Simon's Digital Lifestyle Blog

WTV watcher update

simonster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:38:00 GMT

Last week I blogged about a new project I found on codeplex called WTVWatcher that delivers a fantastically simple process for decommercialising TV shows recorded in Windows Media Center with Windows 7. Well a weeks rolled on and thanks in tiny part to encouragement from readers of this blog Paul has updated the tool, actually twice. The new version includes a GUI rather than a console, runs in the notification area (which is sweet) and the GUI pops things up like toast.

It’s nice, I think you’ll like it too.

With this update it’s really clear to see what’s happening and Paul’s lost none of the simplicity. The tools easier to work with now too. There’s a wrench icon that lets you set the location of your recorded TV, that WTV Watcher will watch, and that’s about all there is to it.

The extra new feature is also handy, there’s now an installer with auto update.

So here are the new steps to getting it working, all 5 steps

Install the tool from here
Set your Recorded TV folder by clicking the wrench
Move the desktop shortcut to your Start > All Programs > Startup folder
Install Lifextender
Configure Lifextender as per the next image.

TIP: It’s possible to do the conversion your network and if you’ve got a fast network it can be quicker if your main Media Center isn’t a massive multi core system

Super-simple, no config commercial removal in Windows 7

simonster — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:30:00 GMT

I think I’ve found something too good to be true. I was just looking about on codeplex and came across this project WTVWatcher by Paul Bruce. It almost has me shaking in my seat for it’s simplicity and ease of use.

What Paul’s done is created a little tool that requires no installation (but we will do a little bit to make it even easier!) that watches your recorded TV folder for new WTV files, when it spots one it uses Windows 7’s built in WTV to DVRMS conversion (which is rapid) to convert the program to DVR-MS. Very cool, nothing sexy, but brilliantly useful.

Okay, Okay, I know there are people screaming, but DVRMSToolbox does that and ShowAnalyzer can remove commercials without the need to convert them. Personally I don’t get on with the former, I know it’s really well loved and super tool and if you want all singing all dancing its the best choice. I however struggle with it, I’m simple like that. Second ShowAnalyzer costs money, which again is well deserved because it’s an excellent application and lots of work’s gone into it, but not everyone can convince the Mrs that it’s required.

So here we go, get rid of commercials in Windows 7 recorded TV…

Get the tool from the project on Codeplex
Unzip it to your Recorded TV folder
Run WTVWatcherConsole.exe then copy it to the Startup group on the Start Menu
Download and install Lifextender (it’s a dead project, but still my favourite for this stuff)
Once Lifextender has started up (it’ll be a blue orb in the notification area) right click the orb and select Options… the tick Automated Library Scanning and Automatically scan when new files are detected, click save and your done. Kick things off right away though by starting WTVWatcherConsole.exe

That really is it, files converted and commercials removed with no hassle. Oh and it’s all free! Oh yeah, and thanks to superbar goodness and using the built in converter you get a progress bar for conversions!

WindowsMediaCenterExperts Twitter list

simonster — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:23:14 GMT

In the last few hours Twitter has made a very cool feature available to all, lists. Yep, a list. Why is that cool? Well it makes it really simple to share tweets from people who know something cool about a subject, like er Windows Media Center.

I’ve created this list WindowsMediaCenterExperts and I’m intending to gather up all the experts so you can find out what they’re talking about in one place (other than thedigitallifestyle.com obviously!)

I need your help it’s very incomplete, and it right now only includes a few people from my list who I could spot in the 10 minutes I have before I get to the office. So what I want you to do is to nominate people to be on the list to me on Twitter by Twitter name in a DM or a @reply.

This list should be really useful to us all, thanks for the help.

[EDIT: Folks it looks like I jumped the gun, and the feature isn’t there for all. That said I can still build this list for us so send me your experts!]

You can watch the Live Windows 7 launch right here

simonster — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:29:24 GMT

To make it easy for everyone I thought that I’d throw up a post with the stream in it. Enjoy. Silverlight is required.

Wired UK on Home Automation

simonster — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:17:20 GMT

I was travelling back from a meeting yesterday on the train and decided to grab the UK edition of Wired to read to pass the time. In it there was a good, short and to the point article on home automation perfect for anyone looking to understand what to hook up and where. In the main it uses the Domia kit which is internationally available and hooks very nicely into Media Center.

It’s a great article, worth a look and available totally online here.

Xbox Beta with Facebook, Twitter and Zune, sign-up now!

simonster — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:53:36 GMT

The Xbox beta program is looking for more participation according to Major Nelson. Requirements etc. are located here, and as always there’s no guarantee that you’ll be accepted to the Beta (Gold Members have a better chance) but there’s some interesting stuff in this Beta, especially the Zune video store. Although you might want to get the chat pad before you try twittering from your Xbox controller…

Channel4 Partner with YouTube

simonster — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:31:11 GMT

Two internet TV stories in one day, whodathunkit? Channel 4 in the UK have announced that they’re going to start putting all their content on YouTube. That’s got to be some kind of coup for YouTube as Channel 4 is actually a public service broadcaster, it’s also a good thing for UK internet users in general as YouTube’s dominance makes it a good distribution mechanism.

