Posts Tagged ‘microsoft’

Ceton InfiniTV 4 Network Tuner Sharing Working in Latest Beta

Written by JeremyC on November 3rd, 2010. Posted in Hardware, Tuners

ceton-bridgedEver since CableLabs approved CableCARD devices to enable tuner sharing owners of the Ceton InfiniTV 4 have been waiting for Ceton to release the firmware that would turn this functionality on. While it hasn’t been released to the public yet, beta testers of the quad tuner CableCARD device can now do just that. Tonight I installed the latest beta firmware, bridged the connection between the tuner card and my ethernet adapter, and setup a secondary PC to use the InfiniTV 4. Once everything is setup on both ends, you simply go through the standard guided setup process on the secondary PC(s) to setup the tuners, as you would any other tuner device. After that it works just like any other tv tuner. I was able to instantly start watching live HD television immediately, without any noticeable lag from the streams being broadcast across my network.

Again, this is currently only available to Ceton beta testers, but this is definitely good news. Hopefully it means that the firmware, and corresponding software, will be released to the public very soon.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3, Waiting For You

Written by JeremyC on November 25th, 2009. Posted in Media Center, Windows 7, Windows Home Server

Tuesday is here at last, and for Windows Home Server owners that means one thing… Power Pack 3 Day!

pp3 1 thumb Windows Home Server Power Pack 3, Waiting For You

Microsoft have released PP3 for download via Windows Update, and it’s free and waiting for you to download. Simply open your WHS Console, go to the Settings dialog, and click Update Now in the General section. You’ll need to restart your home server, and each hope computer connected to Windows Home Server, after which Power Pack 3 will be yours!

pp3 2 thumb Windows Home Server Power Pack 3, Waiting For You

Let’s recap on what’s new, courtesy of the Windows Team Blog:

Windows 7 Libraries integration

When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a computer running Windows 7, you can access the Windows Home Server shared folders from the Windows 7 libraries.

Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression

After you install the Windows Home Server Connector to enable the home server backup for your computer running Windows 7, you can suppress the Action Center warning reminding you that Windows Backup has not been set up.

Windows 7 power settings

You can configure your computer running Windows 7 to wake up at a scheduled backup time and then go back to sleep after the backup finishes.

Console support for Windows 7

Windows 7 is properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.

Windows Search

Windows Search 4 is included to improve query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Extended Remote Discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.

TV archive

Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.

Console view

You can view information about your home server’s storage space, hard drives, backup status, and more from Windows Media Center.

Complete details are available in the Power Pack 3 Release Documentation.

If you’ve been running the Power Pack 3 beta, make sure you uninstall it before you install the final PP3 update. Here’s how (thanks to Janne Strom for the heads up!):

1. Access the Windows Home Server Administrator’s Desktop (How to connect to the Windows Home Server Administrator’s Desktop)

2. Navigate to the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta folder at Start > My Computer > D: > Shares > Software > Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta.

3. Run the Uninstall.cmd file to un-install Power Pack 3 Beta. After reboot, your Home Server will revert back to your previous version.

4. Re-install the updated Windows Home Server Connector software on your home computer. (Windows Home Server Connector installation)

Source Article:
Windows Home Server Power Pack 3, Waiting For You

Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server in your SOHO

Written by JeremyC on November 19th, 2009. Posted in Recent News, Windows Home Server

Since we had such a great response from our previous post on the Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server, we thought it would be beneficial to share our thinking on the business side of things. Don’t let the name Windows Home Server fool you into thinking that this product was created for home use only. A lot of the reasons that you would use Windows Home Server in your home are just as applicable to a small or home office. Windows Home Server provides a dependable and affordable way to organize and safeguard your work on up to 10 computers. In order to help you see how Windows Home Server could enable you to work more efficiently and effectively, take a look at the top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server in your SOHO.

1. Conveniently backup important data with automatic image-based backup of up to 10 computers every day.

2. Quickly restore an entire PC, a specific hard drive, or individual files and folders in the event of data loss.

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3. Remotely access PCs while away from the office to access files, check e-mail, review financial information, or look up an address or phone number.

4. Create a centralized and security enhanced location for important work documents that can be accessed by everyone in the company.

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5. Easily find and share information by organizing data in a security-enhanced centralized location.

6. Help reduce downtime with automatic monitoring of the health of your computers on the network to keep them active and available.

7. Easily expand storage space and add new capabilities as your business needs grow.

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8. Grant permissions for varying levels of access by team members to your business documents.

9. Easily extend your investment with new Windows Home Server add-ins for things such as virus protection, power management, and online storage.

10. Easy to use and set-up Windows Home Server in as little in 2 hours.

Windows Home Server Add-ins: Lights-Out, WebGuide, and Whiist

Written by cccpete on November 19th, 2009. Posted in Media Center, Recent News, Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server was designed to “grow with you”. That may be obvious when it comes to adding additional hard drives but also includes the option to install extra software features to help customize your Home Server. The development community has created “add-ins” for Windows Home Server that extends its capabilities in fun, exciting, and useful ways. There are currently over 100 add-ins available for download.

