The Race is On

Okay, so you have to be one serious racing machine to get one of these rigs, but this might be as close to going around the track in a race car you ever get. These racing chasis’s from hyperstimulator go for about $3K but it looks like they deliver a lot of fun. Maybe you can go to a race center and give one a try – let me know how it is

[via Wired]

Sony's SmartWi Vaio Laptop

Sony has a new Vaio laptop out with SmartWi capability – this allows you to connect to the internet using Cingular’s national EDGE network, wireless LAN, and also has bluetooth support for external devices such as headsets. The laptop has a built-in chip (similar to what is found in an actual cell phone) that allows you to connect to Cingular’s network. From Cingular’s site they say the average connection speed is 70–135 kbps which is essentially a fast dial-up connection. Of course, this will cost you an extra fifty bucks a month but if you aren’t around any hotspots then this just might be what you are looking for.

The world of wireless can be confusing. With so many options and so many technologies, it's often difficult to tell which technologies will best integrate with your lifestyle. Sony is here to help by offering its exclusive SmartWi™ technology. SmartWi™ technology is the seamless integration of three wireless technologies: Wide Area Network (WAN)¹³², 802.11bg wireless LAN¹, and Bluetooth®⁴ technologies.

Great Guide on HDTV

Digital Media Thoughts found a great guide to buying a high-def HD TV set. With all of the different options out like DLP, rear projection, flat panel, LCD, and so on it’s nice to read a straight forward guide to what it all means:

But what kind of HDTV is right for you? Wander into a chain store and you’ll see TV sets grouped into a handful of categories. They include direct-view analog TV, rear projection, front projection, and the oh-so-desirable flat panels. Let’s look into each one and see how it relates to the HDTV standard.

The iPod Groove Bag

I saw this in Wired and couldn’t believe it: a purse with a built-in holder for your iPod and speakers! They call it the Groove Bag – get it?

The new and empowered Groove Bag Plus adds an amplifier to complement its elegant and practical styling. Slip your iPod in the custom fit pocket, plug in the amplified speakers, and hit Play. There's a side zipper that allows access to the docking cable for charging the iPod and an internal pocket built specially for the AC adapter and cable. Groove Bag Plus delivers crystal clear sound with enough volume to provide atmosphere to almost any environment.

Song Wars

EDN has a great article on the looming ‘song war’ between Apple, and well, everyone else.

Their common enemy? Apple. That fact will be of no surprise to any of you who have noticed the plethora of white ear buds worn by so many passersby (see sidebar "By the numbers"). I counted them on one in five sidewalk strollers during a 30-minute time span one morning in San Francisco. A mid-March report from iSuppli predicts a robust 29.1% compound-annual-growth rate for digital-audio players through 2009. JupiterResearch Vice President and Senior Analyst David Card reiterates that prediction. He forecasts that digital-audio-player sales will increase 35% this year to 18.2 million units from 16.2 million units in 2004 and that by 2010 there will be an installed base of 56.1 million units

So digital audio players are huge, are going to be huge, will continue to be huge and there is a lot of money to be made. Lots of interesting insights on the various different players – well worth the read to see what the next generation of digital audio is going to be like.

Watch Your Tivo Shows on Your Mac

Mediacentric has the goods on how to watch your Tivo shows on your Mac. Scott Hughes has a hack to get it done:

I finally found a workable set of tools for extracting and re-encoding video from my TiVo using Mac OSX Tiger. For reference, I’m pulling video off of a Series 2 DirecTiVo (HDVR2). If you have a Series 1, you have many more options, including TyStudio, which I mentioned in my previous post. AFAIK, both of the excellent options I’m using now should work for all Series 1 and Series 2 streams.

Open It with OpenX

Someone has finally created a tool to open all of those impossible plastic wrapped packages – the OpenX! This little baby was designed to open those pesky plastic packages safely and easily. I read about this in Business 2.0 and the funny thing is that the guy who invented this was a manufacturer of the plastic wrapping. I guess he couldn’t even open his own packages …

Philips Wireless Music Center

Philips has a wireless music center with satellite stations that allows you to access your CD’s from a 40gig hard drive. You can play different music in different rooms or sync it all to the same song. Here are the specs:

Wireless Unlimited listening pleasure!

