Media Center updates break custom menus

I’m sure most Windows Media Center users who customize their menus, are now aware that something is up with the menus in Media Center!

I use Media Center Studio which is a fantastic 3rd party utility developed by Advent. With Media Center Studio you can create custom menu strips and move icons around to different menus strips and customize your Media Center to suit your needs.

However recent updates from Microsoft for the updated online content services: MSN Video Player / Netflix HD have broken Media Center Studio and custom menus in general.

If your like me and you use My Movies you probably hide the native Movies menu strip. I also never use the Sports menu strip so like to hide this as well. I also like to add icons for 3rd party plug-ins such as TunerFree MCE to the native TV menu strip etc. After these recent updates all of my menus and everyone else’s were messed up and I had the native Movies and Sports menus visible again on my Media Center, also the order in which the menus appear had changed.

There is a thread on the Green Button here discussing these frustrations. Fortunately there is some relief in the form of “Hide Media Center Menu Strips” a little utility from one of our favorite Media Center developers Mikinho.

With the aid of this utility I was able to quickly and easily re-hide the native Movies and Sports menu strips in Media Center, which has helped to improve my situation some what.

However unfortunately custom menu strips and placement of 3rd party plug-in icons on native menu strips and re-ordering menus are still broken until Media Center Studio hopefully gets fixed.

There has been no official word from Microsoft that I am aware of regarding this issue. But customizing Media Center menus is a “hack” so I wouldn’t expect one any time soon if at all.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , Media Center , Media Center Studio , Menus

What’s on the workbench today? iTX Mini HTPC!

On the workbench today we have an iTX Mini PC, using an Antec ISK 310-150 Mini iTX Case.

I quite like this case, it is sturdy, however I’m not keen on the quite flimsy silver plastic front especially the thin DVD opening cover.

There are plenty of vents for cooling however and room to fit two full size fans on the right hand side, no in-built IR which could be an issue.

What’s inside:

Minix 785G-SP128M, this little motherboard has the AMD 785G chipset. I’ve used regular micro ATX motherboards from Gigabyte before for other HTPC builds with the same 785G chipset, which isn’t too bad for HTPC’s so it’s all familiar stuff.

Motherboard Key Features Highlight:

1. Integrated ATI Radeon™ HD 4200 Graphics
2. Supports DirectX^® 10.1 3D graphics, Windows 7 Ready

3. Supports AMD^® Phenom™ II x4/ Athlon™ II x4 processors (up to 65W max.)

4. Built-in 128 MB Local Frame Buffer (Side-port memory)

5. Supports ATI Avivo™ HD technology and built-in Universal Video Decoder 2.0 (UVD2) which leverages CPU consumption when play HD movie, hence power-saving

6. Designed with 100% high quality solid capacitors and components to ensure high performance and great longevity

7. One PCI-Express Gen.2 slot for expansion

8. Two DDR2 SO-DIMM slots for extensible upgrade

9. 7.1+2 Channel High-Performance HDA Codec with Content Protection (Realtek ALC885)

Specs:

• Motherboard: Minix 785G-SP128M
• CPU: AMD Phenom AM3 x3 Processor 2.3 GHZ
• CPU Cooler: Glacial Tech PLA08025S12L
• RAM: Kingston DDR2 RAM 2GB (Notebook)
• HDD: Seagate 160GB (Notebook)
• DVD: Sony CRX890S (Slim)
• PSU: Antec FP-150-8 150 Watt

Software:

• Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
• My Movies Client 3.13
• Heatwave 1.3
• RadioTime MCE
• SilverLight
• Flash Player
• AutoHotKey
• Media Center Studio
• Shark 007 Codec Pack 2.4.8

Windows Experience Index Score: 4.1

I installed the latest drivers from AMD / ATI / Realtek. I also installed the Shark 007 codec pack for Windows 7.

With the default settings in the Shark007 pack unchanged I played a High Definition MKV movie, in the screenshots below you can see the CPU usage.

I don’t think hardware acceleration is on. I tried a few different settings in the codec pack but the CPU usage remained about the same, should be more like 10-15% when accelerated.

I only ever seem to be able to get hardware acceleration working on the Asrock Nettop’s which have Nvidia graphics and CUDA. Perhaps someone can tell me how to get this working with the ATI graphics?

