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11月30日 Vote in The Media Center Show Awards and win!As mentioned on the award show page there is a prize draw for anybody that leaves there email address when voting in The Media Center Show Awards. So here are some of the prizes up for grabs
I really want your opinions, the developer community has produced some great Vista Media Center applications this year and I want to highlight their achievements Oh and if you tried to vote and you got an error I have fixed that problem now, so give it another go 11月29日 Looking for Beta Testers for "Media Center Health Monitor"For a while I have been working on a small program that gives me a little piece of mind when working with Recorded TV in Media Center. A while back I had a problem with Recordings not working due to a corruption in Recordings.XML, I only noticed the problem a while after it has started and I missed quite a few recordings. So that go me thinking that I would like to have some kind of monitor on the status on Media Center, something not unlike Windows Home Servers heath status. Now I know that corruption errors are very rare (once this year for me) but I wanted to get the status of other errors too, like if Media Center missed a recording due to the power being off or a IR blaster cable has been pulled out etc. Plus it's nice to see easily everything is ok . I also wanted an excuse to play with Visual Studio 2008 and thought it was better to start with a hobby program rather than on my core apps at the office :) So I have written "Media Center Health Monitor", this monitors the Media Center Event Log and warns of Recording errors and any service issues that would effect the recordings. The program sits in the tray has has health status, Green = All is OK, Yellow = Warnings and Red=Service Errors. See the screen shots bellow: The app is written in VB using .NET framework 3.5 and deployed using ClickOnce. This beta is a desktop only version but I do have plans for other ways of being alerted in the future, eg Sidebar, other network devices etc
So I am looking for beta testers to have a play with the application, if you interested email beta [at] thedigitallifestyle.com and I will send you a URL The forum to discus the application is Thread for my new application Media Center Health Monitor Technorati tags: Windows Media Center, Media Center Health Monitor The Media Center Show #133 - Tranquil PCBy Ian Dixon (16.2mb 47mins 16sec) Direct Download Link - Subscribe via iTunes - Subscribe via RSS I have two interviews this week recorded on location in Manchester. James Senior from Microsoft UK talks about the "Windows Vista After Hours" events hosted around the UK. He explains why they where running the events and how they were showing off consumer products like Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server to IT Professionals. The 2nd interview is with James Thompson of Tranquil PC, Tranquil produce a great range of Windows Home Server products (like the one I review a couple of weeks ago). I also have email, news items and the launch of The Media Center Show Awards 2007 Thanks to the show sponsor Tech.co.uk Join The Media Center Show Group on Facebook Show Times: 01:00 Coming up this week Technorati tags: Windows Media Center, podcasts 11月28日 How to get Windows Media Center receiving premium HD cable content without CableCARDI just read an interesting article on Hometoys.com about how to get Premium HD cable content in to Media Center without using CableCARD. The solution uses an undocumented feature of Motorola Set Top Boxes (specifically the QIP6200-2 in this case) to get the content.
Looks an interesting solution, read the rest of the article HERE Technorati Tags: Windows Media Center,CableCARD 11月27日 Delay on UK Shipments of Extenders till FebruaryAs Chris Lanier pointed out the V2 extenders have been delayed to late December / January. This is disappointing, when they were unveiled in October there was a lot of buzz about these products and that fact they they would be available for Christmas. In the UK there are STILL has no acknowledgment of them being available at all, they have been listed for pre-ordering with November as the shipping date but it seems like the UK units have been delayed until at least February
Thanks to Gordon for the tip off mControl Developer ProgramEmbedded Automation have released details of the mControl Developer Program. The mControl Developer Program allows developers to extend the functionality of mControl by getting the mControl Driver Development Kit (mControl DDK) and creating devices using the .NET framework. This is great for adding protocols to mControl that are not natively supported.