Three widely popular add-ins that are being used today include: Lights-Out, WebGuide, and Whiist.

Lights-Out

This power management add-in is used to put your Windows Home Server in a hibernated mode when you are not using it. This is a great way to cut down on energy bills and make your home or office a little “greener”.

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*Windows Home Server console screen shot of Lights-Out add-in

This add-in allows your Home Server to go into hibernation mode when users are not using it, based on your calendar of events, or a combination of both. You will also have the option to set a defined time in which the Home Server will fully turn back on. Windows Home Server will never remain asleep if you have a backup scheduled. Therefore, all of your important data will remain safe and still be automatically backed up.

WebGuide

WebGuide allows you to remotely view live and recorded TV programs while you are away from home. It will also enable you to remotely schedule and manage your recorded television programs, music, pictures and videos on your Windows XP Media Center edition or Windows Vista Premium, or Windows Vista Ultimate PC.

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*Screen shot of Windows Home Server’s add-in, WebGuide

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*Screen shot of streaming videos through Windows Home Server’s add-in, WebGuide

WebGuide provides you with mobile access to your music and videos from your Windows Mobile devices. This means you can have access to all of your pictures and movies while you are on the road.

Whiist

Whiist is a Windows Home Server add-in that allows you to create and manage web content on your Windows Home Server. Once downloaded, Whiist can be used through your Windows Home Server console. This tab makes it so that you can easily create and manage new websites, photo albums, and homepage links.

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*Screen shot of Windows Home Server console with the Whiist add-in

Some of the key features that are found in Whiist include:

  • Quickly create new websites on your home server.
  • Create new photo albums to share with family and friends in a few simple steps.
  • Share photos with family and friends through online photo sharing.
  • Create public content, or restrict access to users of your Windows Home Server.
  • Easily customize your public and private Windows Home Server Homepage links.
  • Fully integrates with the Windows Home Server management console.
  • Customize your Windows Home Server homepage

You have now seen three out of many Windows Home Server add-ins. If you are interested in learning about all of the other available add-ins to download, you can visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/add-ins.mspx.

Source Article:
Windows Home Server Add-ins: Lights-Out, WebGuide, and Whiist

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 available November 24th includes enhancements for Windows 7-based computers

Written by FLDataTeK on November 19th, 2009. Posted in Recent News, Windows Home Server

The Windows Home Server Team is pleased to announce that Power Pack 3 will be available in all shipping languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish) on November 24th, 2009. Power Pack 3 will be made available to existing users via Windows Update. Users need to have Windows Home Server with Power Pack 2 already installed on their home server. Power Pack 3 will automatically install as part of Windows Update if Automatic Updates is enabled on the home server.

As Microsoft communicated in a past post, Power Pack 3 improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing new features like: backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers. Power Pack 3 will enable the most optimal experience for Windows 7 users on a Windows Home Server network.

“If you’ve recently upgraded to Windows 7, Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 is an essential download providing enhanced integration between the two platforms and a number of cool new features. Combine library support with enhanced features for Windows Media Center, and we’re really starting to see Microsoft bring together the Windows Home Server and Windows 7 client experience so that your media can be stored on your home server and enjoyed seamlessly on TV, PC and Mobile devices with little effort from the user. The bad old days of copy, paste, convert and transcode may well be behind us,” says Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) Terry Walsh of We Got Served.

Microsoft MVP Alex Kuretz of MediaSmartServer.net says “Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 makes storing and accessing your media easier by bringing all the content contained on your Home Server smoothly into your Windows 7 libraries. TV Archive is also a very nice feature that has allowed me to record TV shows and move them to my Home Server to be watched at a later time.”

Here are some details on what’s new:

Windows 7 Libraries integration

When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a computer running Windows 7, you can access the Windows Home Server shared folders from the Windows 7 libraries.

Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression

After you install the Windows Home Server Connector to enable the home server backup for your computer running Windows 7, you can suppress the Action Center warning reminding you that Windows Backup has not been set up.

Windows 7 power settings

You can configure your computer running Windows 7 to wake up at a scheduled backup time and then go back to sleep after the backup finishes.

Console support for Windows 7

Windows 7 is properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.

Windows Search

Windows Search 4 is included to improve query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Extended Remote Discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.

TV archive

Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.

Console view

You can view information about your home server’s storage space, hard drives, backup status, and more from Windows Media Center.

Complete details are available in the Power Pack 3 Release Documentation.

