By default the new Netflix application remembers a users login information for use each time you enter the movie browser. However, what if you should change your username or password via the Netflix website? Unfortunately at this point instead of allowing you to re-enter your information the Netflix app simply returns a login error and sends you back to the start menu. In order to re-enter our login information and once again be able to login to the Netflix app we need to clear the registry entries containing the login information.

To get started we need to launch the Windows Registry Editor by opening the start menu and enter “regedit” into the search box and press enter. A dialog will appear asking you to confirm, since the program needs administrator privileges to run. Once inside you’ll see a folder style listing on the left and a few entries on the right. In the left hand pane navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionMedia CenterExtensionsNetflix.

Delete the Netflix folder or just the entries on the right hand side to erase the saved login information and once again be able to re-enter your login information. Just relaunch Windows 7 Media Center and enter the Netflix application and you should once again receive the login prompt.

Afterward re-launch Windows 7 Media Center and you should be presented with the login screen next time you enter the Netflix application.

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Resetting Netflix Login Information in Windows Media Center

In addition to increasing the number of TV tuners from two to four in Windows 7 Media Center, Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 Media Center users in the US, with the blessing of CableLabs, will now be able add CableCARD tuners (e.g. ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner) to their PC without any hacking. What’s more, Windows 7 will integrate “Copy Freely” or CF functionality to allow users to transfer/stream CF-marked digital cable recordings to other PCs, devices, and portable media players.

CableCARD is the US cable industry’s standard for getting digital content to supported devices such as TVs, and in a few rare cases PCs, instead of having to rely on a dedicated cable box. Previous PC options saw very limited uptake due to Microsoft only allowing OEM PC builders to create CableCARD compatible computers.

Things have now changed with Windows 7 Media Center being able to natively handle a CableCARD providing the hardware can decode all that digital goodness.

Press release details:

ATLANTA — Sept. 9, 2009 — 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.

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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.

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Native CableCARD For Windows 7 (US)

Around here we love when someone comes along and creates an application to take even the simplest processes and refines them into an even easier single solution. Previously we covered creating your own bootable USB Windows 7 installation manually and today we’ve got a couple of applications that make the entire process a snap. Even better, both applications are entirely free of charge. Installing Windows 7 from USB makes the perfect method for installation on that home-brew movie streaming box in the bedroom or even a drive-less main media center machine.

The first application is from Tweaking with Vishal which provides a very streamlined interface for creating your new bootable Windows 7 installation. To get started you’ll need to download and install the program from the askvg.com page. By default the installation will create a desktop icon from which you can launch the program.

On the first run of the program a handy Help guide will appear walking you through the steps to create your new installation disk. The process is incredibly simple, first insert the USB drive into the USB port. Next press the Check USB button and select the disk from the dropdown box. After selecting the proper drive press the Format USB button, note that if you’d prefer to do a fast format saving quite a bit of time be sure to enable it in the Options before pressing the Format button.

After formatting has completed select whether you’d prefer to create the installation from a DVD drive or an ISO file. This is a handy feature that the other program we’ll be looking at doesn’t have, the ability to copy files from inside an ISO without mounting it first. After choosing ISO or DVD and selecting the proper location of the files press the Start button to begin the process of copying the files to the USB drive. This will take some time depending on the disk’s speed and whether or not the program will need to extract files from an ISO.

Afterward you should now have a complete Windows 7 installation USB drive. Just pop it into the destination machine, make sure that the BIOS is set to boot from USB and get started.

The next program we’ll be looking at is WintoFlash, a program first featured on Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows. The process with this program is fairly similar. Begin by downloading and extracting the program to your hard drive then launch the wintoflash.exe file to begin. Once opened you’ll have the choice of running the program as a wizard or manually by selecting the Welcome! or Task tab.

Under the Task option, select the option to transfer Vista/2008/7 setup to flash. The next screen will prompt you for the USB drive type, file system format and format type. The default selections are adequate and shouldn’t need changed. Under the setup files path you will need to select the DVD drive or mounted ISO image to load the files from. As mentioned earlier this program doesn’t offer the option to load an ISO file directly. Next select the location of your USB drive and press Create to get the process started.

Another super simple way to transfer Windows 7’s setup to a flash USB drive! Both these programs performed quite well for the task they were designed to perform though the “A bootable USB” program’s ISO option certainly gives it an edge.