Cnet is reporting that Channel 4 aim to have a huge amount of their back catalogue on line by 2010, which in turn is a huge amount of TV.

It doesn’t look like the content will work outside the UK, without the usual VPN malarkey. There’s no mention of 4oD, Channel 4’s on demand service going away, but it’s safe to assume that it will - so time for another TunerFree update then Martin!

[via cnet]

Sky TV coming to those with no dish

simonster — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:20:31 GMT

Sky have announced today that they’re partnering with FetchTV to launch their SmartBox set top box…their what? I’ve never seen this device before today, but there’s what looks like quite an interesting Freeview + (a DVB-TPVR) that can also connect to the interwebs and stream content from the likes of BBC iPlayer, and from today from SkyPlayer (which is er, iPlayer for Sky).

The device doesn’t integrate with Media Center so it’s not our normal bag, in fact there is a significant feature overlap, but it’s another tool that you might want in your home, however what’s interesting is what Sky is doing…

Sky are allowing non Sky TV subscribers to access Sky TV content over the web, through this device, and through Xbox. I hadn’t actually realised until now that the service is already available (over the web), for less than £1 per programme, it’s hidden away on Sky’s site for some reason. However I suspect this means that more Sky content will be made available in the UK like this (and since they don’t make their own content it means more US TV really).

So essentially what I’m interested in is what this means for the Xbox model, here’s what they say:

As with access to Sky Player via PC, Mac and, from later this year, Xbox, existing Sky TV customers will be able to access a range of content for no extra cost based on their core subscription, whilst non-Sky customers will be able to sign up to a choice of TV packages via a monthly subscription paid directly to Sky.

So there it is, there’s going to be a subscription model for accessing Sky TV, over the Internet. Looks like we’ll be seeing the same for Xbox and getting the added flexibility of pay-per-view (already offered on the web) for about £1. I might be wrong, but things are looking interesting for IPTV in the UK.

As yet, now word on pricing.

New player in the “cloud backup” space

simonster — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:20:55 GMT

How you backup your PC is becoming increasingly important, especially for those of us that keep EVERYTHING on there. Thousands of family pictures and memories, not to mention TV series and that massive movie collection are amongst the most important. Keeping everything in one place, i.e. your house, is a great start but it’s good to have some offsite backup with the likes of something like Mozy or a BT digital vault.

We’ll today there’s a new player in the market, and it’s a trusted brand for millions of people (unless they’ve ever sent you a massive mobile data bill). Vodafone have announced an interesting partnership in the UK with Decho (which is actually the company behind Mozy and is also owned by EMC). In the UK this will be a big value add thing for Vodafone as they struggle to differentiate their offerings like all mobile operators. For Decho it means breaking a new market as the Mozy brand isn’t well known, no iJustine on TV advertising it over here. The interesting thing is, what does it mean for us?

Well I’m hoping we’ll see better priced (or free for Vodafone customers?) cloud backup. There is no word on pricing at this stage, but I reckon it might mean that at least people will get an idea that they might be able to make backups.

What are people out there doing for backup, how does your strategy work? Mine, I backup to Mozy right now (and also sync lots of stuff with Live Mesh), what about you?

Another week, a new subscription based music model, but Spotify takes some beating!

simonster — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:24:00 GMT

Today BSkyB in the UK is launching their new subscription based music model carefully named Sky Songs, but I wonder how long the idea to call it SkyTunes was banded about in the office? The subscription model they are introducing looks quite similar to the Zune model and to Spotify on the surface and looks set to really mix things up here in the UK music market.

Sky have huge muscles and are certainly the biggest media distribution company to enter the field so far here. Most of the major labels and quite a few independents have signed up and I don’t doubt that this will become a big player in the music market in the UK.

But I don’t like this one little bit, and here’s why

The subscription model is a too complicated though for my liking, but the gist is that you pay either £6.49 and get 1 album (that costs up to £6.49) or 10 tracks to download and keep per month and unlimited free streaming or £7.99 per month for 1 album (that costs up to £7.99) or 15 tracks to download and keep per month and unlimited free streaming. Additional tracks will cost 65p.
This seems to be a “buy an album and get a month of free streaming” deal to me, I mean, that’s the offering here isn’t it? Individual tracks from Amazon are priced about the same, so there’s no benefit there in terms of a reduced cost for downloading tracks, and I have to buy an album to get access to the unlimited subs. I already have free, unlimited streaming from Spotify (for example), so why buy an album?
In terms of a subscription based model Spotify has the best offering (in the UK) at under £10 per month for unlimited music, which I can listen to offline.

I’m sticking with what I’ve got but I wonder how many people will be drawn to Sky’s offering? It’s free for the first month for Sky Broadband customers, so with my bargain hunting hat on, if you have Sky Broadband go get your free album. Then go elsewhere, save more money and get a more innovative service because this doesn’t look like one. I wish Spotify worked in Media Center.

