One of the features that the Ceton InfiniTV4 was poised to offer was tuner sharing.  This would allow you to have your InfiniTV4 in one HTPC and assign tuners to other HTPCs in your home.  Unfortunately CableLabs put the kibosh on this rather quickly.

Luckily, they’ve seen the light and as of Friday, tuner sharing is now approved in OCUR devices.  That means you can install multiple tuners in a single PC and spread them throughout your home.  While Ceton will obviously be the first to benefit from this new feature after a pending firmware update, it was all but mandatory for Silicon Dust’s upcoming networked tuner.

While not important to Media Center users, CableLabs also approved DRM Free Copy Freely content.  What this means is that other HTPC software will be able to utilize CableCard tuners for Copy Freely content.  While this won’t get you HBO or Showtime in SageTV or Myth, it will get you any content that your cable company has not flagged with copy restrictions.

Jeremy Hammer, VP of Systems Integration for Ceton has stated that the company is already working with the developers of MythTV to bring the InfiniTV4 to the popular Linux based HTPC software.

The Green Button strikes again!  This time while taking a look around the other morning, I came across Macrotube.  As the name suggests, the application provides a way to pull YouTube content into Media Center.  Happily though, that’s not where the fun ends, but just begins.

While the application is still in development, a decent amount of content has already been added and the developer has stated in the thread that he’s working on more.  His focus at this time is providing access to user generated content as opposed to podcasts or videocasts but he may consider those in the future.  As of today you can find the following included with the installation:

One nice aspect of the application is that you don’t have to scroll through all of these sources if you don’t want to.  You’re able to manage the sources you want to see on the main screen and only show the ones you want.

As well, it is posted that all of the current sources of content work on extenders, something dearly needed in this space.  I haven’t had a chance to test this aspect though so I don’t promise anything.

In using the application for two days now (and I mean really using), I’ve found the UI to be smooth and relatively quick.  There are times when thumbnails won’t display but usually a reload of the given page they come up.

As with any online content, quality varies.  This of course has nothing to do with the application but the source.  Some of the content sources are of classic content from the days before there ever was an internet and it shows but finding this content in other places can be a challenge.  That said, being able to watch a few episodes of Gunsmoke never hurt anyone.

Hopefully the developer will continue to add resources.  The structure of the UI is excellent, transitions are smooth and it ties into Media Center nicely.  With the application still being in beta, I hold out strong hopes for MacroTube.  That said, the developer hasn’t posted anything in the TGB thread since August.  I hope this doesn’t mean a dead project.  The base of the application is strong and with some more work this could be one of the best online content applications available to Media Center users.

Thanks to Dave Bryce, a  AVForums member, we have a new theme available for download today. Just attach the MCT file from Media Center Studio and we’ll post it here for our users to enjoy.

Dave’s theme, Streaming Light is currently being worked on and has an active thread available for comments over at AVForums. Be sure to drop in and leave comments, suggestions and praise in the thread. We’ve got the latest version, 1.02, available for download right here in our Download Center. You’ll need Media Center Studio installed in order to apply the theme.

For those unfamiliar with Media Center Studio simply run the program and select the Themes tab. From that tab select the Import Theme button and select the Streaming Light MCT file to add it to Media Center Studio’s theme listing. From there select the Streaming Light theme and press the Apply button. The theme will be applied to Media Center and should appear the next time you launch the program.

Easy as that! Thanks to Dave Bryce for sending in this theme and everyone else who does the same.

Source Article:
Streaming Light Theme

Introduction
So for that past couple of months i have been working on the bringing music to MediaBrowser (MB). With this blog i just want to give you guys an idea of how it works and what it supports. I know there are several people (wink wink) that like to tinker with MB and hopefully this will give you an idea of the limits. I will also hint at future developments that i am currently thinking about. Also maybe give you some insight into why i did what i did. I don’t want to make this to long because i know people don’t like to read but rather see results .

So currently (not released yet) music can come from two sources (this can be simultaneously setup) one is from a normal folder setup another from iTunes’ XML library. As for the former you specify the base folder and it displays as is. As for the latter you specify the XML file and it builds a MB compatible library (or cache).