Technorati Tags: mControl,Home Automation 11月26日 Media Center meets PianoEver wish your Media Center PC was installed in a piano? No, me neither but that is on sale on ebay.This Media Center/Piano hybrid is a full Media Center PC with 26 inch LCD and the old Media Center Remote keyboard in place of the piano keys (I hope they don't try and use the keyboards mouse pointer) For $20,000 (buy now price) I would have like Vista and not XP Media Center in it! Read more on Engadget Media center meets piano, results are questionable - Engadget
Technorati tags: Windows Media Cente, piano The Media Center Show Awards 2007 are go!For the last three years I have run the Media Center Show Awards. The aim of the awards is to highlight the great work performed by the Media Center This year the Media Center developer community has grasped the challenging but rewarding Media Center Markup Language and they have produced an amazing range of applications. So let’s start off by looking at the best free Utility applications. There were two standout applications this year, MSDVR Toolbox and Recorded TV Broker both from Andrew Van Till. MSDVRToolbox is an application for managing and transforming recorded TV Files. With the utility you can instruct it to automatically transcode and moves files around your network, so it could automatically remove any commercials shrink the file and copy it to a network location. RecordingBroker is an application that detects recording conflicts and submits recording requests to other brokers configured in the application. If you have more than one Media Center system you can get the systems to talk to each other to schedule the recordings. Moving on to 10 foot Media Center applications this year we were spoiled for choice, the developers really embraced Vista Media Center and produced some great looking applications, so for best free application we have:
TV Library by Andrew Cherry expands on Media Center’s library functions by providing customizable views of recorded TV. In TV Library you can navigate around your content by genre, series or any way that works for you. For example Doctor who could be split in to Classic and “New Who” then that could be further split by series. A personal favourite Media Center application is Webguide, this is an interesting addin that enables you to view your Media Center guide data over your local network or the Internet. So if you forget to setup that vital recording you can do it from any web device, including mobile phones. Just fire up a web browser and browse the guide and setup the recording. It has streaming functions in it too. Webguide has long been my essential addon for Windows Media Center and was pleased when Microsoft announced that its developer Doug Berrett had joined Microsoft and that they would be offering Webguide for free. What the future holds for Webguide we will have to wait and see. Big screen Headlines comes from Australian developed Niall Ginsburg, its a RSS reader for Vista Media Center that enables you to read web feeds, listen to podcast and watch videos all from the 10 foot interface. It's a great looking application and a great way of getting the web on to the TV. Also from Niall is Big Screen photos 2 a flickr photo viewer for Vista Media Center. TV toolbox is an editor for Recorded TV files. What is particularly nice about this application is its use of the visual effect in Windows Media Center to make editing a TV show easy and intuitive. This comes from German developer Olcay Buyan. EMUCenter from another Aussi developer Steven Harding is a 10 foot application for launching classic arcade games using MAME emulators. You can play the classic arcade games of the past all from the sofa. Steven Harding also has Yougle Vista nominated, this is an addin for watching Youtube and Google videos from Media Center. MyMovies is a movie collection management and playback tool. With My Movies you are able to index your movies with automatically downloaded data from the internet, and then browse movies, actors, directors and much more. You can share your movie database to multiple clients, and configure each client to its own parental control limitation. The commercial applications were represented by mControl from Embedded Automation, Media Center Communicator from One Voice and mceTunes. mControl is an home automation package for Vista Media Center, XP Media Center and Windows Home Server. Media Center Communicator is a voice control system for Media Center and mceTunes is a way of enabling access to protected iTunes content from Media Center, something that is not possible out of the box. Media Center owes much of its success to the great community that has built up around it, and to recognise this there is a award for the best community site and Best Media Center Blog details of the nominations can be found on the Vote page Whilst settings up the vote page I took the opportunity to ask voters what components they added to their Media Center system such as Xbox 360, Windows Home Server, Zune and iPods. The reason I asked this question is that I am interested to see what integration issues people are coming across. All the nominations were suggested by listeners and readers so head over to the vote page and have your say, the vote will be open all of December and the winners will be announced on a future Media Center Show There is also a prize draw with a winner drawn at random, for details of the prize see the website next week Vote page http://awards.thedigitallifestyle.com/ Technorati tags: The Media Center Show Awards 11月22日 The Media Center Show Awards 2007The Media Center Show awards page will be opened for voting on Monday 26th November. You can preview the nominations now and if you have any comments or suggestions drop me an email ian [at] Thedigitallifestyle.com All the sites and services have been nominated by readers and listeners, if anything is missing it is because it wasn't nominated :) but feel free to let me know if there is something you want adding (before Monday)
Technorati tags: The Media Center Show Awards The Media Center Show #132 - Scott Evans (Microsoft)By Ian Dixon (15.8mb 44mins 52sec) Direct Download Link - Subscribe via iTunes - Subscribe via RSS - Get the show on your Zune This week Scott Evans, Group Manager for the eHome division at Microsoft joins me to talk about how Microsoft are pushing Media Center in to the Custom AV channel and how Customer Installers are adapting to Windows Media Center. We also discus Webguide now the developer (Doug Berret) has joined Microsoft. I also have email and news items. I am looking to feature more end users on the show, so if your an enthusiasts of Media Center and would like to talk about your system on the show, let me know: Show @TheDigitalLifestyle.com Thanks to the show sponsor Tech.co.uk Join The Media Center Show Group on Facebook Show Times: Technorati tags: Windows Media Center, podcasts 11月20日 Windows Media Center SDK 5.3 Now AvailableMicrosoft have updated the Windows Media Center SDK Here are the changes according to the mediacentersandbox.com
Interesting to see that Hosting for XAML applications has been deprecated, does this mean that XBAP (XAML browser applications) have officially failed Technorati tags: Windows Media Center Development 11月15日 The Digital Lifestyle.com Video Show - Zune and Media Center Recorded TVThe Digital Lifestyle.com video show is sponsored by Embedded Automation I love the new Zune update and one of my favorite features is the easy syncing of Recorded TV from Media Center. So in this video I take a look at how the There are a couple of minor things I would change, like having a "Send To Zune" option in Media Center Recorded TV, but overall the new feature does work well. You can also see my detailed look at the speed of conversion in this blog post.