Conclusion:

Overall not a bad little machine and has more power and grunt than a Nettop. I need to test it some more, but so far so good.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , MediaCenter , iTX Mini PC

Phaze1 Digital

7MC Music Library re-building bug – Hotfix now out!

Well it’s been a long time coming but I’ve just spotted on my thread on The Green Button that Microsoft have now released a hotfix to an issue that I and many others raised, I wrote about this issue back in February on my blog here.

KB Article number 981770 You can get the hotfix from this link

Hopefully we won’t be seeing any more videos like this one again!

Thanks to the folks at Microsoft for listening to our concerns and getting this hotfix out of the door at Redmond, fingers crossed its resolved the issues.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , MediaCenter , Hotfix

Phaze1 Digital

Intel DH55TC motherboard – True-HD & DTS-HD audio as standard!

I’ve been testing out a new HTPC platform recently, based around the Intel DH55TC motherboard and an Intel i3-530 Clarkdale processor.

I’ve not had much time to really grill this machine fully, but my initial thoughts are its pretty good. MKV and Blu-ray playback is nice and smooth in Windows Media Center / PowerDVD 9 and for the first time I am now able to bit-stream True-HD and DTS-HD audio to the AVR in this case an Onkyo TX SR606.

The whole computer feels faster and more responsive, My Movies Collection Manager is certainly quicker and the Media Center user interface also feels a bit snappier.

There was one main setting I had to change in PowerDVD 9 for the bit-streaming of True-HD and DTS-HD audio to kick in. I am also using the latest version of the Shark007 codec pack (2.4.8) with FFDShow DXVA settings, I might cover my latest shark configuration in more details in another blog post, however I did touch on it here

I had to turn on this setting in PowerDVD9 within MCE - “Non-decoded high definition audio to external device”

I tested two Blu-ray movies which were ripped ISO images on the hard drive, Total Recall which has a DTS-HD soundtrack and The Dark Knight which has a Dolby True-HD soundtrack. I am using Virtual Clone Drive beta 5.4.4.0 which My Movies (3.13) uses to mount the Blu-ray disc images.

Screen shots from PowerDVD 9 – Show Information.

Now this is what I always like to see on the AVR displays!

I definitely need to do some more testing with this new HTPC build and let it bed in a bit, but I think this new Intel platform has really impressed me so far.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , MediaCenter , Intel , Clarkdale , True-HD , DTS-HD , bitstreaming

Phaze1 Digital

MKV’s with Subtitles and now with DXVA aka hardware acceleration!

Last time I tried to get some MKV movie files playing with subtitles on an AsRock ION 330HT Nettop PC if failed. I lost the hardware acceleration and the video playback became choppy to say the least, mainly because the CPU was ramped up to 80-90% usage.

With subtitles turned off and using the default Microsoft codec for H.264 the CPU usage is about 10-15% and video playback is nice and smooth.

So I forgot about this issue and put it on the back burner, then I saw a post on the Green Button recently that sparked my interest again regarding using FFDShow and the newish support for DXVA.

I installed the latest Shark Codec Pack version 2.4.8 and had a look at the new settings, on the H.264 tab there is now an option: Use FFDShow DXVA codec. I turned this on.

On the Config tab, the regular Subtitle Control options didn’t seem to take any affect. For example if I selected No Subtitles the subtitles would still be displayed. Instead click the FFDShow DVXA button.

Here is the control check box for turning subtitles on and off and also other settings for text and font.

I played a few MKV movies and the subtitles were displayed and the CPU usage was about 30-40% This is higher than with no subtitles obviously but not as high as 80-90% as I was seeing before, when I last tried to play MKVs with subtitles on the AsRock Nettop! At 30-40% CPU usage the video playback is still smooth.

One of the movies I played had an external .srt file for the subtitles.

Another movie had no .srt file present at all, but I was still seeing subtitles. This threw me for a few seconds until I just assumed that there must be some embedded subtitles in this particular MKV file.

A closer look using MediaInfo revealed that an English text stream was indeed present within the file.

Now if only I could turn subtitles on and off from within Media Center any suggestions other than the Media Control plug-in??