Normal Library
I decided to go with a view by folder paradigm because that makes the most sense to me. If i play music i can find it the faster by the folder structure that i setup. Apart from that if i did it another way i would have had to force a specific folder structure and as all of you know reorganizing a lot of music is a cumbersome task.

iTunes Library
As for the iTunes setup, the cache is built up just like it is in iTunes with various options to switch off genre and artist, this however is only allowed in a hierarchy fashion. One point on this setup i have to make is i use the xml file because reading it directly from iTunes via their supplied COM interface is really slow. The disadvantage to using the xml file is that the cache has to be rebuilt if any changes occur to the iTunes library. Lastly on this setup, it requires the internet to get the xml definition file. You will get an error if it is not available.

General
In general in order for the music plugin not to “break” existing functionality if there is a avi or any video file in the music folder it is seem as a “movie”. Also the plugin will deal with backdrop and folder images as MB does currently. This is both in the normal and iTunes setup. Having said this it wont use the folder image to display as the album cover while playing. For this it uses the image on the ID3 tag. I suggest you use a 3rd party program to save the folder.jpg into the ID3 tag. When it comes to ID3 tags, i did not make use of them because it is also very slow. Maybe in the future i will revisit this.

Ok, so there were various posts asking which media support is required. Currently the plugin will only consider the following as “music”: m4a,mp3,m3u,wma,acc,flac and wpl. Beware of the playlists, they might cause unexpected results especially when it comes to queuing a folder. As part of the options you can enable a playlist folder in the base folder. This is a special folder that media player (MP) saves the playlists that it (you) create. This you will see if you view the queue, there is an option to save the playlist. If you save it and go look in the enabled playlist folder it should be there.

With regards to playlist, i have added the ability to queue folders/songs and as per existing functionality you can play the whole folder. Just push play on the folder/song and a menu will appear. This is however only possible with some remotes. Once again this is something within MB that i cannot change, now.

Things to come
You will notice that the feeling (without tweaking) within the plugin is very bare in terms of information and different views. This is because MB’s current plugin architecture does not allow custom MCML (or views). So the plugin cannot “inject” its own new view. This will most likely change in future. Having said this there might be a new theme soon that will have support for music (lets see Craigt). With this I will consider using a “series.xml” type metadata storage or alternatively look at the ID3 tag. Using the former would probably require another 3rd party application which is a disadvantage, and a whole lot of work from your point of view, so it will most likely end up looking at the ID3 tag.

Configurator and plugin options
You might remember the eye ball twisting xml file used to configure the plugin. Well it is no more. I have added the ability for plugins to have options that you can setup via the Configurator (CFR). With this it builds up a UI using the settings of the plugin. In terms of the music plugin i think the options are quite clear and you can find them in the CFR by selecting the music plugin and clicking on the Configure button.

Besides making use of the current supported views offered by MB you can specify a song icon to use for your sounds, i however don’t find this particularly appealing.

Thanks
Well i hope i covered everything, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to PM me or post something. If you don’t get a response to your post, please PM me a link. I hope you enjoy the added music ability to our favourite (SA spelling) media center plugin.

I would also just like to say thanks to everyone for the input and the testing. Some chaps that stand out in this regard is jcalton88, craigt, Sam, a couple of buddies back home and well the whole community.

ENJOY …

Post Phoenix Update
Thanks to my brother Craigt, i have a site and managed to setup another place to host the plugin. On that site i am hosting Version 0.5.0.8.

To get it you must go to the configurator –> plugins –> Add –> File –> Sources –> Add and enter this url –> http://www.craigthomas.co.za/plugins/plugin_info.xml

Please delete the old music plugin and config file (/plugins/musicplugin.xml) before you update.

Source Article:
Music and iTunes plugin

In case you hadn’t noticed previously we’ve added a pair of new Media Center themes to our Download Center. Future themes and updates will appear in the Download Center section and users can email their themes as attachments to mhealy@hack7mc.com to have them added to the section. This new pair of themes comes from a Hack7MC reader, Steve Firestone (thewarm). Both themes are created to be used with Media Center Studio and since this program has been having issues lately adjusting the start menu items we’ve included a fix for this as well at the end. Hopefully we’ll see further updates to the MC Studio program soon.

