Where does Windows XP Media Center Edition (XP MCE) 2005 store recorded TV files?

A. By default, XP MCE 2005 stores all recorded programs in the Documents and SettingsAll UsersDocumentsRecorded TV folder on the system drive. Recorded programs are stored in DVR-MS format, which is a Microsoft format based on digital video recording (DVR) technology. The content is encoded as MPEG-2 video stream, and the files can be very large, an hour show can use 3.5GB of disk space. Part of the reason for this large space is that a live video stream can be paused, time shifted, played, and recorded without interrupting the stream.

The XP Media Center Recorded TV (.dvr-ms) format also allows for the storage of metadata about the content. For example, .dvr-ms files often contain complete show title, date and time of broadcast, and various data classifications, which isn't possible in a regular MPEG file.