A new program we’ve all been waiting for quite some time to get our hands on, Media Center Studio, has finally arrived allowing even the most novice users the ability to create their own custom Media Center themes and Start Menu arrangements. Media Center Studio, created by Advent of the Australian Media Center Community the author of Media Center Menu Mender, gives users the ability to do what could formerly only be done with heavy editing of system files and registry settings. All this has now been packed into one handy program that’s reasonably easy to use by comparison.

To get started just head over to the Media Center Studio website and click the Download link to get the latest version of the program. There is also a sticky thread for the app on the Aus Media Center Community Forums you can check out should you have any troubles getting started. The software is still very early beta and as a result there are still a number of bugs to be found.

Once the program has been installed launch it from the programs menu and you’ll find a well styled interface allowing you to create new themes and edit the Media Center start menu. Let’s start by creating a new theme. To do this make sure you are on the themes tab and press the New button. This will create a new tab with all the theme editing options available including changing fonts colors, fonts, and images for each theme.

Just select the item you’d like to modify on the left and use the settings on the right to change that item’s appearance. You can change font colors using a series of sliders allowing for any RGB color allow with an alpha setting. A color selector would have honestly been preferable to this system as it can take quite a bit of play to get the color you are looking for. A point and click color wheel or similar system would be much simpler. Also, under the fonts section a crash occurred whenever attempting to bring up the dropdown box to select a new font, likely due to it’s just released beta status and will likely be fixed soon.

Though the font color selector is somewhat tricky to master it is still a huge improvement over not being able to edit the colors at all. Modifying the font colors using Media Center Studio allow for successful font color changes for the first time which should open up a large number of possibilities for Media Center background images that would have previously conflicted with the bluish font colors that are default.

Changing images was also a snap. Just select the image that you’d like to alter and hit the browse button to select it’s replacement. However, after modifying the images another small bug was noticed as the option to save the theme wasn’t available until the font color was changed. There seems to be a bug in the detection of altered images and the save function.

Themes aside, Media Center Studio also provides an excellent Start Menu editor. Selecting the Start Menu tab will bring up an editor similar to the Media Center Menu Mender that was popular with Vista Media Center users. Selecting the Start Menu option at the top also allows you to create custom entry points. The editor made it fairly easy to create a new strip and add an all new application to it.

Start by creating a new strip, press the Menu Strip button at the top and a new strip will be added to the lower viewport. Edit the name and location by pressing the small notepad icon next to the name then dragging the strip to the location you’d like it to appear. Next create a new entry point by pressing either the Application or Game button at the top. This will bring up a pane allowing you to select the application and then edit the icon and details of the program.

The program options allow for some very advanced configuration of just what actions to perform before launching the program and how to exit the program and return to Media Center. There do seem to be some remaining bugs in the plugin that launches the programs however causing some Extensibility Host errors though they are being looked into and will hopefully be cleared up soon.

To add the program to your new start menu strip return to the Start Menu tab and expand the Entry Points pane at the bottom of the application. This will bring up a listing of all the available entry point which you can then drag and drop onto your new start menu strips. It should be noted that due to restrictions put in place by Microsoft you are still unable to add new tiles to the default strips.

Once finished be sure to apply any theme changes you’ve made by returning to the original Themes tab and pressing the Apply button. You’ll notice there are also options to export and import themes from other Media Center Studio users. Expect to see plenty of new themes popping up over the course of the next few weeks available for download.

That’s all there is to it! Relaunch Windows Media Center and bask in the glory of your newly customized interface.

As any bachelor can tell you the basic sleep timer function built into any recent (or even not so recent) television is the perfect partner for those nights falling asleep on the couch. This basic functionality has long been missing from Windows Media Center however. For those missing this feature, look no further. The Green Button forum member StixBit has created a plugin to fill the gap, providing a Sleep Timer menu that allows for 30 minute, 60 minute and custom sleep timers.

To get started using this handy little plugin, download and install the package either from StixBit’s LiveDrive or MC7 Sleep Timer (518). Once installed, launch Windows 7 Media Center, you’ll find the plugin in the Extra Programs area under the Extras menu.