- The Windows Home Server Team

Enabling Concurrent RDP sessions in Windows 7

Written by FLDataTeK on November 16th, 2009. Posted in Recent News, Windows 7

One of the most popular articles ever at Win7Media has been our guide on how to enable Concurrent Sessions for Windows Vista. For those unaware of what it is, enabling Concurrent Sessions allows you to Remote Desktop into a system that someone else is on, under a different user account, and access the system without kicking the user off. I, for example, use the feature to have MCE running on my Television, and then I remote into my main user account to access all my files without interrupting my MCE session. All kudos go out to the original folks at WinMatrix forums (ShipIt, Pinobigbird, untermensch & Cocoa) who posted the instructions and files to edit the files as needed to work properly. Without them we would never have gotten this far!

userscreensmall

***DISCLAIMER***

The following files and instructions are provided to you at your OWN RISK!! Understand that it is replacing important files, and as always, anything can happen. That being said, if you do have a problem, we have a fantastic community here to help you

rdp1

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS (READ CAREFULLY)

1. First, you will need to download the appropriate files necessary:

DOWNLOAD HERE

2. Once downloaded, extract the files into a directory (for the purposes of this guide, it will be assumed that the files have been extracted to the folder C:\Win7RDP )

3. Open Windows Explorer to the above folder

4. Right Click on “install.cmd” and select “Run as Administrator”

5. Wait for the script to run entirely. At the end, you should see something similar to the below…

rdp
If you executed the command successfully, you should see this screen.

EXTRA ABILITIES

For 99.9% of folks, the above steps will be exactly what they are looking for. However, if you want to customize the abilities a bit, there are certain command strings you can run in addition. To do so, you will need to open a Command Prompt with Administrator Privileges (Start > Run > CMD > Right Click “Run As Administrator”). The other available options are:

-? Show this help
help Save as -?
multi Enable multiple sessions per user
blank Enable remote log on for user accounts that are not password protected

For example, if you wanted to Enable multiple sessions per user, you would follow these steps:

1. Launch a Command Prompt with Administrator priveleges (Start > CMD > Right Click > Run as Administrator)

2. At the C:\Windows\System32 prompt type “cd\Win7RDP”

3. You should now be at the prompt C:\Win7RDP>

4. At the prompt, type: install multi

Windows 7: ‘free 120 days’

Written by FLDataTeK on October 12th, 2009. Posted in Recent News, Windows 7

According to the U.K. Telegraph, Microsoft has confirmed that computer users will be able to test the new Windows 7 operating system for up to 120 days before they need to buy it.

Once the four month trial period ends, users will be asked to enter an activation code, which proves they have bought the software.

Windows Vista, the predecessor to Windows 7, contained a similar loophole, and Microsoft has given users tacit consent to exploit it. “A total of 120 days total time is available as a grace period to customers that take advantage of rearm,” a spokesman for the software giant told Computerworld.

Windows 7 goes on sale on October 22, and Microsoft is hoping it will be better received by consumers and commentators than Vista, which was widely criticised for being slow and processor-intensive, and for failing to work with many peripheral devices.

The new operating system has sought to address some of these concerns by introducing faster installation and boot times, improved out-of-the-box peripheral support and easier access to drivers, intelligent power management, and a smaller, less power-hungry footprint.

Windows Secrets, the website that first alerted the web community to the activation loophole, has issued instructions for the “rearming” process. Users must first pull up a command line by going the Start menu, selecting All Programs, then Accessories, then Command Prompt.

Once the Command Prompt appears, users must type “slmgr -rearm”, without the quote marks. Once the computer is rebooted, the activation calendar will have been reset to zero, giving users another 30 days of free use.

Some commentators have speculated that Microsoft is allowing a period of grace to users in order to let them fully get to grips with the new operating system, and to experience themselves the benefits of upgrading from Windows XP or the unloved Vista, and to reassure them that Windows 7 offers an improved user experience across the board.

Source Article:
Windows 7: ‘free 120 days’

$30 Windows 7 For Students

Written by JeremyC on October 12th, 2009. Posted in Recent News, Windows 7

If you’re a student with a valid .edu e-mail address (non US students see below), Microsoft is offering Windows 7 for $30 USD for a limited period. Microsoft also has a growing list of approved US institutions that don’t provide their students with e-mail addresses.

The price tag has been reduced from the lowest Windows 7 retail price of $120 (USD) for a Home Premium upgrade and the special promotional price can be obtained through win741.com, which was launched this week.

This is not a lightweight student version, it’s the full retail version and Microsoft recommends that anyone upgrading from Windows XP should perform a clean installation and recommends they purchase a backup Windows 7 DVD.

US students can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 now, and can download the OS from October 22nd (general availability).

Students in the UK can pre-order their copy beginning September 30th for download on October 22nd.

Students in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Korea, and Mexico can participate in this offer on October 22nd. In most markets, the offer ends on January 3rd, however in Australia the offer has been extended until March 31st.

Many college and university students can already get Windows 7 Professional for free through the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) but this is offer is aimed at students without this access .

Source Article:
$30 Windows 7 For Students

Create Custom Themes and Start Menus with Media Center Studio

Written by JeremyC on October 10th, 2009. Posted in Media Center, Plugins, Recent News

logo 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.

new 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.

font color editor

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.

font colors

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.

theme editor

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.

program options

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.

add entry point

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.

new background applied

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

Microsoft Enhances the Digital Cable Experience and Names 2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Winner

Written by JeremyC on October 9th, 2009. Posted in Recent News, Tuners

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.