Next Version of Media Center Revealed

News has hit the internet about the next version of Media Center within Windows 7. Charlie Owen has a post on his blog and there is an article up on We Got Served. Check them both out.

I am definitely glad that I held off on installing the TV Pack.

New HD Channels Coming to Charlotte

Well it turns out that if you ask then sometimes you do receive. A few days ago I complained about the lack of updates to my HD lineup while other Time Warner areas were being gifted with new HD channel after new HD Channel.

Well it turns out that the channels are sitting behind the floodgate and we are just waiting for that gate to be opened.  According to a comment by a Time Warner employee on my previous post I can soon expect the following HD additions here in Charlotte:

• Speed HD
• BIO
• Discovery Channel
• ESPNU
• Planet Green
• CNN
• Disney Channel
• History
• Animal PLanet
• ABC Family
• Lifetime
• ESPNews
• Learning Channel
• FSNS HD
• Cinemax E
• Cinemax W
• Starz!
• TMC
• PPV (I assume this is Pay Per View which I thought we already had)

So as you can see by the channels in bold, every channel I mentioned in my last post is on the list.  Thanks to Jeff for posting the comment.  Now if I can only get some dates…

Things can change quickly

So one moment I am sitting on the couch with my son watching his new favorite movie (The Polar Express) and then 20 minutes later I am a path of excruciating back pain.

I really don't know what happened but this has been a pain unlike anything I have ever felt. It's been three and half days now and it has only gotten worse. I went to the doctor on Friday and I go back on Monday.

The only silver lining I can come up with is that I have been able to catch up on recorded TV since I have been tied to the couch.

Hopefully I will be back to normal soon.

Living With Media Center: Videos

Of all the features provided by Media Center, the Video Library on the “Pictures + Video” strip is the one my family and I use the least.  Most of my video actually resides elsewhere: Recorded TV, OML Plugin (Movie Library), Video Library Plugin (TV Library).  I do have a few video files that I have downloaded from the internet that I have stored here, but the library is not extensive.

Importing Video - The Video Library suffers from Media Center’s conglomerate “watch folder” approach that the Photo Library suffers from.  It would be a lot cleaner if I could specify to watch just one particular folder for video.  Instead it has folders listed that I never use to store video.  Not a huge deal, but it does muddy the waters for the average user.

One setup for the all the libraries – video,photo, music

After telling the Media Center to watch my video folder on my network it scans the directory for media files.  It gives you the option to do other things while the scan is running.  I highly recommend that you do not do this.  Let Media Center finish it’s work.  It could take up to 30 minutes but the performance afterwards is a lot better.  One thing to note is that you need to perform this setup on each extender.  More on that when I post about hardware.

Navigating Videos - Use of the Video Library is straight forward.  The particular folder(s) you asked Media Center to watch will show at the top root level.  What you find when you click on the folder depends on how you have organized your files.  There is no concept of meta data so the ease of finding files is totally up to you.  If you have a lot of rip dvd movie files you should use a movie library plugin like MyMoves or OML (more on those in my future plugins.

I primarily have viral videos that I have downloaded, family videos and music videos.  I have them organized as such.  Since I do not have many videos it is easy to find what I am looking for. 

Watching Videos - As long as the video is in a format that the extender supports it will play with no problem.  For videos that doe not play natively I use the Transcode360 plugin to transcode the video file on the fly.  More details on installing transcode360 in a future post, but using it is very simple.  You just highlight the video, press the “info” or “i” button on the remote, then choose “More” on the pop-up menu.  On the next screen select Transcode.

I have a folder that I have set to watch named “Transcode Me”.  One thing I realized is that transcode360 changes the video files into and MPEG2 format that I can then take and convert to DVR-MS for easier use.

Video Playlists – One thing that I have discovered is that you can create video playlist.  For some reason this only works with videos in MPG format.  You would think that DVR-MS Media Center files would work but they do not.

All you have to do is create a video playlist in Media Player on the PC.  Save the playlist as an ASX file in the same folder that you store the videos.

On the Media Center navigate to the folder and select the playlist.  It will now play each video on the list in order as a playlist. 

If you would like to customize a logo for the playlist just put a JPG file in the same location as the playlist file with the same name as the playlist.  So in my case I have playlist named “All Pop – Shuffle.asx”.  In the same folder I have an image file named “All Pop – Shuffle.jpg” and I now have an icon image for my playlist.

Wrap-Up – So that is pretty much the extent of my use with the Video Library.  It’s name is misleading because it has no real organizational abilities to suggest that it is a library.  It should just be named videos.  Overall not a bad way to get some downloaded internet videos on your TV without hooking up the laptop.

Thank You Windows Home Server!!

Image via Wikipedia

So last night after panic and pulling my hair out I remembered what I now consider to be the best tech purchase I have ever made: my Windows Home Server!

Turns out that my problem actually was virus related which then in turn corrupted a section of my hard drive.  After fighting with a number of failed attempts to bring the system back I came across my home server cd’s and documentation.

I have an HP Media Smart Server and it comes with a PC Restore boot disk.  All I had to do was boot with the CD, provide the drivers to my NIC card via USB thumbstick, and then choose which back up I needed to restore.