From inside the plugin interface you’ll find options to set a sleep timer for 30 and 60 minutes as well as the ability to setup a custom time at five minute intervals by selecting the Custom Timer button and pressing the right arrow until you’ve got the appropriate amount of time. Once you’ve got your custom timer set just press the button and the sleep timer will take care of the rest.

There are even options to turn off the Monitor from the sleep menu as well as cancel the timer completely. Unfortunately, however, this plugin doesn’t currently work with extenders and accessing the Sleep Timer from the Extras Menu is slightly more cumbersome than your standard TV sleep timer. If the timer could be set through a simple button press of the remote it would be quite a bit more user friendly.

For those looking to add this basic function to their Windows 7 Media Center though the solution is more than adequate to get the job done. It’s great to see the Media Center community coming together to add the type of features included in other systems that seem to have been left aside by the Microsoft team. Thanks to StixBit for this handy plugin and be sure to give it a try!

A common question we see in the community is “why didn’t show x or show y record when scheduled?”

I thought that an article outlining some of the inner workings Windows Media Center for Windows 7 uses to determine what gets record and when. A caveat: the PVR is a complex beast so not everything will be covered. Also the type and number of tuners can affect how the PVR behaves.

In the descriptions below the machine will have NTSC and QAM tuners. So two shows can be recorded at once and the configuration will have SD and HD capabilities.

Alternate Shows

An alternate show is an airing that occurs more than once. Good examples would be ‘Dr Phil’ or ‘Oprah’ which air in the afternoon and are repeated in the evening.

Prototypical and Non-prototypical recordings

Going to the guide and choosing to record series ‘Oprah’ at 8pm generates a prototypical recording. This means that we will record this specific airing and then going forward get any other airings when they are on. It also infers that you prefer this specific channel and signal type (HD or SD).

A non-prototypical recording could be a keyword request rather than recording a specific guide entry. Oprah might be recorded via a Title Search. This would result in a series recording on any channel, any signal type and at any time.

Conflicts

Conflicts happen when more shows have been requested to be recorded than tuners are available for a given time period. So a typical system may have 2 tuners installed and if 3 shows need to be recorded at the same time, one of the shows will not be recorded. First of all shows will be recorded by their priority and then the PVR will attempt to see if an alternate airing is available. If there is an alternate then the conflict can be auto resolved. The show which couldn’t be recorded at the original time will get a blue ! icon indicating that it will be recorded sometime in the future. Or a yellow ! icon indicating that it will not be recorded. (This doesn’t mean it will never be recorded, only that the current guide doesn’t allow it to be recorded in the near future.)

[Spot the UI Bug for bonus points in the above screen shot]

However if the conflict cannot be resolved automatically via alternates, then the conflict UI pops up and the user makes the decision of which show to record.

Example PVR Functionality

Does the conflicting show exist elsewhere?

As mentioned earlier, the first thing the PVR scheduler does is to see if the conflicting show exists elsewhere. It looks for alternates in order of priority, higher priority shows should be recorded first. It also must consider future conflicts as well; by recording an alternate airing it is quite possible new future conflicts will be created. The technique used to calculate all of these dependencies is called branch and bound. This article will not discuss branch and bound since it is beyond the scope of this article. To limit the sheer number of permutations the branch and bound system PVR only looks three days ahead.

Jumping to other tuners

Using the conflict example in the screen shot below; there is a prototypical series recording of Oprah on channel 5. Another show has been scheduled to record at the same time on the same tuner. So Oprah has been “banged out” (! icon) on both 5 and 5.1 even though the QAM tuner is available. As you can see from the screenshot there is another airing on channel 5.1. The prototypical airing of Oprah was SD, so the scheduler looks for an SD airing first. In our example an SD airing of Oprah will be recorded later in the day. Rather than record the HD version which is on now.  The reason is that the scheduler prefers Quality over Time and tries to keep the requested record quality rather than get the exact time.

There is a caveat to the above scenario: The above scenario only works if the airing of Oprah is a repeat. If this is a first run episode then the behavior is slightly different. Instead the scheduler would prefer Time over Quality and choose the airing on channel 5.1 at 4pm. The later airing on SD would be the schedulers’ second choice. The idea is that if you are watching a time specific show such as Survivor-Dancing-Idol-Apprenticeship, you would want the first showing where ever possible, rather than wait for the 2 a.m. rerun next day.