The service is available here: http://songs.sky.com/

And the full press release is here

England v Ukraine, live online – only!

simonster — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:05:56 GMT

So folks I’d really like to know what you think about this. As everyone knows, in England, we’re passionate about this game called football (the real one, the one that girls play in the US, what you call “Soccer”) [p.s. I actually couldn’t give two hoots about the sport] but lots of people care, lots and lots. This weekend sees the first ever game that will only be shown online, no “TV” broadcasters wanted to pay the Football Association enough money for the rights.

The situation we’re left with is lots of people very scared to be pulled in the 21st century and being forced to “watch on my tiny laptop screen”. The beeb have a superb write up on the situation. I’d like to know what the folks over the pond (and everywhere else) think about this, if it were an NFL, NHL or NBA game, what would the reaction be? Is it too early for this? Is the technology mature enough? It is, by the way, being streamed in Flash.

Pummel the comments button!

Connect Xbox 360 to Mac

simonster — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:02:22 GMT

This is an interesting one. I’ve just come across [thanks to @whatleydude on twitter] a way connect to the media on a Mac from your Xbox 360, which brings it into the box of interesting things to do.

The software is called Connect 360 and it’s from Nullriver. Put simply it let you:

Get to your iTunes music from Xbox
Shoutcast streaming
Viewing an iPhoto library
and HD streaming

I don’t think this is new, but has anyone found it useful, I’m guessing this is a uPNP server for Mac?

How to get secure for free with Microsoft Security Essentials

simonster — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:07:00 GMT

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) has just been released so I thought I’d throw up a quite guide on how to get it and do the install (this is very basic folks, as the product is really simply put together, but some people like this stuff).

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ and click the big Download Now icon
Select your location and which version of Windows you have
Download and run or just Run the setup file, you’ll be prompted to allow the install by User Account Control in most cases
Read and accept the Ts&Cs by clicking Next and I accept

MSE can ONLY be installed on a legal version of Windows (yet another reason to stay legal kids) so you next have to accept validation by clicking Validate you will be told if your version passes. Click the Install button to begin, it’s very quick under 2 minutes for me.

Finally you’ll have option of scanning your machine, I recommend you do!

Now that MSE is installed it will download updates, this for me took around 3 minutes on a 10mbit connection and once complete a scan will start, the time the scan takes will vary according to what you have on your PC, the more stuff the longer it’ll take.

The end. That’s all their is to installing it, and whilst that scan is running you’ll notice that you can use your PC and you can play with settings in MSE if you’d like.

Awesome PlayTo from web

simonster — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:50:00 GMT

The folks at TwonkyMedia have just released an IE plug in that lets you do something very similar to PlayTo in Windows 7 from a web page and unlike the other PlayTo features, Windows 7 isn’t needed.

The eHomeUpgrade article covers everything I’d like to say but what great find, the software is available here: http://www.twonkymedia.com/beam/ and obviously you’ll need a DLNA compliant device (a DMR) to send the content to, so your Xbox 360, digital photo frame or Sonos are perfect!

Via eHomeUpgrade

Internet Explorer could save you 45 minutes

simonster — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:00:10 GMT

Not quite Media Center related, but it could help if you’re mobile. This is one of the more interesting takes on browser selection criteria that I’ve seen, it’s something I’d not really thought about before…does the browser you use affect your battery life?

The answer from AnandTech is that yes, it does, and quite dramatically as the image below shows. Also look what’s right at the top of the performance list for a change, IE8! This I’m thinking is yet another reason that Windows 7 performs so well in battery tests, and I wonder if they did any benchmarking against mobile performance whilst IE8 was in dev, like the engineering team did with Windows 7.

For the full analysis read AnandTech’s post, but what’s interesting is Flash usage plays a major part in battery usage.

EEE PC in your kitchen cupboard

simonster — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:44:17 GMT

File this one under impressive installations. This little video, featured on Make magazine shows a superb kitchen installation of a touch screen EEE PC that’s been modded and had a touch screen added. Looks like a good bit of installation work. Play on full volume in the office on Monday for some interesting looks! (or play it on mute if you don’t want the funny looks).

Windows 7 ads start – More happy is coming

simonster — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:58:04 GMT

Looks like the ad machine is starting up with this very cute ad that also shows off some of the great things that have been said about the new OS.

Xbox 360 price drop

simonster — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:20:00 GMT

Love it or hate it Microsoft have lots of hope pinned on the Xbox360 as a device for entertainment in your living room. Right now it's also the best extender available as it remains to be seen if new ones will be announced at CEDIA. It is then quite nice to see that the price for an Elite has dropped by $100 USD and Pro (which will also becomme extinct) has dropped by $50 USD....hope we see these drops in the UK and EU too!

As this Gizmodo post points out that brings pricing back into line with the PS3, which is a good thing. Go on then, someone comment on the noise... :)

Nokia announces their first netbook…with Windows 7

simonster — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:10:36 GMT

It was bound to happen and Nokia have jumped feet first into the netbook market today with this prime specimen, which appears to be the first to market netbook with Windows 7 starter on it. They’ve released a nice video on YouTube, embedded in this post and it clearly shows Windows 7, although Nokia haven’t officially announced it. The image to the left subtly points it out, and given the nasty grey color it’s probably fair to say it’s running Windows 7 Starter.