• Wireless streaming between music center and station(s)
• Multiple user access streams to up to 5 stations streaming
• 40 GB hard disk to store and playback up to 750 CDs
• Universal Plug & Play interconnectivity

Easy navigation and control

• Music Follows Me anywhere, everywhere in the home
• Direct Content Access to artist, album or playlists
• 2-way Remote Control for user friendly navigation
• Music Broadcast for simultaneous playback to all stations

Quality Sound Performance

• Super Sound Panel with deep bass and clarity
• Class ‘D’ Digital Amplifier for quality sound performance

Expandable Add 4 additonal Wi-Fi stations

At the very least, it is a nice looking unit. There isn’t much more information on how to navigate through your music collection or what functions the remote has but this could be a very nice addition to your home theater setup if the price is right.

Microsoft Requires DVD Drive But Not TV Tuner for Media Center

Matt Goyer responded on his blog to my question about Dell requiring a DVD drive to buy Windows Media Center:

Actually, it's, us, Microsoft who requires that OEMs configure their machines with DVD players.

I’m sure there are some licensing issues or what not going on, but I wonder why Microsoft didn’t require a TV tuner card? I have seen a lot of systems sold without a TV tuner card – what do you think the impact on sales is with or without a TV tuner card?

Maximum Media Center

MaximumPC has a special issue called ‘Entertainment Computers’ that has lot’s of great stuff like build the perfect living room PC and a PC audio primer. They have a huge section on Windows Media Center too.

Backup Your TV Series Recording Settings in Media Center

Pray the day doesn’t come that you need to reinstall Media Center on your PC but if it does happen check out this thread on The Green Button to learn how to backup and restore your TV series recording settings:

You can back up your series by saving recordings.xml and recordings.bak from

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\Recordings\

You need to be able view hidden files and folders. To do this, do the following: From a file folder, select Tools, and then "Folder Options" . Select the "View" tab, and select "Show hidden files and folders". You may also need to uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" although I'm not positive about that one.

1. I closed the MCE interface.
2. This time, I shut down the Media Center Receiver Service and the Media Center Scheduler Service.
3. I copied in my original backed-up Recordings folder (after making a backup of the current one - just in case...) into c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\
4. Restarted.

Build a MythTV Box Series

OReilly Digital Media has a series on building a MythTV box. Part 1 is out that covers the hardware. Here’s a quick review of the hardware that was chosen:

• The HD-3000 from pcHDTV is one of only two capture cards for Linux, and the direct descendant of what was once the only card available. I purchased multiple cards so that I could build a multiple-tuner system.
• I eventually decided on a Silverstone LC03V, which has a small vacuum fluorescent display.
• It was clear that for cost reasons I was buying an Athlon64. When the dust settled, I chose a 2 GHz Winchester core (AMD Athlon64 3200+) because it was slightly cheaper than the 2 GHz Venice core.
• Most Socket 939 motherboards have two SATA ports, but I wanted as many as I could get for future expansion. That, along with a desire for external FireWire connectivity, led me to the MSI K8N-Neo2 Platinum board.

It is relatively cheap to build a Linux MythTV box – you could use less powerful hardware than the list above. Getting the software installed and configured is always the fun part I can’t wait for the next part in the series …

Media Center Laptop Review

The Oasis Home Theater Blog has a pointer to a Media Center laptop review by PC Magazine. They reviewed four different models (click here for a quick comparison):

• Dell Inspiron 9300

As with offerings from HP, Toshiba, and others, the Dell Inspiron 9300 takes the multimedia portable to the next level by incorporating the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (MCE 2005) OS. That means you get a complete entertainment hub in a to-go package. The gorgeous 17-inch widescreen display will leave you in awe, and performance-seekers will love Intel's next-generation Centrino components, including the nVidia GeForce Go 6800 graphics accelerator. Just be sure to order the optional TV tuner, to take advantage of the OS's DVR features.

