How does this Media Direct thing work?

I didn't even know the XPS had a media direct button until I looked at the 360 view example of the XPS on the Dell site.

From searching it seems to be that they format the drive with a seperate partition where you should save all of your Music and Pictures to and then you can access them without booting into Windows.

It also says you can play a DVD without booting into Windows too. Is this right?

I have a few questions:

A) What does it boot into to play the DVD, videos or Pictures?

B) Does it support the same Video codecs as Windows would with a codec pack download?

C) How much space do they dedicate of this when they partition it?

D) Is the partition fully visible inside windows and you just save the files to it normally that you want to be able to access?

E) Does it Save battery life by not running a Full Windows OS in the background?

 

A) It boots into Media Direct, a pre-boot media environment exclusive to Dell.
B) I don't think so, I remove it within an hour or two of getting my PCs as I don't need it (I never turn off any of my PCs, just sleep them)
C) It is only a gig or two. It just uses the Windows user folders so you don't have to have two copies of things.
D) You can't access the partition, you don't need to as it accesses the Windows partition.
E) I think battery life is actually less as it doesn't have as much support for power saving features.

 

Windows XP Embedded:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/products/wexpe/default.mspx

Not by default. For example it doesn't support DivX, XviD, etc. since it is installed in its own OS (see above). However you may add codecs if you are somewhat experienced:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166572

There's a second installation though: Once your booted your primary OS (e.g. Vista) you may launch MediaDirect as well. It's then run as an Windows application and if the underlying OS does support DivX, XviD, etc. it will as well.

2GB

By default it's invisible on my system (MD 3.3). However you can make it visible or access it from Linux.

Basically it is a full loaded OS, but it runs less services (e.g. no anti virus application). The latter one reduces power consumption. On the other hand not for all devices the optimal drivers are installed. Vista has a more fine grained energy control and with the appropriate drivers, Vista consumes less than XP.

 

Mediadirect is a stripped down limited version of Windows XP Embedded. When you press the MD button, the limited OS boots and loads the mediadirect application (which is nearly identical to Windows Media Center). You can view videos, powerpoints (not from office 2007), listen to music. The files don't have to be on the MD partition! It can access your Vista partition like any other folder.
It takes up about 2.5 to 3GB of ram, plus the installed vista application. The partition is partially hidden, you can see it in the system disk tool (don't know what it's called exactly, search for partition in the windows control panel).

It is supposed to give longer battery life and faster boot times, but this is not true...
Vista loads up equally fast and with all the power saving features Vista has, it lasts longer! Also codec support is limited (eg no Divx, xVid) and you can't install anything to the MD environment. On top of that, there's no internet in the MD environment, so no streaming media, YouTube, rss...
On top of that, if you have an nVIDIA card, theres no digital vibrance, which makes movies look kind of bleak imho.

I have also had trouble with MD every time I have used it (3.0, 3.3, and 3.5 version) which means at some point I could either not use MD or Vista wouldn't boot anymore.

If I were you, I'd get rid of it and use vista+media center/player or vlc or something.


Hope this helps.

(this post is longer than i expected lol)

 

Ahhh XP Embedded, I have a copy of that for developers through Uni. It's pretty good what can be done with it so it only loads the essentials.

Cheers for the advice guys. I should be ordering an XPS M1530 today as I am sick of the Acer I have had for about 2 years in September and it's really bad. My girlfriends Fujitsu-Siemens which is coming up to 3 years old and only has 512mb ram.

If I like my XPS and if my GF shows a good interest in it then she will get one for her 21st in Oct. By then they will have the new stuff out though and i'll be jealous haha.

If you guys have time and can offer my any advice before I purchase then please see this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=272739

Really tempted to order today and im happy with that spec but need advice on the CPU as I think its enough.