The first of the themes, called Black Desert, features a black background with 3D style blocks as well as a handful of custom start menu icons. To use the theme using will need to have Media Center Studio. Import the theme file from the Themes tab and you’ll see a new selection available on the main themes window. Select the new theme and press the Apply button under the Themes tab. That should be all there is to changing your Media Center theme.

The second theme, also from Steve, is called A Touch of Red. This theme is a variation of the original with a slightly varied layout of the blocks and a slight touch of red on the forward side.

Both themes are a sleek addition to any budding Media Center theme collection and are very usable inside the Media Center interface. Users may have noticed that a recent update to the Media Center software has left certain features of the Media Center Studio program not working. The update seems to have added what actually appears it may be a simpler replacement for editing the start menu items, though it’s not currently supported by the Media Center Studio software.

For now there are a few temporary fixes around though to get your start menu back the way you like it. The simplest solution is a handy tool created by Tyborg of The Green Button forums. Simply download the zip file, extract to somewhere accessible and run the program. This will make the changes (described in more detail later) necessary to allow MC Studio editing of the start menu possible once more. In order to keep these changes through future updates the author advises us to add the file to our startup folders or schedule the program to run regularly. Find even more details or follow the discussion here at TGB forums.

What the program does is to rename a couple of files created in a recent update to Media Center. If you’ve got an aversion to handy tools or it doesn’t seem to work for you try the following. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:ProgramDataMicrosofteHomePackagesMCEClientUX. Inside you’ll find two folders: dSM and dSM-2 with files inside each. To revert to the old method rename the files in these folders. Users have reported more permanent success by created a set of text files with the names of the originals and removing all access to the files.

That should have Media Center Studio’s start menu functions operating again.

Source Article:
Pair of Themes and an MC Studio Fix

Any good media player relies on a community of plugin developers to fix the small gaps and specific features that have been left out of the original design. Windows 7 Media Center is no exception with plenty of plugins being developed and release each day to enhance the experience provided. While it’s not always easy to find the plugin you’re looking for we’ve got a short list of those available that you should definitely give a try. This short list of add-ins for Media Center is sure to enhance the basic experience with a handful of improved features and media browsers.

Movies

Media Browser is one of the most popular movie browsing plugins for Windows 7 Media Center, featuring an easy to establish library with customizable folders for browsing your media. Media Browser also provides an extremely sleek interface for browsing your movie collection with the latest versions adding a brand new style of start page to the plugin. Listing the latest additions to each of your folders as well as the weather, movie trailers and more. Be sure to give this plugin a try!

Open Media Library is an excellent option for replacing the native movie library. OML provides an extensive number of options for sorting and arranging your movie collection beyond the basic options available in the default movie library. The newest versions include the use of an SQL database and movie collection editor for managing your collection making this plugin quite a bit snappier to use than the built-in library as well. Completely free and open source, this is definitely a plugin to try and even keep an eye on in the future.

Music/Radio

Want to add thousands of free streaming radio stations to your Media Center music experience? mcShoutcast may just be the plugin for you. This handy little plugin adds the complete library of Shoutcast radio stations in an easy to browse graphical interface right inside Windows 7 Media Center. Browse through the stations, mark your favorites and listen to any of the free stations provided through the Shoutcast directory. A definite must have for music lovers and Media Center users.

RadioTime is another radio plugin boasting a collection of over 100,000 stations provided through the RadioTime service. The plugin provides a more traditional menu browsing directory listing and has thousands of stations listed in each category. The RadioTime plugin will even provide additional information about the station and currently playing selections. Also, more local and news stations seem to be included than what you get with mcShoutcast if you happen to be looking for those.