• Toshiba Qosmio G25–AV513

We loved the first-generation Toshiba Qosmio E15 ($2,899), with its multimedia flare and extensive AV features, and we're happy to report that the trend continues with the Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513 ($2,899 as tested), our newest Editors' Choice for multimedia notebooks. The G25 has the most AV ports we've seen on a multimedia notebook, including a TV tuner, component video, and composite video in. And this Media Center's new design means that the desktop replacement laptop can slide right into your entertainment center among your other electronics components. We can't remember the last time we were this impressed with a laptop.

• Toshiba Qosmio F25–AV205

The Toshiba Qosmio F25-AV205 ($1,999 as tested), one of two recent releases, is a well-priced midrange Windows Media Center laptop, with a brilliant 15.4-inch screen and a built-in TV tuner. Not as over-the-top as its higher-end sibling, the ($2,999 as tested) Toshiba Qosmio G25, the F25 is $1,000 cheaper. It will appeal to many multimedia enthusiasts, especially those who can't afford the Editors' Choice–winning G25.

• Sony Vaio VGN-A690

The Sony VAIO VGN-A690 ($2,799) is a 17-inch multimedia notebook to be reckoned with. Though we love the improved processor, better graphics, and larger hard drive, the biggest lure is VAIO Zone. The VAIO Zone suite gives Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE)—not offered with this system—a run for its money.

They liked the Qosmio G25 the best, and of course, it’s also the most expensive going for about $3K. I would personally go with the Dell – you can configure it for about $1500 – just remember to get the optional external TV tuner.

Voice Commands in Media Center

Peter Near points to a thread in The Green Button where someone posted a review of MCE Communicator. This software allows you to use voice commands to control your Media Center PC and includes email and phone call capability (you need to pay a monthly fee for the phone VOIP service). Here’s part of the review:

• The My Videos commands don’t work well. Maybe it’s because I haven’t completed all the voice training. Asking a command like “Bahamas May 2005? doesn’t work. But changing the same file name to “Vacation” worked. And then any of the commands to pause, stop , restart didn’t respond within My Videos whereas in the MY TV, and MY Pictures sections the same commands worked.
• The e-mail reader works ok. It will download the text from your messages and read them out loud. … The e-mail sending part is misleading. There is no way to actually use voice commands to fill out the “To” and “CC” sections. You need to use the keyboard for this (So much for getting rid of the remote controls and keyboards). You supposedly can dictate voice to fill out the message but since I already have to use the keyboard to fill out the “TO” and “CC” fields it’s kind of pointless to use voice dictation. This area of the software is in dire need of rework.

While the software may have a few issues with the voice commands using email overall it seems pretty neat. But costing 150 bucks I probably won’t be getting it anytime soon – I’ll try this work around instead where you can use Microsoft Plus Superpack that has voice recognition for Windows Media Player.

Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture

Lifehacker found this fun tool called Polaroid-o-nizer to turn any digital photo into a Polaroid! Check out my image above. The possibilities of this are endless …

Dell Requiring a DVD Drive for Windows Media Center

I was at the Dell site looking around and noticed that when I went to customize a system I had the option of upgrading to Windows Media Center – but only if the system was configured with a DVD drive. Am I reading this right – will Dell only sell Media Center with a DVD drive? Here’s what it says:

Looking for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005? Dell Recommends Media Center for easy management and enjoyment of photos, music and movies. A DVD-ROM is also required.

Gateway To Sell $599 Media Center PC

Anandtech is reporting that Gateway will be selling a Media Center PC for $599 under the Emachines brand:

While the computer may be cheap, it still carries many of the features of its higher-priced competitors. The T6520 includes an AMD Athlon 64 3400+ processor with 1 GB of DDR SDRAM, and a 200GB hard drive. The system utilizes the new ATI Radeon Xpress 200 platform, which has received rave reviews by tech outlets.

The system does have some nice features for the price tag including a 200GB hard drive, 1GB of SDRAM and a DVD burner. It’s not listed on the Emachines website yet but someone pointed out that if you look at the rebate section then you can see the T6520 model number. It probably doesn’t come with a monitor but LCD monitors are fairly cheap now so even with a separate monitor I think this still makes this the cheapest Media Center PC on the market.

