Copy the following function to your functions.php within your theme directory. Make sure this function is pasted within the php tags.

function my_jquery() {
if ( !is_admin() ) { // This makes sure the updated libraries are not used within the admin area to avoid conflicts
		wp_deregister_script('jquery'); 																			// using wp_deregister_script() to disable the version that comes packaged with WordPress
		wp_deregister_script('jquery-ui-core');
		wp_deregister_script('jquery-ui-tabs');
		wp_register_script('jquery', 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js'); 			// using wp_register_script() to register updated libraries (this example uses the CDN from Google but you can use any other CDN or host the scripts yourself)
		wp_register_script('jquery-ui-core', 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.1/jquery-ui.min.js');
		wp_enqueue_script('jquery');																				// using wp_enqueue_script() to load the updated libraries
		wp_enqueue_script('jquery-ui-core');
		wp_enqueue_script('jquery-ui-tabs');
		wp_enqueue_script('jquery-ui-accordion');
    }
}
add_action('init', 'my_jquery'); // load the function

Now with the updated libraries in place they can be used within your theme. Here is a small explanation how to do this. WordPress loads jQuery in “no conflict mode” to avoid conflicts with other scripts and therefor requires a special way of calling the jQuery functions. jQuery functions can be called anywhere in you theme using javascript. Add the following before the <⁄head> tag within header.php in your theme directory.

<script type="text/javascript">
	jQuery(document).ready(function($){ $("#accordion").accordion(); });
</script>

The code above creates a accordion function that looks for a div with the id accordion to create the accordion effect. Now you can use the correct CSS and HTML markup to create your own accordion menu. To get a quick idea on how it works, do the following. First add the jQuery stylesheet hosted by Google which includes all basic styles for all the jQuery effects. Eventually you will have to use your own CSS styles but this is a quick way to check if everything works and this stylesheet can be used as a basis for your own styles. Add the following within your &lthead> tags.

<link href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/themes/base/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

Use the following HTML markup anywhere in your theme to create the accordion effect.

<div id="accordion">
	<h3><a href="#">Section 1</a></h3>
	<div>
		<p>
			Mauris mauris ante, blandit et, ultrices a, suscipit eget, quam. Integer
			ut neque. Vivamus nisi metus, molestie vel, gravida in, condimentum sit
			amet, nunc. Nam a nibh. Donec suscipit eros. Nam mi. Proin viverra leo ut
			odio. Curabitur malesuada. Vestibulum a velit eu ante scelerisque vulputate.
		</p>
	</div>
	<h3><a href="#">Section 2</a></h3>
	<div>
		<p>
			<a href="http://bloggingabout.com/howto-updated-jquery-version-accordion-wordpress.html">Using updated jQuery libraries in WordPress</a>
		</p>
	</div>
	<h3><a href="#">Section 3</a></h3>
	<div>
		<p>
		Nam enim risus, molestie et, porta ac, aliquam ac, risus. Quisque lobortis.
		Phasellus pellentesque purus in massa. Aenean in pede. Phasellus ac libero
		ac tellus pellentesque semper. Sed ac felis. Sed commodo, magna quis
		lacinia ornare, quam ante aliquam nisi, eu iaculis leo purus venenatis dui.
		</p>
		<ul>
			<li>List item one</li>
			<li>List item two</li>
			<li>List item three</li>
		</ul>
	</div>
	<h3><a href="#">Section 4</a></h3>
	<div>
		<p>
		Cras dictum. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus
		et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in
		faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean lacinia
		mauris vel est.
		</p>
		<p>
		Suspendisse eu nisl. Nullam ut libero. Integer dignissim consequat lectus.
		Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per
		inceptos himenaeos.
		</p>
	</div>
</div>

Your accordion menu is now in place!

More information can be found on the Networked Media Tank forum.

The issue

In case you own a Humax digital TV tuner with a HDMI output (like a Foxsat or a iHDR-5050c) it would be a logical decision to hook this TV tuner to your Denon AV-Receiver with a single HDMI cable. One of the advantages of HDMI is that it incorporates HD video, HD audio and control signals in one cable. So this is also what I did myself. After some time fiddeling with the input assign settings (Denon manuals are terrible, try this website) I assigned my Humax TV tuner to one of the HDMI input channels on the AV-Receiver, switched everything on and voila, all seemed fine. But this moment of joy did not last long, after changing channels between SD channels on my Humax TV tuner I noticed that the sound was lost. The only way to get the sound back is to reselect the AVR input channel or change the AVR audio settings or switch to a HD channel which forces a different surround sound settings. Although this makes the sound come back it’s not a workable situation to do after every time you change the channel.

Initially I thought I had done something wrong during the setup but after some time Googling I read about more Humax / Denon users that had similar problems and that Denon has actually recognized this bug. They are working on a solution together with Humax which will probably become available as a firmware update. Unfortunately for me and other AVR-1910 owners this type does not have a firmware update option (unlike the 2310 and higher). So unless Humax comes up with an update to fix this problem we are stuck with this bug. Fortunately there is a workaround.