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , MediaCenter , MKV , Subtitles , FFDSHOW , DXVA

Phaze1 Digital

Speed up your Harmony remote control with MCE

I always found the Logitech Harmony remote controls slow and pretty unresponsive with Media Center no matter which Harmony model I tried. After reading more about the problem I think I have found a solution that actually seems to work.

I changed some settings in the Harmony software for a 550 model I was working on and these changes definitely made the remote control work much better in Media Center, before I had to press the buttons for longer and slowly move around the UI after these changes the remote was more responsive and less frustrating to use and the button presses felt and behaved more like the standard MCE remote.

Here’s what I did:

On the Devices tab I selected Troubleshoot on the Media Center Device.

I did change a couple of settings but I believe the main one that made a difference was by selecting:

“Media Center PC responds to some commands either too many times or only occasionally”

Ramping this setting up to 4 or 5 is recommended.

I then selected: “When commands are sent one after the other, the device receives some commands but not others.”

“My Media Center PC needs the following time to pass before it is ready to receive another command:”

I also changed this setting from 500ms to 0ms not totally sure if I really need to change this setting.

However have a play around with these troubleshoot options and see if you can also increase the responsiveness of your Harmony remote with Media Center!

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , MediaCenter , How-to , Logitech , Harmony , Speed

Phaze1 Digital

Windows 7 Media Center, Music Library re-building problem.

I am seeing some very strange happenings with the 7MC Music Library and with music files stored on Windows Home Server machines. This is not just an isolated issue as I have seen the same problem at several different sites on different WHS servers / networks etc.

I posted a thread here on the Green Button and this is how I described this problem.

“I saw this in the beta's / RC and still see it now. When entering the 7MC music library (Albums) view the library looks like its rebuilding itself.

The number of albums is increasing slowly, the covers aren't visible and the default icons appear and then disappear, flashing, it eventually gets to the correct numbers of albums count, but becomes unresponsive you have to exit and go back in to the Music library several times before it finally settles down again and you then see all your albums with the covers.”

It seems others are reporting similar problems with 7MC as well.

I’ve got an official support incident logged with Microsoft, I just hope they have a solution for us?

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , Story , Media Center

Phaze1 Digital

How to create an Internet Explorer icon in Media Center

As most of you probably know you can use the excellent Media Center Studio for creating entry points in Media Center to launch add-ins and external applications, however I also like to use a program called Media Center Launcher Configurator in conjunction with Media Center Studio.

I use Media Center Launcher Configurator when I want to create icons in Media Center that launch external applications such as Internet Explorer, the reason is that when creating entry points with Media Center Launcher Configurator, it monitors for when the external application is exited and it will then restore Media Center to full screen. Also if you press the back button the external application is closed and Media Center restored.

Today we will look at creating an icon in Media Center to launch Internet Explorer, upon selecting the icon Media Center will minimize, Internet Explorer will then be launched. When exiting Internet Explorer, Media Center will be maximized again which makes for a fairly seamless transition, especially if your desktop wallpaper is the same as the Media Center blue background and you have no shortcut icons visible on your desktop.

First download and install Media Center Launcher Configurator. You can download it from here. Then I recommend if your not already using it to go ahead and download Media Center Studio from here as we will use this later to move the new IE icon to our desired location on the Media Center start menu.

Run the Media Center Launcher Configurator and populate the fields as shown below. (Right click the MCLC icon and Run As Administrator)

You can search for a suitable IE icon image on Google or you can use the Silver IE icon which I used.

Once you have filled in the fields correctly hit the Register button. Wait and then you should see the dialogue box shown below.

Because we selected Program Library under the Media Center category your new IE icon will appear in the Program Library / Extras area of Media Center.

Now test the icon works correctly.

To add the Internet Explorer icon to the Extras menu strip, simply right click the icon and select Add to start menu.

To move the Internet Explorer icon on to a different Media Center start menu strip, I would use Media Center studio to place the Internet Explorer icon on the desired strip.

To remove the Internet Explorer icon select the Existing Registrations tab in Media Center Launcher Configurator and select Internet Explorer from the drop down, then press the Unregister button.