Put Your Head In the Game

MaximumPC points to the TrackIR 3 Pro, an infrared sensor connected to your computer that tracks the movement of a reflector clip that you wear on your head. These movements are then translated into the game you are playing – whether you are trying to get a bead on a bogey in a flight simulator or leaning into a curve on a race car game.

The benefits of hands-free view controls are obvious to flight simmers: Just move your head to look wherever you want from the cockpit. It’s a much more immersive and intuitive method than using a hat switch. The system is equally useful in racing sims, such as NASCAR SimRacing, and it’s even applicable to some FPS games (such as WWII Online).

The manufacturer has demo videos on it’s website that show it in action. It is much easier to see than to explain – trust me. Once you see it in action you are going to want one – this rocks!

Media Center Remote Control LCD Display

ACS is selling a graphical Media Center remote front panel for $99. The text LCD display connects to the serial port of your Media Center PC and then you can not only see what is playing on your Media Center but also control it with the included functions of the front panel. This could be a great secondary display by the couch or on a wall to run your Media Center PC.

Samsung Portable Media Center Review

Chris Lanier has a link to a review of the Samsung YH-999 Portable Media Center. This is a complete review of the device with a video file showing the music playback.

For a first generation product I’m really impressed by both the software, and what Samsung has done on the hardware side compared to Creative and iRiver. What lets it down is not really a fault with the software on the actual device, my main complaint at the moment is the TV synchronise capabilities of Windows Media Player 10.

The reviewer is in the UK and the TV sync aspect ratio is really the only issue that is mentioned. I would of liked to have heard more about the battery life using video playback. The reviewer suggests waiting for the next generation of PMC’s that will support more audio/video formats but if you are using Media Center then that will probably not matter much.

I’ve been thinking about getting one of these devices to essentially replace my laptop for vacations and entertainment – it seems to have all of the functions I am looking for. One thing that I did not know was that you can use the PMC as an external hard drive which is pretty cool. I wonder if you can hook up a digital camera via the USB port and download photos to it? That would be a huge selling point for me.

Interview with BlogJet Developer Dmitry Chestnykh

It’s no secret that I love blogging software BlogJet – I think it’s the best program out there for Windows. I had a chance to talk with the developer of BlogJet, Dmitry Chestnykh, and you can read the email interview below. Definitely check out BlogJet!

Tell us a little bit about your company and the products you offer.

I'm currently a one-man shop. I released my first product, DiFolders, in 2002. The next step was Active Cleaner. Though, these programs were not as successful as BlogJet. I live in Moscow, Russia - the place where most crackers, hackers, phishers, Russian mafia and other bad guys come from :) And I am (you are the first to know this!) 22.

BlogJet is a great blogging software program. What made you decide to create this program? What features did you want to give to the end user?

I'm blogging since... hmm... 2000 or 2001 and never liked web interface. My first blog was on DeadJournal (which was based on LiveJournal source) and they had a simple client for posting from desktop. I liked it, but I wanted more. Then I found a few freeware tools, which offered basically the same features, but were compatible with other blog services (such as Blogger, Movable Type). I never used them, though -- they had ugly interface, and I had to write HTML code. Then I thought that I wanted to write my posts using WYSIWYG editor -- something like Microsoft Word. I wanted to easily include pictures in my posts without having to upload them to server. Finally, I came to conclusion that it must be me who will write this application :)

Since your first offering of BlogJet, how have you seen the blogging world grow? Were you surprised by the growth of blogs?

Nothing strange. I always thought that I'll be much like Bill Gates who found the nice train to jump in that will take him to billions :)

Seriously, yes, I was really surprised. When I released BlogJet in May 2004, there were reports about 2 million blogs worldwide. Today only MSN Spaces has 10 million bloggers. And I'm very happy to help a fraction of these users with managing their blogs.

BlogJet supports most if not all major weblog services such as Blogger. Was it a challenge to get your program to work with so many different services? What service do you think is most popular?

We have three basic standards today - Blogger API, MetaWeblog API, and Movable Type API (which is build on top of MetaWeblog). And you know what -- they are not really standards! Virtually every single blog software developer implemented API in her own way. And I have to tweak code for each service. The only service that required no tricks was Blogware (thanks to their developers).