The Media Center Show #131 - RussoundBy Ian Dixon (18.3mb 53mins 17sec) Direct Download Link - Subscribe via iTunes - Subscribe via RSS - Subscribe via Zune This week Jeff Kussard from Russound joins me to talk about how Russound are integrating Windows Media Center with their whole house audio systems. We also talk about their new range of Media Center Servers I also have email and news items. I am looking to feature more end users on the show, so if your an enthusiasts of Media Center and would like to talk about your system on the show, let me know: Show @TheDigitalLifestyle.com Thanks to the show sponsor Tech.co.uk Join The Media Center Show Group on Facebook Show Times: 00:45 Coming up this week Technorati tags: Windows Media Center, podcasts Linksys Media Center Extenders available to pre-order in the UK and EuropeWhile there still has been no official announcements on the availability of the V2 Extenders in the UK, Lambda-tek.com are taking pre-orders for the Linksys The part numbers for the European models are DMA2100-EU (£188.60 inc. VAT) and DMA2200-EU (£220.49 inc. VAT) I had a quick search around for the EU model numbers found a few European sites offering the units for pre-order No stock available on the site at the moment: http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?origin=gbase14.2&prodID=B89855
Thanks to reader Gordon Lindsay who tipped me off Suggest The Media Center Show for addition to the Zune MarketplaceIf you would like to see The Media Center Show in the Zune Podcast directory please go to the Podcast section of the marketplace and click on "suggest a It would be great to get the show in to on to the marketplace and to see if user request are taken in to consideration 11月13日 Niveus Media honored with Design and Engineering AwardDenali Limited Edition takes Best of Video Components and Sierra Edition is named an Honoree in Home Theater Accessories.
New York, NY – November 13, 2007 – The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) today announced Niveus Media, the leader in high-end digital entertainment solutions for the connected home, as an International CES Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Awards winner. Niveus’ Denali Limited Edition, boasting video scaling up to 1080p, 2TB of storage, and 7.1 Pro Audio, was awarded with Best of Innovations 2008 in the Video Components product category. The Sierra Edition, Niveus’ first eco-friendly media server designed for large volume homebuilders, was selected as an Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Award honoree in the Home Theater Accessories product category. “The Niveus team is very proud to be recognized on the CES Innovations Honoree and Best-of roster, once again,” expressed Niveus CEO and Co-Founder, Tim Cutting. “Niveus is dedicated to developing the most sophisticated whole-home entertainment solutions and we incorporate the most advanced audio, video, and performance features to do so. Winning Best Of for Denali LE testifies to our commitment.” As a recipient of one of the highest scores in the Video Components product category, the Denali LE boasts impressive video capabilities and incorporates Nvidia’s GeForce Series 8 graphics featuring PureVideo™ HD technology for high quality video scaling up to and beyond 1080p. In addition to the award-winning video performance, one of the most distinguishing features of the Denali LE is the “Pro Audio” chipset for the highest fidelity audio reproduction. The dedicated sound card provides the cleanest and highest resolution audio from all channels (up to 7.1), and features digital-to-analog converters from Burr-Brown, chosen in top professional or consumer audio equipments around the world. Additionally, the Denali LE features the compelling Windows Vista® operating system, CableCARD technology, HD DVD, Intel processor technology, Niveus’ ConvergencePanel™ (patent-pending), and Niveus’ Glacier™ Passive Cooling technology; resulting in a silent, high-performance, A/V-style media server designed for the digital home. The Denali LE provides pristine audio and video performance for superior home theater production and remarkable whole-home entertainment. Set to debut at CES 2008 as a proud 2008 Innovations Honoree, the Sierra Edition Media Server incorporates proprietary technology and represents Niveus’ base-level offering, intended for those that appreciate the benefits of Media Server functionality and are looking to create an environmentally friendly, digital home. Full product details and availability will be announced at CES 2008. Since 1989, the prestigious Innovations Design and Engineering Awards recognize achievements