If you’re just looking for a way to browse that music collection by folder as opposed to the classic Media Center method of browsing your collection Music Browser has just what you’re looking for. Media Center plugins don’t get much simpler than this but the simple nature of browsing a well organized music collection by folders is exactly what many Media Center users are looking for. Music Browser even includes support for folder images allowing you to add custom artwork and album art to your collection.

Be sure to check back soon as we continue the list and even add a few programs to the list that are sure to enhance your Windows 7 Media Center experience.

Source Article:
Plugins You Need to Try with Windows 7 Media Center

Continuing on the last article covering an assortment of movie and audio plugins you need to try with Windows 7 Media Center, we’ve got even more plugins you need to give a try. These plugins cover features that should be included in any decent ten-foot media application in this day and age of widespread internet access, Weather and Social Media. Be sure to check back again soon for the third installment where we’ll cover several programs that lend themselves to an even better Media Center experience as well.

Weather

Misleading name aside, Vista4Cast is the perfect addition to Windows 7 Media Center. This handy plugin allows you to get a quick view of the weather forecast for the next few days right from the Start Menu as well as dig deeper into future weather patterns using the main plugin. The short forecast display is very configurable including fonts, colors and more. The main plugin supports multiple cities and includes very extensive details gleaned from The Weather Channel’s forecast. Be sure to give this fantastic plugin a try today!

Heatwave is a wonderful weather plugin that’s incredibly stylish to boot. Allowing you to access a number of city locations you can set from inside Media Center through a convenient and easy to use configuration panel. The newest version, which also updates the plugin to work with Windows 7 RTM, even includes a built in on-screen keyboard (though currently not functioning). Now that this plugin has been updated to work with the latest version of Windows 7 Media Center it’s sure to return to many a Media Center thanks to it beautiful interface styling allowing for a full five day forecast to be viewing at a glance with easy to understand icons.

Social Media

Want to read those forwarded joke mails and other assorted spam on your ten-foot interface? No problem! Media Center Mail can bring you all that and more. This plugin supports multiple users and an easy to use configuration plugin to manage your email account settings. Each user can have multiple accounts and accessing email from each account is fairly easy from inside Media Center as well. If you’re looking for an email solution for Media Center, look no further.

Twitter addicts fear not, you can tweet from your couch while watching movies and TV! TwitterMCE allows you to not only check tweets from friends while away from the PC but you can even make tweets right from Media Center. Use the full on screen keyboard, complete with character countdown, to tweet about whatever it is you just saw on TV or the movie your watching. You can even browse through a complete list of your friends and followers. This is a must have app for movie loving Twitter users.

Looking for a more hands-free method of updating your Facebook and Twitter friends to what your currently listening to or watching inside Windows 7 Media Center? Media Center Status Application has got just what you need. This little plugin lets you establish a series of rules to automatically update your status on either social network whenever you begin playing media inside Windows Media Center. With advanced rules to determine exactly what types of media to update for and exclusion rules for specific files you can even avoid being overly annoying to your social media buddies (or letting them know about that embarrassing Justin Timberlake obsession).

Be sure to stick around for the next part in the series where we’ll cover a few more plugins that take care of some of the missing features in the background of Windows 7 Media Center as well as a hand full of must-have programs that make your Media Center interface even better.

Source Article:
Even More Plugins You Need to Try with Windows 7 Media Center

MediaBrowser has long been a favorite for anyone looking to replace the built-in movie library browser with something that has a few more features. MediaBrowser is a free plugin for Windows 7 Media Center that adds more advanced library management, multiple view options for browsing the library and plenty of sorting options. It doesn’t take long with this plugin to see why it’s so popular. The latest iteration, Firestorm, adds even more features to the mix including a vastly faster user experience as well as increased stability over previous versions. For new Media Center enthusiasts Firestorm offers the perfect timing to try Media Browser for the first time.

Long time users will immediately notice a speed improvement over previous versions, especially while browsing large collections and when first starting the plugin. The entire experience is much more responsive making finding and playing the particular movie you’re looking for much less time consuming than previous versions. As an added bonus Firestorm includes experimental support for an SQLite database which will further improve the experience. To enable this feature you’ll simply need to download and copy the correct version of the SQLite DLL to the ProgramDataMediaBrowser folder.