The workaround

Of course this workaround is not too pretty but for me it’s workable.

1. Connect your Humax TV tuner with an additional optical lead.
2. Enter the Denon ssign input menu and associate the optical input with you Humax TV tuner
3. Enter the Denon input menu and change the setting from Auto to Digital

You will now have continues audio while changing the channels on your Humax TV tuner. The sound quality is still digital and as far as I can tell the auto lipsync feature is still working as well. The only downside is the use of an extra cable and the use of a extra input socket. Hopefully for the AVR-2310 and higher users Denon will come up with a new firmware to fix the issue. The AVR-1910 users like myself will probably be stuck with the extra optical lead unfortunately.

Below are a couple of screenshots.

Addons manager

Even better than it sounds. Will allow an easy way to manage addons, including among other things, PVR backends. Once finished, though still a ways out, this will add the capability of extending XBMC from the couch. No need to ssh/ftp into your box to add skins, scrapers, plugins, PVR Backends, etc. You will be able to add addons from something like a apps-store. The code for this app-store will be opensource allowing everyone to use it’s capabilities.

PVR frontend

Probably the most requested feature for XBMC. This will provide a unified experience to your choice of PVR backends such as: VDR, MythTV, Tvheadend, and MediaPortal TVserver. Only the basis for this functionality is being added right now.

Because the new code is far from bugfree the XBMC team suggest that users and builders take a break until things have settled. For this reason, official nightly builds have been temporarily suspended.

You can find the full information on the XBMC forums. All credits for this go to the user called magnetism. I’m only spreading the word here.

Requirements

• A working install of MakeMKV. If you’re installing under Linux, make sure you install both the source and the binary package, otherwise the commandline tool won’t be there. If you have not installed MakeMKV before then please follow these actions. This will install version 1.5.4. Use PuTTY or any other SSH client with commandline interface to execute the following commands (one per line).

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get upgrade
  sudo apt-get install build-essential libc6-dev libssl-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libqt4-dev
  wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv_v1.5.4_beta_bin.tar.gz
  wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv_v1.5.4_beta_oss.tar.gz
  tar -xvf makemkv_v1.5.4_beta_bin.tar.gz
  tar -xvf makemkv_v1.5.4_beta_oss.tar.gz
  cd makemkv_v1.5.4_beta_oss
  sudo make -f makefile.linux
  sudo make -f makefile.linux install
  cd ..
  cd makemkv_v1.5.4_beta_bin
  sudo make -f makefile.linux
  sudo make -f makefile.linux install
  

• A BluRay source, either a disc or iso’s or something.. (What’s the point otherwise…)

Install the plugin

• Download the current version of the plugin here
• Unzip/Install the plugin in your plugin/video path to make it act as a video plugin

Use the plugin

Browse to your video plugins and if all went well with the installation a BluRay plugin should now be selectable. Enter it and play some BluRay’s.. Initially there are 3 sources options and a selection to go to the plugin settings. Source options are:

• Disc, play a disc insterted into your BluRay drive (can also be a DVD if you really want to..)
• Filelocation, browse for a filelocation in your video sources and use it as a BluRay source. Selections can be either and ISO image or an index.bdmv file if the dir has been extracted. Note: Since the actual streaming of the image is delegated to the makemkvcon executable only files accessible at the filesystem level can be used. If you’ve used an XBMC selected samba source, iso files from this location won’t work.
• Remote, you can let it connect to a remote machine with the stream setup already.

All three source options have both a ‘play’ and ‘browse’ selection. If you choose ‘play’ the plugin will automatically determine the longest running feature on the disc and start playback of that. Handy if the BluRay has only one main feature (ie movies). If you choose ‘browse’ the plugin will display a selection of chapters on the disc and let’s you select the one you want to play. Handy if you’re looking at a series BluRay with multiple episode. Unfortunately there is not a lot of information available on the streams when selecting browse. This is because the MakeMKV streamer doesn’t supply any more info.

Explanation of the settings

Settings are divided into three sections:

• General Settings
  • MakeMKV location. -> Point to your makemkvcon executable. If it is on your path the default should be fine, otherwise just browse to the correct location and select it.
  • Seconds to wait for stream -> Tell the script how long it should wait for makemkv to finish parsing the disc/iso before calling it quits and exiting. Default is 2 minutes.
  • Local portnumber -> If running makemkvcon locally this is the portnumber that the script will listen to. Default should be fine
• Browseable Options
  • Enable disc support -> Turn on or off disc support
  • Enable File location support -> Turn on or off support for browsing to ISOs and directory structures for playback
  • Enable Remote location support -> Turn on or off support for streaming from a remote location
• Remote Setup
  This section will only show up if you’ve enabled remote location support. Enter the ip address and portnumber of the remote makemkv stream location.

