Ever 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.

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

Based on customer feedback, we found that it was a goal to be able to access important information no matter where you are. This includes local networks, or in places as far away as Antarctica.

With Windows Home Server, you have the ability to share all of your digital content (pictures, videos, etc) with everyone, no matter the distance. When you are out of the home or office and on the road, Windows Home Server has Remote Access capabilities that make it possible for you to view, find files, and even use applications. By using an automatically assigned web address, you can log into your home network or home computers easily and securely. From this site, you will have the ability to upload all of your digital content (pictures, videos, etc), and have access to all of your Shared Folders on your Home Server back home.

*Screen shot of uploaded pictures while using Remote Access

We receive a lot of customer feedback and stories about their experiences with Windows Home Server. One that stood out with regard to Remote Access was a user that was stationed in Antarctica. This man’s story talks about how his Windows Home Server’s Remote Access capabilities allowed him to stay in contact with his Wife and Children back home while he was deployed to Antarctica.

Brain Irvin used this feature while deployed in Antarctica. In order to make the separation easier on his kids and wife, he started making short video clips of his time out on the ice. The only way he could share them was making them into compressed files so that they were small enough to send through email. Once his videos became larger, he realized that his wife back home could buy Windows Home Server and use Remote Access so he could upload and share his videos much easier. Irvin started uploading to the “Videos” folder on the Home Server and from there, his wife back home was able to watch them and share with their children. Irvin says that “They had a children’s book about penguins in the store, so I bought it and recorded me reading it.

One of the bigger flaws of Windows Home Server is the restore process.  Not only do you have to rely on the router and other network hardware, but your experience can alo vary depending on the client computer. Even having the right drivers doesn’t mean that it will work all the time, that is, assuming you can even find the correct working drivers.  It’s point of huge frustration for many.

Wouldn’t it be great to have the ability to connect a hard drive to the server and restore any computer to it? It’s just one of those things that would make Windows Home Server just soo much better. Well, there may just be a way.

Well, on the suggestion of the forum member Shidoshi, I investigated an executable file that is installed with the Home Server Connector software and is present on the server itself too:  “clientrestorewizard.exe”.  Don’t believe me?  You can check yourself.  It runs pretty much exactly like a normal full client restore, however you need to be *very* careful about the disks you select. If you aren’t, you may be instore for another restore!

What does this mean to you?  Do you have a laptop or netbook that you need to provide drivers for to be able to restore it, but it still doesn’t work?  Do you have a backup of your friends or parent’s computer who doesn’t leave with or near you? Or you just want to do a HDD upgrade but don’t want to wait three hours for the slow network to finish?

This is not supported, for many reasons. The least of which, just mentioned above. So this is definitely an advanced “at your own risk” guide. If you have any concerns about data loss, do not follow this guide!

I only had my server available to test this one, so pictures may vary or may not be accurate. But it should work on any computer with the client Connector software installed.

There are a number of other things that you will likely need to do also, like marking the boot partition as active, or editing the boot.ini file.  I’ve verified that this does in fact work, and if you noticed above, there is a chance that you can and may wipe the wrong disk.

So, that’s how to restore a client computer without using the client restore disk!

Source Article:
How To: Restore a Client Computer Without Using the Client Restore Disk

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

So you have been hearing all of these great things about Windows Home Server, but still aren’t sure if you are ready to buy one (even though there are some great holiday discounts that you don’t want to miss!). If this is the case, I would recommend using the Windows Home Server free trial.

Our newly updated trial now includes Power Pack 3! You can simply download the trial and try out all of Windows Home Server’s features. You can read some of our recent blogs to learn about all of the enhancements Power Pack 3 will provide. These enhancements will be especially helpful if you have just transitioned your PCs to Windows 7.

Once the trail period of 30 days is over, I am convinced you won’t want to go back to life without Windows Home Server. Click here to download the Windows Home Server free trial with Power Pack 3:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx

Source Article:
Windows Home Server Free Trial now with Power Pack 3

Two Windows Media Center MVPs, Andrew Cherry and Ian Dixon, have collaborated on a new resource for Media Center owners. Made for Media Center is an “app store” for Microsoft’s “TV on your PC” platform, combining a website for plugin authors to submit their wares, and a Media Center plugin which allows users to browse and download those applications.

A growing list of free plugins are now available for beta testers – fingers crossed the Media Center developer community jump on board and help support a great resource for MCE owners. To find out more about the plans for Made for Media Center, check out Missing Remote’s interview with Andrew Cherry.

More Info: Made for Media Center

Source Article:
Made for Media Center Now Open

One major advantage to be had when using a Windows 7 Media Center over your standard cable DVR is the ability to scan and remove commercials from Recorded TV shows. Programs such as Lifextender, which can be setup to use either comskip or Showanalyzer, can arrange for new shows to be scanned and the commercials removed without having to process each file by hand. Unfortunately, Lifextender doesn’t work with the new WTV format so first we’ll need to convert the files using a program such as WTVWatcher.

To get started you’ll need to download and install both WTVWatcher and Lifextender or, if you prefer, we’ve also got a guide on using DVRMSToolbox with Lifextender. Once you’ve got both programs installed you’ll need to setup WTVWatcher to monitor the Recorded TV location. Use the preferences to set the location of your Recorded TV folder, typically C:UsersPublicRecorded TV. WTVWatcher will begin to go to work converting the WTV recordings into DVR-MS files that are readable by Lifextender.

WTVWatcher uses the built-in conversion program provided by Microsoft to convert each WTV file into a DVR-MS file. For even more information on WTVWatcher check out our previous review of this handy little tool right here. Once the files have been converted we can setup Lifextender to automatically scan for and cut commercials from these files. Next, open Lifextender and choose Options by right-clicking the icon in the system tray.

Under the general settings be sure to set the TV Recording path to the same directory as the one you set previously inside WTVWatcher. Also, unless you plan to run the process by hand enable the Automated Library Scanning so that Lifextender will automatically find your new shows for processing. To test your settings you can start a manual processing of the files by right-clicking the Lifextender system tray icon and selecting Scan Media Center Library.

Lifextender’s processing dialog will appear as the program scans each recorded show for commercials. This can take quite a bit of time depending on the length of the show and the complexity of commercial scanning process.

After processing each file will be added to the “blacklist” inside Lifextender’s options. This allows you to check the progress of Lifextender’s processing of files as well as preventing the program from scanning the same program each time the library is scanned for new content. You can find the blacklist under the Options –> Advanced tab. Here you can also add individual files to be excluded from processing, though if you have a certain show or channel you’d like to permanently exclude from processing there is an included Rules feature to allow for easier management.

Unfortunately, there has been some issues reported with Lifextender not accepting the converted files from WTVWatcher and the Lifextender program is no longer in active development. If you experience the same issue your only option may be to use the DVRMSToolbox method in this guide using an alternative program for converting the WTV files to DVR-MS. Also, be sure to drop a line in the comments below with as much detail as you can provide including which version of Windows 7 you’re using, Lifextender log info and anything else noteworthy. Perhaps we can sort out the issue with more information.

For most people, however, this method should provide a simple solution to easy commercial removal from Windows 7 Media Center recordings. Hopefully the future will bring us an alternative to Lifextender and more active development (and hopefully more open source projects as well!).

Source Article:
Using WTVWatcher and Lifextender to Cut Commercials from Recorded Shows