From the release:

The mini-laptop also comes with an HDMI port for HD video out, a front facing camera for video calling, integrated Bluetooth and an easily accessible SD card reader. Other premium features include the 10-inch glass HD ready display and integrated A-GPS which, working with the Ovi Maps gadget, can pinpoint your position in seconds and open up access for a truly personal maps experience. The Nokia Booklet 3G also brings a number of other rich Ovi experiences to life, whether its access and playback of millions of tracks through the Nokia Music Store, or using Ovi Suite to sync seamlessly from your Nokia smartphone, to your mini-laptop, to the cloud.

That’s a pretty sweet set of specs for a netbook and that HDMI out makes it good as a portable Media Center (although not with Windows 7 Starter).

Order the full version of Windows 7 in UK for upgrade prices

simonster — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:55:49 GMT

In addition to announcing the availability of upgrades in the UK and the Family pack, Microsoft also announced that Windows 7 pricing will kick over to upgrade or full from September 1….so…

If you want the full version of Windows 7 for the price of an upgrade, then get it now. It’s just £63.99 for Windows 7 Home Premium right now at Amazon.

Family pack and upgrades GO! at launch for Windows 7 in UK

simonster — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:40:14 GMT

Well this is some excellent news for anyone in the UK. Thanks to the ballot screen approach to browser choice in Europe, Microsoft is now able to offer both the Upgrade version of Windows 7 and the Family Pack (which is 3 Windows 7 licenses for a great price).

For those who don’t know there was a good chance we wouldn’t see this in Europe as Microsoft was due to pull IE8 out lock stock and barrel from Windows 7, which would have killed the upgrade routes. This whole thing boils down to Opera (and a bunch of other browser makers) complaints about Microsoft’s unfair advantages to the EU.

If you’ve preordered the Windows 7 E version (E for Europe) then you’ll be getting the full Windows 7 package along with IE8. In fact it’s not just the UK that gets the full version Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden do too.

[via: The Windows Blog]

Windows Live Moviemaker updated

simonster — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:43:13 GMT

One of the gems of Windows Live Essentials (which are explored quite thoroughly in my book) is Movie Maker which provides dead simple movie editing. The best analogy is one I heard today “Movie Maker is the notepad of video editing tools” (not sure where I heard that though). It’s true enough too, they are about as feature rich as each other, stripped down, bare bones (OK notepad is the most useful tool in Windows). Move Maker’s just received an update and lost it’s “Beta” moniker.

Brilliant 1080p (full HD) output quality, live previews of effects and Windows 7 jump lists are some of the new features since it’s exited Beta.

This has been everywhere today but Redmond Pie has a great roundup. Get the software here and some videos to play with if you don’t have any of your own.

[via the inimitable Steve Clayton]

ZuneHD available for UK pre-order

simonster — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:31:53 GMT

This is hot news for anyone UK based that wants a ZuneHD, you can have one. ZuneThings have opened their online ordering for the UK and ok it’s not an official channel, but you probably don’t care about that. You might though if you’re worried about it breaking down – never fear ZuneThings are proving a 12 month warranty of their own. They’re nice aren’t they?

The 32GB version is £249 and you’ll get it in the first week of October, if all goes to plan.

[I found out about this from Zuneboards]

Wow! Zune HD looks super sexy on a big screen

simonster — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:21:41 GMT

It looks like Ian’s wishes for the Zune HD being an offline extender might be only slightly short of the mark. Here’s a lovely video of the device in action on a big screen, and boy does it look nice!

[I think this might have been posted by engaged originally, but I got it via this website: http://zunemediaplayer.blogspot.com/2009/08/zunehd-on-hdtv.html]

The ZuneHD looks awesome!

simonster — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Microsoft's new music player looks awesome, no seriously it does. It’s got some great technical specs, like an NVidia chip that gives it fantastic graphics, an OLED screen that looks super crisp and HD radio. Some of the leaks around the device are mouth-wateringly good, Ian has a good roundup of some. What I really want to know though is who’s the princess?

Internal shots of the ZuneHD have been published and you’ll see the “princess” reference below…wonder what that’s all about?

Amazon almost have their preorder site ready to go, so who’s preordering?

[via Zunited]

DLNA gaining ground with TV makers FAST!

simonster — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:16:25 GMT

I think it’s fair to say that all Windows Media Center enthusiasts are pinning their hopes on DLNA standards giving us a superb media experience all around the home given the current lack of support between vendors for Microsoft's own Media Center Extenders. With Windows 7 we all expect things to be gaining even more ground, and it’s quite possible that out of all this we’ll get a better experience, at least that’s my hope.

DLNA have just announced that in the last 3 months 400 TVs have been certified compliant bringing the number to 699 in total. 400 in 3 months!! That means that soon every new TV will be able to stream from your Windows 7 PC. Fantastic.