Once again, all credits go to magnetism, a user at the XBMC forums. If there is more news about this I’ll post it on my blog. Keep yourself updated by subscribing to my feed.

If you are experiencing the same issue you will have seen the following notification in the taskbar.

On the MSDN blog Microsoft has posted a statement that Windows 7 is correctly reporting the battery status and people who see this notification should indeed replace their battery. Microsoft stated they have investigated the matter and that in all cases the replacement notification was correct. They also go into technical details how this new Windows 7 feature works but I cant help wondering considering my own experiences and the reports of other users that something is wrong. In a reaction to the MSDN posting a user called Dan Lee is saying that Windows is using the wrong parameters for calculating the battery status and it seems more users dont take the statement from Miscrosoft for granted. I’m sure we will be hearing more about this the next few weeks.

I found a great little tool to get more information about your laptop battery. You might wanna check it out as well, it’s completely free to use and it’s called Battery Care.

It would be great to hear if more people are experiencing this issue and what your findings are if you have investigated it yourself.

The problem

I use the ASRock ION-330HT together with XBMC as home theater PC which is a great combination. When I first setup the machine the Linux drivers for the internal remote where not yet available so there was no way to control the machine except by using a mouse or keyboard connected to a USB port. But I started noticing the machine was powered on from time to time even though I was sure I had turned it off (with a complete power down). Since there where no Linux drivers available for the internal IR receiver it could not be some other remote that could cause this behaviour.

At first I thought it was perhaps related to XBMC and started a support topic on the forums. Turned out more people where experiencing this issue. After gathering the experiences in that topic I’m pretty sure we have found the source of this behaviour. It turns out plasma and LCD TV’s emit IR interference which can be picked up by the internal IR receiver of the ASRock ION-330HT. This IR interference will result in the maching booting by itself. This will even occur when there is no driver installed as this behaviour is completely OS independant.

The possible solution

If you experience this issue and would like to prevent it, here are your options.

1. Disable Onboard CIR Wake Up in the BIOS
   By doing so your machine will never power on through the internal IR receiver. It’s a radical solution if you only power on your machine with the button. If you would like to use a remote to power on your box this is not the way.
2. Try moving your ION-330HT away from your TV
   As mentioned the most likely cause is the IR interference of your plasma or LCD TV. Moving your ION-330HT away from your TV could solve your issue. In my case I only had to move the system a couple of inches to almost completely resolve the issue.
3. Shield the internal IR receiver
   Shielding the internal IR receiver with something like a sheet of paper or some tape you could prevent the reception of the IR being emitted by your TV but still allow the signals from the remote to be received. The internal IR receiver can be found at the front left behind the holes

It would like to hear from you if this solved your problem.

The idea is that Boxee users will have the ability to buy content like TV shows and movies with a click of the remote. Content owners will be able to package and price as they wish, including pay-per-view and subscription. This could be a great step forward towards paid content as a countermeasure for piracy. I would love to see this in XBMC as well although I doubt this is gonna happen.

Read more about these plans on the Boxee Blog.

Install makemkv

Use PuTTY or any other SSH client with commandline interface to execute the following commands (one per line).

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential libc6-dev libssl-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libqt4-dev
wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv_v1.5.0_beta_bin.tar.gz
wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv_v1.5.0_beta_oss.tar.gz
tar -xvf makemkv_v1.5.0_beta_bin.tar.gz
tar -xvf makemkv_v1.5.0_beta_oss.tar.gz
cd makemkv_v1.5.0_beta_oss
sudo make -f makefile.linux
sudo make -f makefile.linux install
cd ..
cd makemkv_v1.5.0_beta_bin
sudo make -f makefile.linux
sudo make -f makefile.linux install

Upload the custom Blu-ray script

Next, download the custom Blu-ray script from magnetism here: http://www.bultsblog.com/BluRay-script.zip. Extract the content and upload it to the scripts directory ./xbmc/scripts/ with a sFTP client.

Playback

If all is well you can now playback Blu-ray discs. You can do this by inserting the Blu-ray disc in the drive and then start the custom script from the scripts menu. Unfortunately I can’t test this myself since I don’t own any Blu-ray discs yet.

Playing a Blu-ray ISO

With this method it is also possible to playback Blu-ray ISO files. It is currently now build in the script but can be done manually. Read the full topic on XBMC.org for this (especially page 2).

Issues

Some people have reported that audio is killed after executing the script. The video starts but audio is killed with an error “Failed to initialize audio device”. A reboot is required to get the audio back. But this seems an isolated issue so far.

What’s next

This script has just became public and is still experimental. I’m positive it the will be further developed until playback of Blu-ray discs and perhaps also ISO’s is well supported and easily managed. Just keep track on the XBMC.org forum or consider subscribing to my news feed. I’ll be posting more about this in the future.