Partial Recordings

One cool feature of Windows Media Center in Windows 7 is its ability to get your requested show again if the original recording is considered a partial. Partial recordings can happen for a number of reasons; the most common is when the user changes the channel to watch something else. In this case Windows 7 Media Center will keep the partial recording and attempt to record the same show again in the future.

As you can see, once the record button get pressed, a lot of decisions have to be made under the hood. Even just writing the scenarios out in plain language is very verbose and open to interpretation. If there is interest perhaps my next article could outline our internal notation for describing such scenarios and expected results.

Hopefully this article was of interest to you and I look forward to writing more in the coming year.

by Richard Cook

About the Author

Richard Cook works on Media Center for Windows, more specifically the PVR feature set. He joined the team about 1.5 years ago after moving from the Visual Studio Debugger Team. Now his friends and family can actually relate to the software he helps to create, rather than just smiling and nodding blankly. He is also pleased that he can now do some cool demos of his work for firends and family at home.

Link to original post: thegreenbutton

A downloads section has now been added, this is where we will mirror various files for plugins and other goodies. Download links will also be in the individual post but you can use the “Downloads” tab to browse all the files available on our site.

Software There are a good number of guide to creating a bootable USB disk to install Windows 7 which is handy when installing on a system that may not have a DVD drive (or any drive at all). Some people like to keep their Media Center HTPC as small as possible and taking the disk drive out of the equation makes that a bit simpler. When you can rip all your disks to the hard drive and transfer them over the network, why not? The downside, of course, is how to install the operating system to begin with. Simple, just use a cheap USB flash disk.

Many of the other guides that can be found through a simple Google search seem to have gone to great lengths to overcomplicate the process. To get started we’ll need a USB flash drive a least 4gb in size, a copy of VirtualCloneDrive (which is completely free from SlySoft) and a downloaded Windows 7 ISO which can be gotten from MSDN or Technet. Microsoft will also provide the ability for regular home users who aren’t members of these services the opportunity to purchase and download online as well once the retail version is available.

First, download and install VirtualCloneDrive from SlySoft and setup a virtual drive. Once you’ve completed that, mount the Windows 7 ISO by right-clicking the VirtualCloneDrive icon in the system tray, selecting the drive letter and choosing mount. Locate your downloaded Windows 7 ISO and mount the image.

Now insert the USB flash disk and open Windows Explorer. Locate the drive in Explorer and right-click to bring up the options. Select format to bring up the format dialog and set the option to format as an NTFS file system. The rest of the options can be left at default.

Next let’s make the USB disk bootable by opening an elevated command prompt (start –> “cmd” –> ctrl-shift-enter) and changing to the mounted Windows 7 ISO image. Enter “cd E:\boot”, where E is the drive where you’ve mounted the ISO image. Next enter “bootsect /nt60 F:\”, changing F to the USB disk drive letter.

Now, back in Windows Explorer, simply drag and drop all the files from the mounted ISO image onto the USB disk creating a copy of the installation disk. This process has created a duplicate of the installation media and set the USB disk as bootable. Next you’ll need to check the BIOS of the system to enable booting from USB. Unfortunately BIOS setups vary widely from manufacturer to manufacturer and you’ll need to consult the motherboard guide or manufacturers website for details. Usually it’s as simple as entering the Boot section and adding the USB disk entry prior to the hard drive.

Then, with the USB disk inserted, reboot the machine and the system should now boot to the USB disk we created. The rest of the setup process should be identical to installing from a DVD disk. That’s all there is to it!

Original Article Link: Hack7MC.com

REDMOND, WA UNITED STATES

Customers get new capabilities, more options, and a better digital cable experience in Windows Media Center.