in product design and engineering in the consumer electronic category. Selected by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the trade press to honor outstanding design and engineering in consumer electronics products, entrants are judged on an extensive list of criteria, including: engineering qualities, including technical specifications and materials used; product’s intended use/function and user value; aesthetic and design qualities; unique and novel features; contributions to consumers’ quality of life; and impact on the manufacturer’s business model. Niveus Media’s Denali Limited Edition and Sierra Edition will be displayed at the 2008 International CES, which runs January 7-10, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase will feature honorees by product category at Innovations Plus at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, Booth # 70621. Visit www.CESweb.org/innovations for details. Introducing The Niveus Media Extender – EdgeOf all the Extenders this is the premium device! I hope to get a first hand look at this while at CES. Introducing The Niveus Media Extender – Edge – The first Windows Media Center Extender designed for the custom install channel, EDGE is ISF certified and available in time for the Holidays!Shortly after the unveiling at CEDIA Expo 2007, Niveus Media, the leader in high-end digital entertainment for the connected home, formally introduces the Niveus Media Extender – EDGE. A hardware device that gives users the ability to enjoy the Niveus Media Center experience throughout the whole home, EDGE has become the first Windows Media Center Extender to receive the prestigious Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) Video Quality Certification. “We’re excited to formally introduce the Niveus Media Extender – EDGE,” states Tim Cutting, CEO, Niveus Media. “EDGE represents the final building block of the Niveus Entertainment Experience, a complete end- to end server/client product architecture that allows high definition entertainment to be accessed from any room of the house. No other vendor can offer this complete solution based on the Microsoft Media Center Platform. This, along with our recent ISF certification of EDGE, is a huge advantage over competing solutions.” Through the introductions of EDGE and the robust storage and control solutions (Niveus Storage Server and Niveus Control Server/Niveus Companion), Niveus now offers a supremely sophisticated Media Center eco-system, properly dubbed The Niveus Entertainment Experience. Also on Niveus: Upgraded Niveus Media Servers Deliver Audiophile Quality Sound – With Intel processing, Pro Audio and advanced functionality, Niveus’ 2008 product offers the highest fidelity entertainment experience.Niveus Media, the leader in high-end digital entertainment solutions for the connected home, introduces the 2008 line of Media Server products. Now boasting Pro Audio and powerful Intel processing, Niveus has optimized their Media Servers to provide pristine audio and video performance for superior home theater production and remarkable whole-home entertainment. As part of the 2008 focus to develop the most refined devices for exceptional digital entertainment throughout the home, Niveus has beefed up their entire Media Server offering including the passively cooled Summit Series Rainier and Denali Editions and the Pro Series n4, n7, and n9 Editions. Advancements to all servers include new Seagate® DB35 Series™ hard drives for video streaming performance, acoustics & reliability and Nvidia’s GeForce Series 8 graphics featuring PureVideo™ HD technology for high quality video scaling up to and beyond 1080p. One of the most distinguished upgrades sure to resonate loudly in the audiophile market is the addition of a “Pro Audio” chipset in the Pro Series n7 & n9 and the Summit Series Denali Edition and Denali Limited Edition. The dedicated sound card provides the cleanest and highest resolution audio from all channels (up to 7.1), and features digital-to-analog converters from Burr-Brown, chosen in top professional or consumer audio equipments around the world. Technorati Tags: Niveus,Windows Media Center Zune Recorded TV Sync SpeedThe new Zune software syncs Recorded TV without the need for any 3rd party software, one of the question I have been asked is how long it takes to sync TV So I thought I would try a real world test. I picked on a movie I had recorded (The After Tomorrow), this was recorded with Windows Media Center via a Nova-T card (DVB-T 704 x 480) . The file is 2.4GB, running at 2:30 hours long. Starting the transfer off is easy, just navigate to Videos right click and select Sync.