Another notable feature of MediaBrowser FireStorm is that themes can now be created and released as plugins separate from the core code. Now just like with the plugin interface you can download and switch between themes without the need for a completely new release of the MediaBrowser plugin. In fact the Vanilla theme which was previously included in the main package is now a plugin shipped separately. In order to download the Vanilla theme you’ll need to open the MediaBrowser Configuration and select Add from the Plugins tab. Next select the File –> Sources menu and Add the following source: http://www.throgsoft.com/plugins/plugin_info.xml.

For long time users there have also been some changes to the ImagesByName structure. Images have now been separated into appropriate categories with a new folder structure. In order to facilitate this transition there is a migration tool available for download. Of course, for those new to Media Browser (or who just need to update their images) there is always the extensive package offered by TheHTPC.net.

Another feature long desired has been added as well in multiple entry points. Now, for each section created in the configuration tool MediaBrowser also creates an entry point. Using Media Center Studio you can add these new entry points to any start menu strip. Simply enter the start menu tab and expand the Entry Points at the bottom then drag and drop a point onto the strip. This is a great feature for those who prefer to browse recorded TV shows inside Media Browser or those who simply want to select HD/SD folders from the start menu.

Firestorm is a definite step forward for MediaBrowser which should be a definite upgrade on every Media Center enthusiasts list. The performance and stability alone are quite an improvement over previous releases a certainly cements MediaBrowsers status at the top of the heap of movie library plugins. New users and old alike can download this latest release from the Google Code repository.

Source Article:
MediaBrowser Firestorm Brings Performance, Stability and Features

Not satisfied with the default setting of seven rows of channels displayed in the episode guide of Windows 7 Media Center? Unfortunately, there is no option to enable an increased number of rows to appear so increasing the rows displayed requires users to do extensive editing to the Media Center DLL files. Thankfully, Bill24 has posted a guide to the editing required on the Australian Media Center Community. This guide is fairly advanced for those not familiar with editing DLL files however so we’ve created a small patch to allow users to easily make the edits to the Media Center shell file. You’ll still need to follow the beginning portion of the guide though and we’ve also included the actual edits made in the original article for those interested in the data behind the changes.

To get started decide whether you’ll be using the patch or editing your Media Center shell DLL by hand. If the patch doesn’t work you’ll likely need to edit the file by hand as updated or altered versions of the Media Center shell DLL could cause the patch to no longer work properly. If using the patch download it here, otherwise you’ll need a program to edit the file by hand such as Resource Hacker or Restorator. Also, a copy of Media Center Studio is required.

The first step is launching Media Center Studio and creating a new theme. Bill24 doesn’t mention in the guide what changes this makes to the Media Center files that makes it a required step, it may be a simple matter of setting the correct permissions on the required Media Center DLL files. Once inside Media Center Studio select the New button to create a new theme, name your new theme and save the file. Return to the main themes listing tab and select the newly created them then press the Apply button. Launch Media Center and browse to the EPG guide, unless additional edits were made inside Media Center Studio nothing should have changed.

Alternatively, if you’ve got the Take Ownership registry file applied you can take ownership of the MediaCenter.Shell.dll file to affect the same results.

Now open Windows Explorer and browse to C:Windowsehome and locate the MediaCenter.Shell.dll file. Copy the file to another location and make certain to create a backup of this file as well just incase something should go wrong during the process. Now, if using the patch method, copy the patch into the same directory as MediaCenter.Shell.dll and apply the patch to this file. Afterward copy the file back into the C:Windowsehome directory. Relaunch Windows 7 Media Center and check your EPG guide, there should now be ten rows listed.