I love this quote, which helps to show the scope of DLNA and what it means:

No longer are consumers relegated to experiencing their digital media on just one device or in only one room. DLNA Certified products allow consumers to easily enjoy, manage and share photos, video and music across devices, regardless of manufacturer. With more than 5,000 DLNA Certified devices worldwide, and a tremendous growth in the number of DLNA Certified television models, consumers can continue to evolve their digital home with the utmost confidence, knowing that their DLNA Certified televisions can access digital content from other DLNA Certified devices throughout their home.

The full press release is here

How to tell if your new hardware is Windows 7 compatible

simonster — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:06:13 GMT

The Windows Blog has some interesting information about the Windows 7 logo scheme. For those who don’t know about it, which is probably most people, the logo scheme helps to clearly identify devices that give the best experience with Windows 7. The networking changes in Windows 7 are superb and it’s even easier to set stuff up quickly and most importantly securely with Windows 7. The logo scheme gives you the guarantee that everything will work perfectly, including things that have traditionally gone a bit awry such as UPnP or discovering other devices on your network.

Also worth noting is that any network device that support media playback, like TVs and network speakers with the logo will be fully DLNA compliant too so there’s a good chance they’ll work with other components of your DLNA setup. Logoed devices will also appear in Device Stage so you’ll only have to go to one place to configure your devices.

How to Save $200 and get your whole family on Windows 7

simonster — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:21:03 GMT

Microsoft have announced that they are going to be producing a “Family Pack” of Windows 7 Home Premium (which is the version most people are going to want, and has all the media features you’ll need) and the pricing has been confirmed at $149 US. Unfortunately it’s only going to be available in “select markets” but it’s a great start. For your $149 you’ll get 3 licenses for Windows 7 so it can be installed on 3 PCs, (wow that’s just $50 per PC!!!)

Windows Anytime Upgrade (WAU) pricing has also been confirmed, WAU is a built in way to move up the tree in terms of Windows versions. For example a user of Windows 7 Starter Edition (the version that will ship with netbooks) can upgrade to Home Premium and all it’s features for $79.99 or if the same person needed to be able to join that netbook to a business network (a “Domain) they could get Windows 7 Professional for $114.99.

Here’s the full pricing (would have been nice to see equal pricing but I guess it’s due to tax rates):

Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium:£69.99 / $79.99
Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Professional: £119.99 / $114.99
Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Ultimate: £139.99 / $164.99
Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional: £119.99 / $89.99
Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate: £124.99 / $139.99
Windows 7 Professional to Windows 7 Ultimate: £84.99 / $129.99

The sweet spot for almost everyone is going to be Windows 7 Home Premium so that Family Pack looks like a bargin!

[via The Windows Blog and MyDigitalLife]

How much are your memories worth?

simonster — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:25:44 GMT

This is a little off topic for Media Center but you’ll see the link in a little while. One of my contacts on Twitter got in touch about the ~~latest~~ first Panasonic Blu-Ray recorder available in the UK and it looks like a very cool unit, in fact it’s not far off got most MCE features built in, which is an interesting move. What this really shows is that there’s a very genuine consumer desire for the features we take for granted with Media Center and competition is good for spurring innovation – the compression that this box can do around HD content’s really interesting.

What got me interested though is that they’ve worked out just how much our digital memories are worth to us, using a very clever mathematical formula…in the UK 4 in 10 would sell their Christmas for less than £500 but a wedding would go for £3,000,000…I’ve already asked “D” if she’s willing to sell ours next year and she said “yes, as long as we spend the money on another one!” any offers?

You can work out the value of your memories just here using the spreadsheet, and check out Panasonic’s Blu-Ray Media Centre worrier just here. Take this into the context of how you can backup and archive those memories and suddenly you’ve got a business case built to use to sell it to the holder of your purse strings.

So folks, I’m guessing I know the answer, but would a box like this make you move away? I know it wouldn’t make me move but it’s an interesting question for Sunday evening.

BBC Content now on Zune Market place

simonster — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:04:00 GMT

What a week! Zune HD, Sky on XBox (and Bing!) and now it seems that BBC America content (which is much of the BBCs flagship content) is now available through the Zune Market place. It includes Torchwood, Dr Who, Top Gear and other favorites…

What’s next?

[via Zune Insider]

SkyTV On yer XBox - Comming soon

simonster — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:54:00 GMT

Thanks to @techlifeweb for the tip off on this on Twitter. Team Bag have an interesting post about SkyTV comming to Xbox live. It seems that Sky and Microsoft have got an exclusive deal and frankly this is massive news for the UK where Sky delivers lots of premium content including exclusive sports programming.

A couple of excerpts from the release:

For a new customer joining Sky through their Xbox, Sky Player will offer a wide range of live channels and on-demand content via a number of different packages. These customers will also be able to access their favourite shows on a pay-per-view basis.

live coverage will be supported by range of applications to enhance the viewing experience further. As well as fans being able to communicate with one another in real time via their broadband connections, they will also be able to check news and access fixtures, league tables and other on-demand information. Interactive applications will also be developed across other programmes genres.

