Windows Media Center – Service Alert

This doesn’t affect me due to my locale, but my Vista Media Center machine just came up with a Service Alert icon, which gives you information about the digital TV switch over in the US.

There is a Microsoft KB Article here with more information. Below are the screen shots from the Service Alert being displayed inside Media Center. The Green Button gets a mention on the last page as well!

Click the images to enlarge.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse”, media center”, story”, service alert”

New wiki guide for Transcode 360

It seems there is still allot of confusion over Transcode 360 and how to get it setup properly, I've decided to write a new updated Wiki guide as some things have changed now since the last one here.

This new guide covers updating the mencoder.exe and ffmpeg.exe files, tweaking the MEncoderTranscoder.cs file to enable multi-thread decoding.

I also look at using Transcode 360 with Media Browser this time and talk more about local vs network setups with WHS.

Hopefully users can follow this guide and get transcode 360 working. The guide is based on a 32bit Vista Media Center setup, I've not tried this on Windows 7 lately but things should work pretty much the same way.

Use at your own risk and make sure you have a full backup of your system before you start.

You can see the new wiki guide here it's in PDF so you need Adobe Reader.

Download mirror here

Turn your MCE remote in to a mouse & keyboard

UPDATE:

RemoteKC has been updated to now work properly on Windows 7, by a user called fbird17 on The Green Button forums.

I've not tested it yet but I assume it's working.

You can download the new .exe and .ahk files from these links.

I just had to highlight this little application it's fantastic!

It's been around for awhile I think but I've only just discovered it, it's called RemoteKC

RemoteKC allows you to use your Windows Media Center Edition remote control as a mouse and keyboard.

I am mainly interested in this for the mouse functionality. Having TunerFree MCE in mind when those auto mouse clicks don't work and those parental guidance pop-ups appear, you have no option but to get up and get out the mouse in order to click.

Now with RemoteKC, I don't have to leave the sofa. The mouse is basic, up down left right but enough to click on a prompt you can't otherwise click on with the remote control in normal operation.

I've only tested this on Vista Media Center, looks like it was written for MCE 2005. I've not tried it yet on 7MC.

You can download RemoteKC here

Live TV with EPG in Media Center comes to Thailand

I’ve been wanting to get this working for a long time now and we finally have a solution for integrating live TV from True Visions in to Windows 7 Media Center.

True Visions offer both Satellite and Cable TV, we have only tested this so far using a satellite dish and a FloppyDTV S2 and also a FireDTV S/CI.

This is still work in progress, but as you can see from the below screen shots we have EPG data in Media Center for the TV channels, I believe this is a first in Thailand using Windows 7 Media Center!

We used the Big Screen EPG beta application written by Niall Ginsbourg to import the XMLTV data in to Media Center.

I’d like to give Niall a massive thank you for his help with this project.

If anyone is interested in Live TV / PVR functionality within Windows Media Center here in Thailand, then please feel free to contact me and I can put you in touch with a CEDIA registered custom installation company in this region.

True Visions EPG data in Windows 7 Media Center

Click the screen shots for larger images.

There’s a mixture of English and Thai language in the EPG, depending on what data is being imported in to Media Center from the XMLTV grabber.

We can potentially have up to a full month of program guide data.

Record Live TV

Mini Guide

Program Info

Big Screen EPG is currently in beta state and will be a commercial application when it is released.

We added logos to the majority of the TV Channels.

Custom XMLTV Provider.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse”, media center”, story”, Live TV”, EPG”, Thailand”, True Visions”

mceNetCAM - New add-in review on the wiki

If you have IP cameras and would like to view and control them from within Media Center, take a look at the mceNetCAM add-in.

See the mceNetCAM wiki page here for more details and screen shots.

Twitter comes to TunerFree MCE

I can’t say I’m a big fan of Twitter, I could never really see the point of it, but I am a big fan of TunerFree MCE and I know allot of you are also addicted to Twitter, put the two together and you can now tweet to all your followers what you have been watching in TunerFree MCE !

Setup is easy you just go in to the Preferences in TunerFree MCE, enter your Twitter username click on a button on a webpage that opens up and then click on another button inside TunerFree MCE and your done!

You will then get a new Twitter  icon on the TunerFree MCE start page.

 

Twitter webpage

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Media Center, Story, Twitter, TunerFree MCE

Clubhouse – Windows Community website

Check out the new Microsoft Clubhouse Windows community website, you can take a look at our Media Center related posts that are on there from this page.

The text below is from the Clubhouse website.

Clubhouse Purpose:-

“Let’s keep it simple. We’re here to help others learn how to creatively use Windows. The Clubhouse is all about sharing content and ideas. Showing what you do best. Voicing your opinions. Being an active member in a community that will select the best content for display on the Windows Vista and Windows Live sites.”

Clubhouse Content:-

“Sharing how Windows works in your life — that's what the Clubhouse is all about. Know any “secrets” that help you organize your day-to-day and stay connected? Have you discovered some cool ways to share memories with family and friends? How about making it easy to work — or play — from anywhere? We want to hear all about them!

• You could:
  • Tell us a story of what you did and why — a story that may inspire others to give it a try!
  • Share your tips on using a certain feature or a shortcut you've figured out.
  • Show off your skills by answering the challenge with great new content. “

200x200 Low-res album artwork still not fixed? - Build 7077

I've been looking at the album artwork issue again in Windows 7 build 7077 and as far as I can work out things are still the same.

Although there appears to be a bit of good news with what seems to be a bug fix in 7MC, in regards to all tracks on a single album now showing the album cover.

For the full details see this thread, I go in to quite a bit of detail so you might want to look here for the summary.

Are you seeing the same results?

Take Caution when upgrading WIN7 BUILD 7077

I recommend you take caution before upgrading to Windows 7 build 7077. Ensure you have a full back up of your data files.

I upgraded build 7022 t0 7068 with no problems and then I upgraded to build 7077 and I found that all the file security permissions on my D: data drive had been stripped off and corrupted rendering my system unusable.

See here.

vmcPlayIt Media Center add-in for PlayOn

I saw PlayOn a good while ago now, it’s a UPnP media streamer for the XBOX 360, PS3 and HP Media Smart TV’s.

You can get content such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon VOD, CBS, You Tube, CNN, ESPN and with PlayOn add-ins more content is available such as from Revision 3.

I thought this was going to be a great solution and I emailed the PlayOn developers at the time asking if they had any plans for a Media Center add-in as using the XBOX 360 dashboard didn’t really appeal to me that much. The answer I got back was no they were not going to be writing a Media Center add-in for PlayOn. So I was a little disappointed and then forgot about PlayOn.

However I saw yesterday on TGB on a thread that a chap called Eric is developing a PlayOn add-in for the Media Center UI so my interest in this was immediately sparked back up again. The add-in is called vmcPlayIt which is a free bit of software. PlayOn is not free however but you can tryout their trial for 2 weeks and have a play around with it.

Let me know how you get on with the PlayOn and vmcPlayIt add-in?

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, media center, story, vmcPlayIt, PlayOn