This method of creating icons for external applications, can also be used for applications like Hulu Desktop, to create an icon inside Media Center to launch Hulu Desktop and restore Media Center when you exit the Hulu application.

References:

Chad Dyess Blog

Hacking 7MC

Phaze1 Digital

How to launch a command file from within MCE

I saw a user on the Green Button asking this question the other day and as I had a method of doing this I thought I’d write a post about it.

There may well be different ways to accomplish the same thing, but this is what works for me and the way I get an icon into the Extra’s area of 7MC and when I click on it, it runs a command line in the background. (This also works on Vista)

First you need to download this little add-in here, then extract / save it to the C:\Windows\ehome directory.

This is a single .dll file that was written for me by Andrew Cherry so credit goes to him.

Next you need to create an XML file.

Below is an example of one of my XML files, that when registered in to Media Center, allows me to click on an icon in Media Center and have a VPN connection command run in the background.

<application title="UK VPN-1"
id="{25e1993f-a9d8-4251-871c-0bf84c6d6e29}">
<entrypoint id="{58267566-672b-4b1d-812a-fc46d728d073}"
addin="MissingRemote.AppLauncher.AddIn, MissingRemote.AppLauncher,Culture=Neutral,Version=1.0.0.0,PublicKeyToken=391ca93ec5a00478"
title="UK VPN-1"
description="Connects the UKVPN1"
context="%ProgramFiles%\RasDialPro\UKVPN1.cmd"
imageUrl="C:\Program Files\RasDialPro\Images\Connect-UK.png">
<category category="More Programs"/>
</entrypoint>
</application>

Open notepad and copy the text below in to it:

<application title="The title text that appears below the icon in Media Center"
id="{25e1993f-a9d8-4251-871c-0bf84c6d6e29}">
<entrypoint id="{58267566-672b-4b1d-812a-fc46d728d073}"
addin="MissingRemote.AppLauncher.AddIn, MissingRemote.AppLauncher,Culture=Neutral,Version=1.0.0.0,PublicKeyToken=391ca93ec5a00478"
title="The title text that appears below the icon in Media Center"
description="Description text that appears below the icon in Media Center"
context="%ProgramFiles%\foldername\name of your.cmd"
imageUrl="C:\Program Files\foldername\Images\your icon image.png">
<category category="More Programs"/>
</entrypoint>
</application>

You need to change the items in red to suit your needs, my paths for this point to C:\program files, you can probably change the path to what ever you like and point it to the location of your .cmd file.

The icon images I use are 122 x 122 .png files.

Once you have finished editing your XML file give it an appropriate name and save it in to the C:\windows\ehome directory ensuring it has a .XML extension and not .txt.

Note: If you want to register more than one icon into Media Center by creating a second XML file, you will need to ensure you change the GUID ID’s on the id= and entrypoint id= lines. I normally just change the last two numbers to something else, for example:

id="{25e1993f-a9d8-4251-871c-0bf84c6d6e29}"> change to id="{25e1993f-a9d8-4251-871c-0bf84c6d6e30}">

<entrypoint id="{58267566-672b-4b1d-812a-fc46d728d073}" change to <entrypoint id="{58267566-672b-4b1d-812a-fc46d728d074}"

Now you need to register your XML file in to Media Center, open a command prompt (Run as Administrator), make sure you are in the C:\Windows\ehome directory then type registermceapp /allusers name of your.xml

Where name of your.xml is the filename you gave your xml file that you saved in the ehome directory earlier. Hit enter and you should see Success

Open Media Center go to the Extra’s library and your new icon should now be visible, click the icon and test that your command file is run?

To remove the icon you can use the command registermceapp /allusers /u name of your.xml

Well I think that’s everything, hopefully it will work for you as well.

Phaze1 Digital

DVD -> DVR-MS - How to video

This is a how to video for beginners, using VideoReDo you can easily and quickly convert DVD movie rips VIDEO_TS to .DVR-MS files.

DVR-MS is the Microsoft format for recorded TV for Windows Media Center in Vista. They also play fine on Windows Seven however.

The advantage of using DVR-MS files is you can play them natively with full FFWD functionality on Windows Media Center extenders such as the Linksys DMA and XBOX 360, say bye bye to transcoding on the fly with Transcode 360 and the likes.