Neil Thompson, Head of Xbox UK and Ireland, adds: “Our customers have told us that they want the opportunity to use their consoles as a way to access TV and once again Xbox has pulled off an entertainment first with amazing content and rich interactive experience. The combination of Sky’s leadership in content creation and aggregation and our own in creating a constantly evolving new generation of rich 360 entertainment experiences means we are one step closer to our goal of offering Xbox owners the best entertainment experiences out there, whether it’s movies, music, games, interactive experiences or high quality TV.”

I guess the question is...where's the MC addin?

Zune HD along with Zune services for Xbox

simonster — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:52:00 GMT

Well folks it’s been announced, at E3, the new Zune HD is on it’s way and it looks just like the predictions, and quite nice it is too…although I wish there was more news on the games front…

Zune will extend its video service to Xbox LIVE internationally this fall. This marks an important development in the Zune strategy and brings the Zune brand to more than 17 million international Xbox LIVE subscribers. Zune will be a premium partner in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, bringing an exciting catalog of TV and film to the platform. Zune will occupy the first slot within the Xbox user interface in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, exposing the Zune brand experience to millions of new consumers for the first time. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week, attendees will see firsthand how Zune integrates into Xbox LIVE to create a game-changing entertainment experience.

Now all of that is actually quite interesting, international Zune branding (check), international devices (nope), Zune still “all about the music” (nope). There will probably be some video out this week of the Zune Xbox experience I’d wager, so watch this space.

Here’s the device feature list, or at least the headlines. For me there’s some key information missing…like capacity, is the FM radio still there?

[…]Built-in HD Radio receiver so users can listen to higher-quality sound than traditional radio on the go. Users also will have access to the additional song and artist data broadcast by HD Radio stations as well as additional channels from their favorite stations multicasting in HD. If you don’t like the song playing on your station’s HD channel, switch to its HD2 or HD3 channels for additional programming.

And just as you can now with the FM radio there’s the option to buy a song whilst listening to it.

The bright OLED touch screen interface allows users to flip through music, movies and other content with ease, and the 16:9 widescreen format display (480x272 resolution) offers a premium viewing experience on the go.

Point to note is that resolution on the device, it’s not a HD resolution

The HD-compatible output lets Zune HD customers playback supported HD video files from the device through a premium high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) audiovisual docking station (sold separately) direct to an HD TV in 720p.*

Zune HD will include a full-screen Internet browser optimized for multitouch functionality.

ZuneHD as a Media Center remote then? NGRC could do it immediately, but with XNA surely someone could create us a media remote? I wonder if that browser is IE6 mobile?

Zune HD is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing for instant streaming to the device from the more than 5 million-track Zune music store.

There’s a new device at the top of my, “I want to check it out list”!

[via @stevecla]

BBC video on Microsoft’s Future home

simonster — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:10:00 GMT

Just stumbled over this on twitter but unfortunately I don’t remember who from, sorry. The beeb have been to Microsoft’s future house to look at some of the tech that might be coming into our homes in the future, the video is here

There’s some clever stuff like visual recognition of your clothes to tell you what temperature to wash them at, and of your drugs (prescription only) to tell you how much to take and some nifty dining room table stuff that’s more suited tot he office really. Cool stuff all in all, the focus is on digital living rather than media, but it gives us an insight into the thinking inside Microsoft’s research teams.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

Streaming Media in Windows 7 – network settings

simonster — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:21:00 GMT

One useful bit of information that we’ve not yet discussed is how to configure your network for streaming from Windows 7 over the Internet. The configuration is really simple, but it can depend on what type of router you have on your home network (the router is the device that shares your internet connection around your house, probably via WiFi).

[Edit: You shouldn’t need to make these changes, network streaming uses a newer version of IP (IPv6) and something called Toredo tunnelling to enable remote streaming. You will need what’s described next if anyone providing the connection back to the home PC is blocking IPv6 for some reason as IPv4 is used as a backup method of connection]

The first thing to bear in mind is that Windows 7 makes use of a feature of most modern routers called uPnP (or universal plug and play) that allows other devices on the network to make changes to the configuration of the router. In this case Windows 7 attempts to open a couple of ports automatically to allow the remote PC to connect to the PC in your home to stream the media. Some people prefer to turn off uPnP because of security fears. In that case you’ll have to manually open the correct ports on your router.

First we need to workout which ports to setup, so launch Windows Media Player and select Stream > Allow Internet access to home media… then select Diagnose connections then select the link for Port forwarding information and make a note of the port numbers. In my case they are 44505 and 10245.
Open up the web configuration interface of your router, normally (http://192.168.0.1)
Find the option for “Port mapping” or NAT and add two ports
Add two “rules” to open 44505 and to map it to the name of your Windows 7 PC that holds the media and also add a rule to map port 443 to port 10245.