Previously, getting MKV to work properly inside Windows 7 Media Center has required quite a bit of effort on the part of the end user. It was necessary to install a number of third party codecs, make modifications to the registry and tweak codec settings to get everything to play nicely. By default Windows 7 Media Center uses a new method for playing back audio video content known as Windows Media Foundation which replaces the older method known as DirectShow. Unfortunately, every codec package available to this point is programmed for DirectShow and doesn’t take advantage of the new WMP format meaning playing non-supported formats was a substantial hassle.

Luckily for us there is a small light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Divx Lab’s MKV project. The Divx Lab’s project aims to utilize the Windows Media Foundation to enable playback of the popular MKV format on both the main Media Center machine as well as extenders. Not only does this mean support for extenders but it could also very well mean the end to playing with various codec package settings to tweak the audio/video settings to match the output of the default Media Center playback.

Beyond enabling playback through your Windows Media Center Extenders, the picture quality of the Windows Media Foundation solution is incredible and contains complete DVXA hardware acceleration support. So not only is the quality fantastic but hardware acceleration will keep frame rates right where they should be without the drops that can sometimes occur with CPU intensive codecs such as FFDShow.

Using Divx Lab’s MKV preview video quality is amazing in full 1080p without so much as a hint of latency in the playback. There are still a few downsides to using the preview though. For instance, you’ll still be required to install a third party codec for audio playback depending on the audio encoding used for your movies. The newest version of AC3Filter is all you’ll need though and provides ACM wrapper allowing the playback to be passed through Windows Media Foundation as well.

To give this great new product a try just head on over to the Divx Labs MKV Tech Preview page and create an account. Then hit up the Project Rémoulade Apps group page for a list of downloads and grab the latest version of the tech preview. To get your MKV files to show up in the native movie library you’ll still need to install the registry fix for either x86 systems or x64 systems depending on the OS being used. Don’t forget to grab the latest version of AC3Filter Full as well if you need extra support for AC3 audio and install that as well.

That’s all you need to give this tech preview from Dixv Labs a try and get MKV videos playing through the new Windows Media Foundation system.

Many movie enthusiasts prefer to watch content in it’s original resolution and refresh rate. Unfortunately, Windows 7 Media Center doesn’t automatically adjust the refresh rate or resolution of the program to suit content instead resizing and adjusting the content to suit Media Center’s settings. This of course distorts the content from it’s original format. Luckily for purists, Dgaust of the Australian Media Center Community has created a simple plugin to allow users to adjust the resolution and refresh rate of Media Center. Now changing Media Center to suit the content is fairly simple, even if not completely automatic.

To get started download and install the plugin from the Aus. Media Center Community forums. Next you’ll need to edit the settings.xml file and adjust the resolutions and refresh rates to suit your needs. Locate the settings.xml file in “C:Program Files (x86)RRC” and open it up in your favorite text editor.

Next, adjust the resolutions and refresh rates by adding a new line to the resolutions section of the file. For each new resolution add the following WidthxHeight@XXhz. To accomplish changing the resolution and refresh rate the plugin requires a restart of the Media Center application. While this is a somewhat cumbersome method it certainly beats not being able to change the settings at all. You can set the delay in ms of the restart function in the settings file under the section.

Once inside Media Center you’ll find the plugin under the Extra Programs section. You can of course add this to a custom start strip using one of the popular programs available for download such as MC Studio or WMC Custom Configuration Wizard. Also, using the entry point /entrypoint:{3a8e5756-f890-42a4-8d7a-1a4a32242507}{751885da-f449-4c0e-a21c-4fc142240245} you can setup the plugin to launch from a button on your remote using a program such as Intelliremote.

From inside Windows 7 Media Center, select the plugin then choose the proper resolution and refresh rate. The plugin will take care of adjusting the settings and restarting the program with the proper display options. The plugin is still a work in progress but will suit users looking for an easy way to handle refresh rate and resolution switching.

That’s all there is to it! If you’ve got trouble or suggestions be sure to head over to the Australian Media Center Forums post and let the developer, Dgaust, know. Don’t hesitate to let him know if you’ve found this plugin useful either as the community of developers working to improve on and add the features left out of Windows 7 Media Center play an extremely important in advancing Media Center for everyone.