compared to Windows 7.

The second question: Is your PC connected to the internet? If you answer yes, then you should take care of having the latest os available. Just for security reasons. Official support for Windows XP will die soon enough. If your pc is offline used, then it's fairly uninteresting if you're using XP or 7.

[whurlston]

For any media related activity, I recommend 7 (or even Vista) over XP wholeheartedly.

[hoborg]

Win7 x86

[jcjefferies]

I recently had to admit defeat with XP and now use Vista for both my server and client. XP worked well for many months as the server until I bought a twin tuner card which crashed NPVR when two simultaneous recordings were made. DVBFix cured that problem but the card would no longer scan for channels unless the fix was removed but Vista cured that problem. Also using XP on the client I had an annoying long term problem where NPVR would sometimes crash running at 100% when I stopped a recording playing. Again I have not seen this problem since moving the client to Vista.

[bgowland]

As others have said, it does depend on your setup.

If you view at the PC monitor or pipe the video output to a TV then W7 would be better from the point of native AV support. If, like me, 99.9% of everything is done by an NMT or similar then that isn't important.

I built my 19'' rack-mount server specifically for GB-PVR back in early 2005 - it has had 2 replacement PSUs, an upgrade to the system HDD and some replacement SDRAM. It runs NextPVR on XP SP3 and feeds my single PCH-A110 very nicely.

I'd never dissuade (is that a word?) anyone from upgrading stuff if they want to, but if it works as it is...

Cheers,
Brian

[pcostanza]

I've had excellent results with Windows 7 (mostly Ultimate x64) and other than some work machines, am using all Windows 7. I have 2 computers and an laptop running NPVR in Windows 7. I'm happy with it.

[R1Dave]

Wow, that sparked some interesting comments. The PC was bought when Vista was fairly new and had been downgraded to XP. It has a dual core with 4gb RAM i think. So it should cope with 7 ok. I do use the PC for direct play-back so it sounds like it would be worth doing. And there might be a few stability benefits as well. I intend to keep the PC very clean with only the required software installed.

Thanks all for the comments.

[mvallevand]

Too bad, if you had opted for Vista, you wouldn't need a Win7 license now.

Martin