Media Direct 4 on the Studio 15

Hey everyone! I just got my Studio 15 last week and love this notebook! On previous Inspiron notebooks if you pressed one of the media buttons while the system was off, it would then do a quick boot to a Media Direct partition where you could play movies and music and also view photos. However, on my studio, when I press the media direct botton while the notebook is off, it changes the splash screen during POST to a Media Direct splash screen but then boots into the OS, where I have to log in, and then the Media Diract app launches. This was a big dissapointment for me. Is anyone else seeing this? I was hoping that maybe I got a bad factory install, but if others are seeing this then I guess Dell has done away with the hidden Media Direct partition.

 

AFAIK: The only way to watch blu-ray in Media Direct is by booting into the OS where the WHQL signed video driver can be seen...

 

After seeing videos of the Media Direct software on other Dell's, i found it weird too that it boots into windows, then starts the software. It'd save loads of battery power if i just want to watch a dvd.

 

I don't have a blu-ray drive, just a standard DVD drive.

 

Not only did it save on battery but it took like 10 seconds to boot to the partition to watch a movie vs. 40 seconds to boot to the OS and then another 2min for startup apps to launch.

 

well, it boots into windows, just like how other software boots into linux. I still think it saves a lot of power, my guess is that it's a very controlled environment where the processor speed and such are really limited to save battery power.

 

I'm not sure if I follow what you are saying. How does it save power if it is booting into the OS? It's no different that pressing the power button and booting into the OS except you get a different splash screen and the Media Direct app auto launches when you get into the OS. Now, the Media Direct partition, as seen on previous Dell Inspirons, is where you see the power savings. There is no OS overhead and there is limited functionality since it is only good for playing movies, listening to music and viewing photos. This is what is missing from my Studio 15. Are other Studio 15 users seeing this same thing or is this just a bad factory install?

 

Hi. I also got a new studio 15 and on pressing media direct button it first splashes screen of Media direct 4.0 and then OS boots. Can some body tell me if I can create more than 2 HD partitions and still I want to use Media direct (unlike previous Media Direct 3.5) since this MD 4.0 CD can not create partitions????? Plz reply.

 

yeah its pretty annoying that the os boots