Next Gen WiFi Remote for Media Center

Last night I got home and immediately installed the ngRC (Next Generation Remote Control) utility app for Media Center.  I have seen a few apps come along that control Media Center via WiFi but this was the first one that I saw that would not only control the main PC but the extenders as well.



First let me say that the software is in Beta.  The install was pretty straight forward, but I did have to go into my processes and kill the main Media Center process.  After that I had to restart all of the extenders so that the app could recognize them.  Once I did that I was ready to go.

First thing to do was click on settings.  On the settings screen you choose which extender you want to control.  If you have Media Center up on the main PC is just gets listed as an extender in the drop down list.  The only issue here is that the extenders are given obscure names such as “Extender 1 (7554)” and “Extender 2 (7569)” which forces a little trial and error to determine which extender is which.  Not that big a deal.

I tried the web interface on an iPhone, a PSP and a laptop.  As expected every control worked flawlessly on the Media Center instance running on the main PC.  The real test was with the extenders which is how I primarily use Media Center.

I was more than excited when I used my wife’s iPhone to start playing songs on my Media Center extender that was sitting in the other room.  I was able to queue up songs or add a playlist.  It worked great.  The controls for the extender do have one known bug in that all the major controls are not fully functional (next, prev, the directional keys, ok button, etc).

In it’s current incarnation though I will definitely be using this at the next party.  I will pull up a laptop and invite all my guest to help DJ the party be selecting music and adding it to the queue.  This was a scenario that actually excited my wife.

I am looking forward to the future releases but this little app is in a great place right now.  Definitely go check it out.  Did I mention it was FREE!!! 

Current State of my Media Center

I am behind on my posts but I wanted to give a few updates on my state of Media Center.

1) Stability - The stability of the system has really come around! There has not been a tuner issue with recordings in a long time (knock on virtual wood). We had one recording issue because a new show was listed in the guide as a repeat. I think it was just a mix up because the rebroadcast 4 days later was listed as new and that episode recorded just fine.

2) Plugins - I have settled in on a list of plugins that we use daily. OML for movie library, Heatwave for weather and vmcNetflix for streaming Netlfix Instant Queue movies.

3) Utilities - I just installed the latest version of MC Menu Mender and it works great!!! I was able to remove some confusion in the menu by separating TV+Movies strip into a TV strip and Movies strip. I also renamed a few items to remove confusion.

4) Home Server - I have not done much customization on the home server at all. It's pretty much good to go out of the box. I have moved a lot of my common files to the server and all of my ripped DVD's. I still want to add 2 TB of storage but it's working great.

5) TV Pack Wait - Everyday I am really glad that I did not install the TV Pack. I really would like some of the features but I just cannot give up WebGuide. I use it WAY too much. Everything is pointing to Windows 7 being ready next year so I can go through this season of television just fine with what I have and then upgrade during the summer in between TV seasons.

Overall things are going great. I have a new utility/plugin that I will be trying tonight. I will post my thoughts tomorrow after playing with it tonight.

3 days with Windows Home Server

My Windows Home Server arrived on Friday. I didn't get a chance to set it up until that night so I didn't do too much. The setup itself was soooo easy. I was up and running in no time. It very much is a plug and play device.

The one thing I noticed though it that it can do so much more then what you see on the surface. I really need to buy a book so that I can tap it's full potential and not just use it as a glorified network storage device. If you have a Media Center and a Windows Home Server let me in the comments if you have any tips or resources that I can leverage. Also if anyone has any WHS book recommendations I would love to hear those too.

More Storage on the Way

As I posted before, I was having storage dilemmas.  Well I have just pulled the trigger on something that will help with that problem.

I have not only purchased another Western Digital 1TB drive (for $139!!) but I have also finally purchased a Windows Home Server to put the new drive into.

I bought the HP Media Smart Windows Home Server with 500GB internal storage.  Couple that with the extra drive and I will be adding 1.5TB of storage.

Windows Home Server was the natural progression of my network project since I officially kicked this off at the beginning of the year.  I was also looking at the Drobo based on my brother’s recommendation and seeing it integrated in other’s setup.  At the end of the day I went with the WHS for the tighter Microsoft integration and the ability to customize WHS with Add-Ins.

I am super excited to get the storage space in and get everything installed and setup.