Most popular service... really, I don't know. I see how WordPress grows. I see how many business bloggers move to TypePad... Well, since we have all popular services in BlogJet, our users just don't care :)

You also have a blog for BlogJet at http://blogjet.blogware.com/. How do you use your blog to make your software better?

It helps to spread a word about BlogJet. You know, if you make something that you want to be mentioned in blogosphere, you must have a blog.

Also, in my blog I make announces of new releases and new features, and read carefully every single comment -- this helps a lot in finding out what my users need.

What type of features are you looking to add in the future?

When I released 1.0, I made a lot of promises, but then I had an illness and spend two months in hospital. That took me three extra months to keep my promises and implement all those features. So now I have a bias against announcing something that has not been implemented yet. (Besically I follow Joel Spolsky's advice -"Mouth Wide Shut" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/MouthWideShut.html).

Anyway, I want to make it easier to create accounts, some posts caching and better "Edit Last Posts" window, more slick GUI, better spell checking, better handling of drafts, Technorati tags, etc. Oops, I just made a lot of promises :)

 

Microsoft RAW Image View Available for Download

I just saw over on Anandtech that Microsoft has released their RAW image viewer for Windows XP. This is great for people with high end cameras that support the RAW format. It looks like this is another offering as part of their ‘genuine for windows program’ so now pirates allowed. From the Microsoft website:

Often likened to a ‘digital negative,’ a RAW image is the native image format for a growing number of quality digital cameras. Because of the camera-specific nature of RAW files, they are not supported natively within Microsoft Windows. As a result, photographers shooting RAW have not been able to take advantage of the built-in features provided in Windows XP for viewing, organizing, and printing RAW photos--until now.

After installing the Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer Powertoy for Windows XP you will be able to view, organize, and print photos captured in RAW image formats from supported Canon and Nikon digital cameras.

This software offers the following benefits to digital photographers:

• High image quality. This software uses the camera vendors' own processing libraries to provide the highest possible image fidelity for RAW images.
• Superior color fidelity. Windows Image Color Management (ICM) is used to render images in the correct color space as determined by the photographer when the image was captured.
• Familiar user experience. This software builds on the familiar Windows user experience and requires little or no learning curve.
• Performance tuned for rapid previews. The software uses background processing and other techniques to ensure a good preview experience even for large images.

 

RetroBox Has Clean and Green Computers

Treehugger has a nice article on the CEO of RetroBox who recycles business equipment including computers and also resells some of the components. I bought a used P3 computer off of RetroBox over a year ago to use as a linux box and it works great. They have great prices on older systems and they recycle – what more could you want!

RetroBox is a computer recycling firm, which also accepts electronic devices, dismantling them for recycling, but also reselling their components. Pictured here is the CEO of RetroBox, Stampp Corbin. He says there is money to make in recycling, and he wants to spread the word because his company has a business model that works well.

Crop Your Photos for Skype Profile

The Skype Journal points to a free service where you can upload a photo of yourself and it will crop your photo so you can use it in your Skype profile. (This photo is the one that shows up when you are in a call with someone) You can actually use this service to crop photos for anything you want including other services such as MSN etc.

Review of mControl Home Automation Software for Media Center

Embedded Automation has just recently announced a free trial of their home automation software mControl. mControl is a Media Center plug-in that allows you to control your X10 compatible devices with your remote control. Cocoontech has a solid review of mControl with lots of screenshots and gives a passing grade:

Anyone who owns a Microsoft Windows Media Center 2005 based HTPC can order one of the X10 beginner kits, and be up and running within minutes, without knowing anything about home automation. Thanks to the web based interface (which uses the exact same layout and graphics), you can access this interface from any machine using your web browser…  Several other home automation hardware and software offerings are now supporting Media Center as well, but I personally feel that this is the best solution I have gotten my hands on so far.

It does not look like video camera support is included yet but it is coming in Q3 and it does work with Media Center extenders. It does not look like the pricing is out yet so hopefully that will not be a deal-breaker. This does look like a very nice home automation package and I think I need to get some X10 devices to play with!