Hopefully, if you are having problems that’s one reason out the way as to why.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

clubhouse Tags: "playto", "windows 7", "how-to"

Mega Post on Streaming Media

simonster — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:36:00 GMT

Not much to say here other than to draw your attention to it, but over on the E7 blog there’s a very long, detailed post on the Streaming Media functions of Windows 7. There’s not much new information in there, but it’s a great intro for anyone who’s not played with the features yet.

For more information on Play To, check out these resources here

Some other little bits, our posts on PlayTo here on TDL, and Barbara Bowman(MVP)’s video on streaming HD TV over the internet using internet streaming. Hopefully I’ll have another post on troubleshooting Internet sharing out a little later today.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

Recording programs that are off the air

simonster — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:52:00 GMT

Ian tweeted Friday about a TV show in the UK called Newswipe, unfortunately just a day after the series ended. Now I know that I can catch up on it using TunerFree MCE but I wanted to make sure that I don’t miss it again – it’s funny, but it’s already gone off the air, so it’s not in the guide. So I fired out a tweet asking the community on twitter what I could do.

And it turns out that there’s a simple fix, thanks to @datbasejase and @the_ape for suggesting this. Doing a keyword search it’s still possible to add the show, and next time it comes it on air it’ll be recorded automatically…can a set top box (thinking about a specific popular UK DVR here) do that…no!

Anyway I’ve set it up to record now, and this is how you can too…

How to…

1 Start Media Center and go to Recorded TV then go to Add recording and you’ll get a screen showing different ways to add a recording, select Keyword
2 Next decide how to track the program down, I’m going to use title since I know the title, but you could use this method to record every program containing the keyword “Wine” if you like your wine.
3 Next enter the name of the program that you want to catch, “newswipe” in this case and select the Use: “newswipe” button.
4 Setting the nuances of how exactly the recording will happen is next, including how often to record the show and when to delete it, click Record when done.
5 Finally confirm everything with the Ok button on this screen.

Now, when you catch the last episode of a great series, you can make sure you don’t miss the first episode of the next series.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

clubhouse Tags: "Media Center", "clubhouse", "how-to"

Streaming in Windows 7 – PlayTo with play lists

simonster — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:02:00 GMT

It’s not just individual media files that can be played over the network with PlayTo, whole playlists can be sent to other machines too. There are a couple of things you need to do, first make sure you have a machine running as a Digital Media Server (have a look here to find out how to set that up in Windows 7). Second there needs to be a Digital Media Receiver on the network (have a look here to find out how to make Windows 7 into a DMR).

Build a play list

The first thing you need to do is build a playlist in Windows Media Player, so drag the files into the right hand pane of WMP after making sure the Play tab is active. If you really like it then enter a name, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to save it, you don’t have to.

PlayTo the play list

Next just go the top of the pane and click the PlayTo drop down, it’s highlighted in the picture to the left of this text, and select the device you want to play it to. If your devices have names that mean nothing you can change them easily by following the instructions in the Beyond the basics post. That’s it your play list should start to play on the target device and a window should pop up for you to control the playback.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows7, how-to, PlayTo, media player, challenge-windows 7

Streaming Media in Windows 7 – Streaming your collection over the Internet

simonster — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:04:00 GMT

One of the coolest new features that came along with the Windows 7 RC was the added functionality of being able to stream media over the Internet, so where ever you are you have access to your entire collection. Many of us have had this type of functionality with Windows Media Center and Web Guide in Windows Vista, but this makes it much easier.

It’s a two part puzzle though, two Windows 7 PCs need to be linked together to enable streaming. When you are outside the home this makes it nice and secure to share media, don’t forget there’s a good chance you’ll want to do this over a public network.

Enabling Internet Streaming

As with all the rest of these posts the most strait forward way to configure the streaming options is to use Windows Media Player, so launch it and click the Stream button to access the setting. To turn on Internet streaming select Allow Internet access to home media… and a popup will appear with more options on it.

There’s a very important requirement to secure access to your media over the internet and it all revolves around a clever feature called Linked IDs. A linked ID links the login on your PC with a Windows Live ID, so your PC knows that any Linked IDs are also you, and it forms the basis of access over the internet to your media. Linked IDs can also be used when sharing media in a HomeGroup in Windows 7.

Click Link an online ID and a window will pop up where the details of the IDs to link are set, this can also be done through Control Panel. The first thing that’s needed is to setup the links to an Online ID provider, like Windows Live, click Add an online ID provider to start off.

Your favorite browser will fire up and go to a list of available providers, right now Windows Live is the only one, but it’s possible for others to become providers – so you could end up using your Facebook account. On this page select Windows Live and a download page will appear for the Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant. Download the version for your type of installation, either 64 or 32 bit and run it, once it’s installed a new provider will be added to the Link Online IDs page.

Now you can actually link your IDs together, so select the Link online ID link under WindowsLiveID and enter your Windows Live ID details (username and password). Once the ID has been verified you’ll be taken back to the Link Online IDs page but now it will display the linked ID. Click OK.

Next you’ll need to go back to Windows Media Player and the Internet Home Media Access dialogue will be up still, select Allow Internet access to home media to confirm that’s what you want to do. Since it’s a security thing UAC will pop up asking for confirmation.