Test PC Spec: P4 3.0 with 1GB of RAM, Vista index of 3.8 So that is just over an hour for a 2:30 hour movie, which I guess is not that bad. My next test was a show recorded from a radio channel which transmits over the digital TV signal (BBC7). This is a 1:07 hour recording, 550.4mb in Media Center. It is audio only but Media Center thinks is a video file with a blank screen, I record quite a few shows of the radio and it will be nice to get them on my Zune for listening to in the car. I kicked it off and 4 minutes later it was done, 167.2mb on the Zune When I tried to play it on the Zune it didn't play at all, I guess the Zune or it's encoder does not know about DVB-T audio files, which is a real shame. The player didn't crash but there was no audio at all. Technorati tags: Zune, Windows Media Center First impressions of the new Zune software
As a Zune and Windows Media Center owner I have eagerly waiting the new Zune software with its promise of improved Recorded TV and podcast support. As the upgrade is available on Zune.net today I downloaded it and kicked the install off. After about 10 minutes the software was installed and it was up and running, the new UI is a vast improvement over the old version, it looks like a complete re-write which is good as the v1 software was a customized Windows Media Player. Once I connected my Zune to the PC the software asked me to update the firmware to 2.2 which took about 5 minutes and the device rebooted a couple of times, I didn't have to touch the Zune at all. One nice touch is the way it handles connecting your Zune to a second PC, in the v1 software it asked you every time if you wanted to connect as a guest but in the new version you can tell the software to always connect it as a guest. I use my Zune on my UMPC as well as my Media Center PC and it was a pain to keep telling the software to make it a guest. The new user interface on the Zune device has been improved; it's clearer and seems faster. The music experience seems the same expect when browsing an Artist you can see their albums on a carousel at the top of the device. Pictures now give a count on the pictures in a folder, I am sure I will find other changes as I start using it. Podcast support is one feature that I was really looking forward too. With the V1 software I had been struggling to find an elegant way of downloading and syncing podcast. I used Doppler to download the shows then use a monitored folder to do the syncing and I find most of the time I ended up syncing it myself. The other problem was finding the shows on the Zune once they had downloaded, some podcasters don't tag their shows up as Podcasts so they end up in with the rest of my music. This all changes in the V2 software, podcasting gets its own section in the devices and on the software. Much like iTunes you can subscribe to a podcast RSS feed and it downloads the latest 3 shows automatically and then you can pick what you want it to do with the other shows. I did like the syncing options, you can tell the Zune software to sync unplayed episodes, all episodes, the first unplayed or not to sync at all. I have set it to sync unplayed shows to hopefully it will keep track of what I have listened to and only sync the new ones. This setting is specific to the podcast, so different feeds can have different syncing options. Finding the shows from the Zune is much better, with the dedicated Podcast section and you can easily find and play the downloaded shows. There is also one click subscribe option that podcasters can add to their site Next I looked at Media Center support In the videos section of the software I could see my recorded TV shows all I had to do was right click on the show , select Sync and then it copied the show to my Zune. There must be some transcoding going on as it took about 20 minutes to sync a 30 minute TV show and during that time the Zune software was hitting the CPU pretty hard. The size of the TV show in Media Center was 1.08GB and on the Zune it was 429MB but the quality of the video is good but it looks like there is some motion blur, I will have to play with it some more to be able get a more detailed impression I haven't looked at auto syncing TV yet So over all I am very impressed with the new Zune software and firmware, the Windows software is a million miles away from the old software and the syncing options are much better. Basically the whole package now works for me they way I want it to, with TV support, podcasts, wireless syncing and the other new features. Oh and all this was on my 3 month old V1 Zune 30, well done to Microsoft for supporting the early adopters. Technorati tags: Zune, Windows Media Center
Pictures from the install Recorded TV Sync The new Zune UI
The Digital Lifestyle.com Video Show - Tranquil's Windows Home ServerThe Digital Lifestyle.com video show is sponsored by Embedded Automation In this video I take a look at Tranquil's T7-HSA Home Server. This is a headless and fanless Windows Home Server. This recording was streamed live November 6th thanks to everyone that joined in the live session, it made it a very interactive session and you can catch more live sessions at live.TheDigitalLifestyle.com T7-HSA Tranquil Harmony Home Server is available at Tranquil's online store |
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