Luckily I actually took the time to setup a backup for my C: Drive.  Due to space I only did the most important folders.  Upon restore the home server basically wiped out the drive and restored only the data that I had backed up.  I ended up losing some movie files that I had yet to move from my C: Drive but it was nothing that I could not get back from my actual DVD’s.

So I am back up and running and all is good.  I only missed one recording at the end of the day.  Thanks also to Tim who posted a comment reminding me about my home server.  If I had not remembered myself, Tim would have shaken me out of my panic induced stupor.

Breath….

Not a Virus

Well it actually does not look a virus but rather a hard drive failure. It looks like I may have to reformat and rebuild my Media Center PC. At least I documented everything so that I can recreate everything I did the first time.

I'm going to be up late working on this one.

Awww sh*t…

Soo, I did about the stupidest thing you can do and I don’t know why I did it.  I installed software that I “found” on the internet without scanning it for viruses first. 

The real stupid part of that is that I did it on my Media Center PC which I normally do not do.  I usually experiment on my laptop since I can easily rebuild it.

I had thought I had cleaned the virus off completely but it looks like I did not.  Last night I did the update and the computer rebooted just fine and was working fine.  Looks like remnants of the virus were still present and now my PC is currently bricked.

I tried the same process I did last time to get it back up and running with no luck.  Unfortunately I did not have time to really try and fix it because I had to come to work.

To really make matters worse this is a HUGE hit on the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) since my wife is at home sick and cannot watch TV until I get home to fix things.

Ugggghhh.  What a nightmare.  So my question to other Media Center users is what anti0virus software do you have installed?  Obviously my el cheapo antivirus did not do the trick so I need to get something that works.  I just cross my fingers I can get back online again without a rebuild.

Media Center Cumulative Update for Media Center

This is a repost from Chris Lanier’s blog:

October 2008 Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista (KB955519)

• Fixes an issue in which you cannot seek through recorded TV shows on Windows Media Center systems that have digital cable tuners. Additionally, the recorded TV shows display the incorrect length.
• Fixes an issue in which Windows Media Center Extenders cannot re-connect to a host computer after the host computer resumes from the suspend mode or the sleep mode.
• Fixes an issue which is introduced by KB950126. In this issue, a video that is paused may resume if you minimize or maximize the Windows Media Center window or if a screen saver starts.
• Implements support for Digital Rights Management (DRM) free copy for digital cable tuners that have the latest digital cable tuner BIOS that support DRM free copy.
• Expands the solution that was introduced in KB950126 to improve the experience of recording analog TV broadcasts to include set-top box scenarios. Previously, some analog TV broadcasts were blocked with the "protected content" message.

I only posted the non-TV Pack Update information since I do not have TV Pack.  It’s almost the same thing anyway.  I highlighted two of the updates that I am excited for.

The first item in bold just hit me last night.  My wife and I were watching Ugly Betty and tried to fast forward during the second commercial break only to find out the recording was only listed as 7 minutes instead of 60 minutes.  I wonder if this fix will be retroactive and fix this recording or if it will only remove this from happening again in the future.  I will post my results later today.

The second item is very interesting.  The one thing that annoys me about the cable card tuners is that EVERYTHING has DRM on it.  This really should not be the case.  If I record the local news because my nephews’ football game is highlighted I should not be restricted as to what I can do with that.  Other content I can understand but it should be selective.  So the next question after reading about this update is":  When will the Tuner firmware update be released!

Time Warner – Where are my HD channels?

Image via Wikipedia

Ok, soap box time.  It feels like everyday I see a new post on Engadget about Time Warner Cable adding new HD channels to one of their regions.

I live in the Charlotte, NC region and we have not had a significant HD upgrade in awhile.  The Big 10 Network was added within the last 2 weeks and that’s it.  That’s it.

Now I am happy to see something new in HD, but did it have to be the Big 10 Network!!  I live in ACC country.  We don’t care about Big 10 Sports.  What I do want is CNN HD so that I can watch the presidential debates with all of the extra information.

I have been anticipating the arrival of a few more HD channels during this time period since I was sent a letter about the move to Switch Digital Video in my region.  I was fully expecting that this bandwidth increasing change would take away some of the lesser channels that I currently do not watch but gift me with an HD lineup that included CNN HD, Disney Channel HD, ABC Family HD, ESPNU HD, ESPNews HD.  Instead I have Big 10 Network HD.

I am still hoping and assuming that the new channels will hit my lineup soon, but there more announcements I see about other Time Warner regions the more frustrating the wait becomes.

Back online

I was out of town for the past few days at my sister-in-law's wedding. I am back in town and with the day off tomorrow. I have two posts in my Life With Media Center series almost ready to go (just missing screen shots) and I will get those up tomorrow.

See ya tomorrow.

Living With Media Center Videos Online

I have finally completed the videos that go along with my Living With Media Center posts.  Here are all of them in order.  I have also gone back and updated the posts to include the videos.  The shortcut to all the Living With Media Center` posts are on the right hand side.

I also wanted to ask if for request.  If anyone out there is thinking about Media Center and wants the answer to a particular question in video format or wants to see something in action, just let me know and I will make a video and post it.  It is always easier to see things in action than read about them.

Videos:

Media Center - Startup

Media Center - Overview

My OLD Time Warner TV

Media Center - TV

Media Center – Music

Media Center – Photos