Enabling Internet Streaming on the PC that you want to stream to

The second part of the puzzle is to link a second PC to enable the streaming, again it’s simple but not very obvious what to do.

On the second PC do exactly the same thing as above (how did you not guess that ???) and now on your second PC you’ll see that the first PC is listed under Other libraries and the two are linked together. In fact both PCs are linked as pears, both is capable of both streaming and receiving media.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, how-to, windows7, PlayTo, Windows media Player challenge-windows 7

Streaming Media in Windows 7 – PlayTo

simonster — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Windows 7 includes some clever functionality to allow you to remotely play music around your home through a very simple to use feature called PlayTo. There are a couple of things that you’ll need to take advantage of PlayTo, not least of which is a second device, either another Windows 7 PC or a device capable of supporting the DLNA Digital Media Renderer (DMR) role, for a list of devices that can, take a look here.

So assuming you have two PCs that are running Windows 7 one will be the streaming media server (or DMS) and one will be the DMR. To enable what’s necessary to have one of the Windows 7 PCs act as a DMR have a look at this previous post, this post will first look at how to enable the DMR role on a Windows 7 PC and then, how to send media to it.

Enabling the DMR role

The most simple way to enable any streaming media functionality in Windows 7 is to use Windows Media Player to turn it on. Launch it and click the Stream button to find the options which appear as a drop down. Then select Allow remote control of my Player… a popup message will appear to allow you to confirm, select the option to Allow remote control on this network.

If you ever want to disable the functionality just do the same thing and select Do not allow remote control on this network to turn it off.

Once the Windows Media Player has been setup to be remote controllable whenever it’s running it will be possible for someone else on the network to send media to the PC and that media will play.

*Note: The DMR role is only available if Windows Media Player is running, which actually gives you more control over when media can be sent to your PC.

Playing something

The next step is to actually get something playing, again it’s really easy to do. Within Windows Media Player select what you want to play, and right click it, then from the popup menu select Play to then select the device to send the media to. This is why it’s a good idea to have the devices named well, I covered that in this post.

It’s not just within Windows Media Player that you can select content to “Play to” it’s also possible to play content directly from Windows Explorer, just do exactly the same as you would in Windows Media Player.

The next installment in this series will show you how to stream media over the Internet using Windows 7 and then we’ll come back to Play To with a post on using Play To to stream a play list

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows7, how-to, PlayTo, media player, challenge-windows 7

Streaming Media in Windows 7 – beyond basic configuration

simonster — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:02:00 GMT

Following on from my first post on Windows 7’s streaming media functionality, and how it’s changed a little in the Release Candidate this post talks a little about the more advanced options for configuring network streaming.

Access to all of the features in this post is gained easiest through Windows Media Player. Click the Stream button and select More streaming options… to open up access to the Media Streaming Options page of Control Panel, which is the central hub of configuration for media streaming.

Changing the name of the library

One of the most simple things that you can do, but one that actually adds a tremendous amount of usability is to give the library a meaningful name. It might sound rather simple, but when you have a few PCs in different rooms in the home it makes a real difference. The best way to use this is to name the library after where the PC is or after who’s PC it is, for example my office PC is called “Study”, my living room is “Lounge” and my kitchen is “Kitchen” whilst my laptop is “Si”.

This really comes into it’s own with the PlayTo features, which allow remote control of media devices, where it becomes really handy to know where the media will play, for example PlayTo > Kitchen.

Controlling what individual devices can play

It’s possible to control exactly what can be played by each device on the network from the server and in this way you can place some limitations on what those remote devices can see. For example you can prevent your kids PCs having access to an music on your PC that might have adult lyrics. These settings are available on a per device basis and also the defaults can be changed (it’s the defaults that apply to new devices). It’s also possible to restrict the available content to only media that you like, based on ratings.

It’s also possible to completely block the access that a device is allowed to the library by changing the Allowed drop down to Blocked.

Preventing (or enabling) Standby

Imagine the scenario, you’re enjoying your favorite aria (or death metal, whatever floats your boat) then … silence … it all stops, how annoying would that be. Well it could quite possibly happen if the PC isn’t set to stay out of standby. To control the power options select Choose power options, (then its time to surface the feature for controlling power) Change when the computer sleeps then Change advanced power settings then scroll down to Multimedia Settings then When sharing Media and expand the option (phew you made it!) From here we decide when the computer can sleep if it’s sharing media and there are 3 options:

Allow the computer to sleep – does what it says, which could stop streaming mid (er) stream.
Prevent idling to sleep – stops the PC from being able to sleep, your media will continue but the PC will use plenty of power
Allow the computer to enter Away mode – puts the PC into a special state when it’s idle turning off the monitor to save as much power as it can. This is probably the best option.

Selecting either the the last two makes sure your media keeps streaming.

Ok so that’s that’s some of the less basic and less obvious configuration explored, next up we’ll be looking at using PlayTo and how cool that feature is.

Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me

clubhouse Tags: how-to, playTo, windows7, media player challenge-windows 7