For those editing the file by hand open the MediaCenter.Shell.dll in your resource editor and browse to the html –> EPG.MCML file. Inside search for the following lines and edit the values as described:

Name=”InitialGridPosition” Left=”FilterButton,1,1″ Right=”Parent,1,-53″ Top=”FilterButton,0, –44
Name=”InitialGridPosition” Left=”FilterButton,1,1″ Right=”Parent,1,-53″ Top=”FilterButton,0, -134

Set Target=”[FilterButtonLayout.Bottom.Offset]” Value=“493”
Set Target=”[FilterButtonLayout.Bottom.Offset]” Value=“580”

Set Target=”[Table.VisibleRowCapacity]” Value=“7”
Set Target=”[Table.VisibleRowCapacity]” Value=“10”

Font FontName=”global://comm:LightFontFace” FontSize=“48”
Font FontName=”global://comm:LightFontFace” FontSize=“0”

“2″/>
“4″/>

After changing each of these values save the MediaCenter.Shell.dll file and place it back in it’s original location. Relaunch Windows 7 Media Center and browse to the EPG guide to ensure that you’ve now got ten rows listed.

Thanks to Bill24 for sharing this information with the Windows 7 Media Center community! Be sure to check out his blog on the Australian Media Center Community website for even more great information on modifying Media Center. This certainly is a more efficient usage of screen real-estate than the original seven row display.

Source Article:
Increasing the Default Number of Rows in the EPG

Looking for a way to launch commands or programs to run in the background from the Extras Library menu? When you may be in luck, CW-Kid and Andrew Cherry have come up with a .dll and a set of direction for doing just that. The process can be a little daunting for novices but if you’re looking for a way to run cmd files in the background you’re likely able to tackle the task. This can be especially useful for those looking to run mc2xml or that have setup batch files to process WTV to DVR-MS conversion. After following this guide you’ll have a handy little icon to launch the command from right inside Windows 7 Media Center.

To get started you’ll need to download the .dll file created by Andrew Cherry and extract it to the C:Windowsehome folder. This will handle the launching of the cmd file in the background. These cmd files are simple text files with the .cmd extension that can be written to do anything you can do from a standard command line interface, also known as a batch file.

Once you’ve got the .dll file extracted to the ehome directory and a batch file ready to run create a new xml file. Again this is a simple text file which can be created in any notepad application, simply save the file with the .xml extension and it’s an xml file. Copy the following into the new XML file:

<application title=”The title text that appears below the icon in Media Center”
id=”{25e1993f-a9d8-4251-871c-0bf84c6d6e29}”>
<entrypoint id=”{58267566-672b-4b1d-812a-fc46d728d073}”
addin=”MissingRemote.AppLauncher.AddIn,     MissingRemote.AppLauncher,Culture=Neutral,Version=1.0.0.0,PublicKeyToken=391ca93ec5a00478″
title=”The title text that appears below the icon in Media Center”
description=”Description text that appears below the icon in Media Center”
context=”%ProgramFiles%\foldername\name of your.cmd”
imageUrl=”C:\Program Files\foldername\Images\your icon image.png”>
<category category=”More Programs”/>
</entrypoint>
</application>

Of course, you’ll need to alter the red text to match the title, description and location of your batch file as well as editing the location of a PNG image to use in the Extras Library as an icon. These images should be a square probably not needing to be any larger than 128px X 128px as Media Center will scale them appropriately for the resolution being used. Once you’ve got the XML file ready open an elevated command prompt (run –> cmd –> ctrl-shift-enter).

Inside the command windows change to the C:\Windows\ehome directory and enter the following command: registermceapp /allusers XMLFILE. Change XMLFile to the location that you’ve saved the XML file to and press enter to run the command. You should get a success message. If you don’t receive a success message it’s likely that you’re not inside an elevated cmd prompt, also for multiple new entries you’ll need to change the GUID and ID in the XML file (id=”{25e1993f-a9d8-4251-871c-0bf84c6d6e29}”>
<entrypoint id=”{58267566-672b-4b1d-812a-fc46d728d073}”).

Once the XML data has been successfully entered into the registry launch Windows 7 Media Center and browse to the Extras Library.

That’s all there is to it! You should now see the icon for the program set in the XML file and pressing the icon should launch the cmd file in the background executing the set of commands inside. Thanks to CW-Kid for sharing this with the Media Center community! Be sure to stop by his blog and check out his many other guides and articles on Windows Media Center.