ATLANTA, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Today at CEDIA EXPO 2009, Microsoft Corp. discussed key Windows Media Center features for Windows 7 and announced a series of initiatives that enhance the digital cable experience in Windows Media Center. With the addition of native support for additional international broadcast TV standards, including QAM and ATSC, there will now be support for switched digital video (SDV), a new tool that will make it possible for end customers to add a digital cable tuner with CableCARD to their PC, and for existing digital cable tuner with CableCARD customers to enjoy more portability for digital cable TV that is marked as “copy freely” (CF). In addition, Microsoft and the Media Center Integrator Alliance (MCIA) announced the winner of the 2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest, showcasing the many ways Windows Media Center can be used in a whole-home solution.

“We’re continuing to work on creating opportunities for partners that will enable great entertainment experiences on the PC,” said Craig Eisler, corporate vice president of entertainment client software for the TV, Video & Music Business at Microsoft. “Consumers understand that having access to content via the PC is critical when it comes to entertainment experiences, and with these announcements, we’re underscoring our broader commitment to deliver a rich experience with Windows Media Center.”

Switched Digital Video (SDV) Support Added for Windows Media Center

In response to customer requests and cable providers’ deployment of SDV, Microsoft now supports SDV in Windows Media Center for Windows 7. In conjunction with a device known as a tuning adapter, supplied by a customer’s cable provider, Windows Media Center and a digital cable tuner with CableCARD will be able to tune to SDV channels. Customers can enjoy SDV broadcasts on PCs running Windows Media Center in Windows 7 and a digital cable tuner with CableCARD.

End Customers Can Now Add Digital Cable Tuners With CableCARD to Their PCs

Microsoft and CableLabs announced that customers will now be able to add digital cable tuners with CableCARD to a Windows 7-based PC with Windows Media Center. A new tool will be provided by Microsoft that assesses the PC’s ability to support the solution. This tool will analyze the customer’s PC and enable digital cable support if the PC meets requirements, opening digital cable options to Windows Media Center customers across the country. Microsoft also announced that, with Windows 7, it has increased the number of TV tuners that can be connected to the PC from two to four per tuner type, thereby allowing customers to simultaneously record or watch as many as four digital cable TV channels.

“We are excited that digital cable customers will now be able to take advantage of this new opportunity to bring great cable TV programming to the PC,” said So Vang, vice president of OpenCable at CableLabs. “We are dedicated to helping customers get the most from their cable service, and this will be a great win for both the customer and the cable operators.”

Digital Cable Customers Can Now Enjoy More TV Portability in Windows Media Center

Microsoft and CableLabs also announced that they worked together to enable digital cable tuner with CableCARD customers to enjoy more portability for digital cable TV that is marked as “copy freely” (CF). Customers will be able to play CF-marked digital cable recordings, such as those from local channels, on other PCs, devices and portable media.

Windows Media Center Features in Windows 7 Highlighted

Using new Windows 7 features such as Windows Touch, HomeGroup, Remote Media Streaming and PlayTo, sharing recorded TV, videos, music and pictures throughout the home, while on the road and to remote locations has never been easier. There is also support for the AVCHD format. This allows customers to view HD video from many popular HD video cameras.

In addition, support for the international broadcast TV standards that was released with the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 will also be included in Windows Media Center in Windows 7. This includes native support for both ATSC and QAM, the ability to remap channels, and support for subchannels.

New Firmware for ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuners

In conjunction with the Microsoft and CableLabs announcements, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) will be providing a new firmware update that is available to all ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuners being used with Windows 7 and Windows Vista. This firmware update will allow existing digital cable tuner with CableCARD customers to enjoy more portability for digital cable TV marked as CF. Customers will be able to play CF-marked digital cable recordings, such as those from local channels, on other PCs, devices, and portable media. In addition, the firmware will contain support for SDV. When installed on a Windows 7-based PC with a digital cable tuner with CableCARD and a tuning adapter from a cable provider, it enables access to switched digital channels in locations where SDV has been deployed.

2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest Winner Announced

Microsoft, in collaboration with the Media Center Integrator Alliance (MCIA), announced the winner of the 2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest. The winning installation was submitted by Dustin Anderson, general manager at Vision Audio in Lubbock, Texas, who built a system with Windows Media Center at the core of the entertainment experience in an extensive whole-home installation for a customer in Odessa, Texas. The installation integrates six Windows Media Center-based servers, one Windows Home Server, five dedicated theater-style rooms, 12 media racks, 98 speakers, and 30 zones of distributed audio. The home includes products from key MCIA member companies such as Autonomic Controls Inc., Crestron Electronics Inc. and Niveus Media Inc.

The Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest, now in its third year, encourages integrators to show off their talents by presenting their most unique and creative installations that leverage Windows Media Center technologies. Vision Audio’s integration of the family’s music, movies, videos and pictures, as well as the integration of Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server with the Crestron home automation system, and the large scope of the installation set it apart as the winner for 2009.

“We’re thrilled to receive this recognition from Microsoft and the MCIA. The Windows Media Center platform has enabled us to be on the cutting edge of technology, which has provided us with critical business advantages during the economic downturn,” Anderson said.

More information on the contest and images from the install can be found online at http://www.microsoft.com/ultimateinstall.

Also on Display at CEDIA EXPO 2009

At the Microsoft booth at CEDIA EXPO 2009, Microsoft will show additional hardware and software installations that enhance the digital cable experience. Demonstrations include these:

* The new Zune HD portable media player using the Zune HD AV dock to display 720p content on an HDTV. The Zune HD and updated Zune PC software will launch on Sept. 15.
* A home server powered by Windows Home Server software. The upcoming Windows Home Server Power Pack 3, currently in beta testing, will add enhancements for Windows Media Center. Power Pack 3 features include the option to move recorded TV content to the home server in a variety of resolutions, and the ability for users to see statistics about the home server through Windows Media Center.
* A technology preview of the new Multi-Channel Cable TV Card from Ceton Corp., which enables PCs with Windows Media Center to play or record multiple live channels of premium HDTV at once, and stream live HD channels or recordings to multiple TV sets throughout the home, all with a single CableCARD.

About CableLabs

Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains web sites at www.cablelabs.com; www.packetcable.com; www.cablemodem.com; www.cablenet.org; www.opencable.com; and www.tru2way.com.

About the Media Center Integrator Alliance (MCIA)

The MCIA is an open and independent non-profit consortium formed to advance and administer the support, promotion, and enrichment of the media center ecosystem. Charter members of MCIA include AMD, Crestron, HP, Intel, Life|ware, Microsoft Corp., and Niveus Media.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

As you most likely know by now Hulu has revealed at long last it’s own desktop application for browsing Hulu content outside of the web browser. Of course, the Media Center community immediately jumped into action to bring this new platform into your Media Center setup. While not quite what would be described as “integrated” it will get the job done none-the-less.

The first step you’ll need to do for all of these methods is to download the new Hulu Desktop client from the Hulu Labs website. Once you’ve done that you could do things the manual way and follow the guides on Win7Media for Media Center Launcher and Configurator then Creating New Start Menu Strips. You could also edit one of these registry files included in the Extra Programs for our Media Browser menu strip and add Hulu Desktop to that strip.

Although, if that seems like an awful lot of legwork to you there are a few other options to have a look at. The first is this solution from Missing Remote providing a plug-in and some directions to add a Hulu Desktop Icon to menu strip. It still requires a bit of work for you and may not work fully with Windows 7 Media Center since additions to the default menu strips are no longer allowed. You should be able to find the new app listed in Extra Programs with this method however.

The other option is a plug-in from SecondRun.tv developer Yaggs. This plug-in is essentially the same as the Missing Remote except slightly simplified. For some reason you’re required to make a copy of the Hulu Desktop application in your root C:\ drive though. This should provide the easiest method for beginners but the least customizability.

No matter which option you choose you’ll get Hulu on your ten foot interface but it won’t be the holy grail. None of these solutions will work on extenders as Hulu desktop is developed entirely in Flash. The interface could carry some learning curve as well for the less technical family members since it’s quite a departure from the Media Center interface.

This may signal some level of receptiveness to distribution of Hulu content outside the browser but I wouldn’t hold your breath for Microsoft and Hulu to sign a deal any time soon. In fact, I’d expect to see Microsoft pushing it’s abhorrent Internet TV betas on us for the next decade or so.

Plugin Download: Hulu Plugin (206)

Application Download: Hulu Desktop (117)

Original Artical Link: Hack7MC.com

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