Essential Plug-ins

Lately it feels like I have been helping more and more people either discover Media Center or setup their own Media Center.  This activity has really had me thinking about plug-ins so I thought I would post on what are my current essential Media Center plug-ins. 

This list is ever changing so I will come back to this topic again at a later date.  So in no particular order here are my must have Media Center plug-ins:

• TapiRex:  Once you have caller-id showing up on the TV you will never want to go back.  I know a lot of cable company DVR’s are adding this in now, but only if you have digital phone from the cable company.  I don’t have that restriction and I can edit the contact phone book so that each contact has a picture and multiple phone numbers.  This was the first plug-in I installed when I bought my Media Center.
• Heatwave: This is a recent plug-in but I find myself using it every day.  Heatwave is basically a weather plugin.  It has a great UI and pulls it’s information from weather.com.  You can track weather for multiple cities and have shortcuts for up to 3.  Simple install and it just works.  Install it now.
• VideoLibrary:  This is what I use to manage my TV library.  I tried MyTV, but I like this one better.  Of course it helps that it is free.  It also helps that once you get it setup, it is super simple to use and your library is on cruise control.
• OML / Media Browser (BETA) / MyMovies: I am evaluating all three to organize my Movie Library.  I need to do a separate post on these three plug-ins so I will not put any detail here.

As you can see the list is short (I did say ESSENTIAL).  I also don’t like to add to many plug-ins because I feel like it clutters the experience and contributes to system instability.

Next post I will list my must have Media Center utilities.

So what are you must have plug-ins??  Comment below.

Post Christmas

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Well Christmas has come and go and it was another good one.  Of course since Christmas is my favorite time of year, it will be bad for me to have a hard one regardless of any gifts I may or may not receive.

I did get an upgrade to my old Zune 30 with a Zune 120.  I was back and forth on buying this for myself for a long time.  My wife got it for me and I couldn’t be happier.  I absolutely love the upgrade.  If you are in the market for a large storage MP3 player, I cannot recommend Zune enough.

I also got the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel.  I have been wanting this thing for 2 years plus.  I absolutely love racing games so I am excited to have some time this week to go back and play Project Gotham Racing 3 with my new racing wheel.  Now I am going to have to buy Forza Motorsport 2.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.  Now back to the Media Center!

More HD Promised Tomorrow for Charlotte, NC Area

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According to my local Time Warner website my are will be blessed with the following additions to the HD lineup:

Animal Planet HD - Channel 208

ABC Family HD - Channel 205

Disney Channel HD - Channel 206

ESPNEWS HD - Channel 278

TLC HD - Channel 209

Lifetime Movie Network HD - Channel 216

History HD - Channel 213

Normally I would be extremely excited, but now due to Switched Digital Video being implemented in my area I am cautiously optimistic.

This will be the second round of HD added to the lineup.  The last round in November included the following:

Sprout - Channel 167 (actually SD, but my son would love it)

Planet Green HD - Channel 207

CNN HD - Channel 259

MGM HD - Channel 290 (replacing MOJO)

Discovery HD - Channel 210

Bio HD - Channel 212

Speed HD - Channel 262

ESPNU HD - Channel 289

Out of the first round of HD additions the only channel I can get with my Cable Cards is MGM HD and that’s because it just replaced MOJO which I was already getting before SDV was implemented.  Only channels I want are in red, but of course at the end of the day I really want all of them.

I have already pre-ordered my tuning adapter and received my automated reply email.  Has anyone out there in the San Antonio market tried these with the current media center setup?  I am not sure if ATI needs to deliver a firmware upgrade or if the adapter will just work.  If you have one and it works with Media Center and the ATI Digital Cable Card tuners please post a comment.

More Home Server Storage

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About two weeks ago I added another hard drive to my Windows Home Server (WHS).  I bought a Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB drive.  So now my WHS has 3 drives: the 500GB main drive that came preinstalled, a 1TB Western Digital drive and the new 1.5TB Seagate drive for a total of 3TB (or 2.73TB realized storage).

The HP Media Smart WHS that I have makes it so easy to add a drive it’s ridiculous.  I was up and running with my new storage space in about 10 minutes, if that.  If you are looking at adding a WHS to your setup take a long hard look at the HP Media Smart servers.  Great value and easy to use.  I probably could have built a home server from a spare PC but at the end of the day my time was more valuable and I got a better WHS for buying a pre-built system.

The extra space allowed me to really clean up and organize my drives.  This is what things look like now:  (VectorSigma is my Media Center PC and Metroplex is my WHS)

VectorSigma – 3 Drives

• 500 GB (OS, Program Files and temp download location)
• 750 GB (Overflow recorded TV drive)
• 1 TB (recorded TV only drive)

Metroplex – 3 Drives (WHS creates 1 pooled storage space out of the 3 drives)

• Movies
• Archived TV
• Music
• Photos
• Personal Folders (me and my wife)
• Public Folder (misc dump and share folder)
• Software Folder (all my media center utilities, plugins and regular software installs live here)
• Videos (family home videos, viral videos, etc)

I have one more open slot in my WHS and I would like to get another 1.5TB Seagate drive.  Maybe Santa will leave one under the tree for me.

Five Weeks Later

Wow, I cannot believe it has been five weeks. The back that I developed about five weeks ago lead into a snowball of issues that eventually saw me in the hospital for 3 days. It was a perfect storm of Murphy's Law that I am finally recovering from. I'll save the details for another blog post on another day.

I just wanted to jump on real quick to let everyone know that I am finally back. I actually have a number of posts lined up since I was able to get some real hands on time with my media center as I was recovering. Also I have a new video planned that I hope to post next week that will help anyone that maybe taking the Cable Card plunge during or after the holiday season.

Good to finally be back.