Monitor Your Electricy Consumption With One Wire

This might only apply to the blokes across the ocean but if you have a new digital electricity meter with a LCD display you might be able to use this hack to monitor your power consumption:

I was fortunate enough to have my electricity meter changed to the new digital type with a liquid crystal display. One of the interesting features of this meter is that it has a very bright LED which flashes once every 1/1000 Kwh used. This got me thinking about building an interface to pick up the flashes via a sensor and feeding this into my one-wire network.

I think this system is tied into HomeSeer automation software but you could use almost anything you wanted.

Home Automation with the Mac Mini

Nerd Vittles has a three part series on building a home automation system using the Mac Mini. This is a very comprehensive guide and it’s based on using the Indigo home automation software with X10 devices:

With Indigo, you first define all of the X10 components that have been installed in and around your home: sensors, motion detectors, lamp modules, appliance modules, door chimes, and on, and on. Next, you define what you want to happen with each device and when. These actions occur because of one of two types of triggers: time/date matches or external triggers…  Finally, all Indigo actions can be enabled for use from two other pieces of software: Ovolab Phlink and Salling Clicker. Phlink is a complete telephony server for your Mac. Salling Clicker lets you control many Mac functions including Indigo using almost any Bluetooth-enabled cell phone.

The Indigo software looks very cool and has a slick looking user interface. Salling Clicker is a remote control application that works with the Mac through a bluetooth-enabled cell phone or PDA. This is nice setup for home automation and it wouldn’t take much to turn the Mac Mini into a media center as well!

Microsoft Media Center Chat Transcripts

I just came across this page on Microsoft’s website where they keep the transcripts for the different web ‘chats’ they do on various products like Media Center. This is pretty neat seeing how I can never make the Media Center chat real time. But as Scoble would say, where is the RSS feed?

Harmony Home Automation Starter Kit for Media Center

The Harmony Starter Kit 2 – Media Center Edition contains everything you need to get started with home automation using your Media Center PC. Harmony allows you to control any X10 compatible device through your computer. You can dim lights, turn on appliances and even schedule events. They also have a plug-in for Media Center so you can control it all through your remote control! Here’s what you get in the starter kit (about 200 UK dollars):

• Lamp Module
• Appliance Module
• Harmony 5 home automation software
• Computer controller
• Media Center plug-in

This seems like a pretty nice starter kit – I think it will support web cameras too but I’m not sure.

Viewing Digital Photo Metadata in Windows

Ed Bott has a great post on how to view the metadata of your digital photos in Windows:

To see all available metadata for an individual image file, right-click the file icon and then choose Properties. On the Summary tab, click Advanced to display a scrolling list of available metadata properties and values. Image data appears above the Description data, as shown here.

This metadata holds invaluable extra details about your digital photo:

EXIF metadata typically includes the date and time the picture was taken, the width and height of the image (in pixels), the resolution (in dpi), and the color depth. Depending on the camera you use, metadata can also include technical information such as the camera model, flash mode, aperture, and exposure time. Some high-end devices even allow you to add audio annotations to images and store them in the same file.

I’ve always used Photoshop in the past to get this information but now I know how to get it in Windows – thanks Ed!

 

Search Engine for Social Bookmark Sites

Gataga is a search engine for social bookmark sites like del.ico.us and furl (that’s what I use). It also provides an RSS feed for your search results. This is a great way to pull out specific keywords from these sites as they contain a lot of tags.

[via Lifehacker]

Update on Converting Recorded TV DVR-MS files to Windows Media Format

It’s been a while since I talked about converting your recorded TV DVR-MS files to another format so I thought I would give an update on where I am at. I initially was using the WmvTranscoder plug-in to translate my DVR-MS files to WMV files but the resolution was only 320 x 240 – good enough for a PocketPC but not a TV set. Mcesoft has a nice write up on how there is a way to choose a higher resolution profile:

After I published the article Stephen Toub send me an email to clarify some issues. With the plug-in a high quality prx file for NTSC is put on the system, but this is not used by default, instead the default WM ASF Writer is used. This default settings will produce a 320x240 wmv file (which btw IS excelent to use on your Pocket PC)
To use the high quality prx file you have to set the ProfilePath key in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Toub\WmvTranscoderPlugin to the path of the prx file (typicly C:\Program Files\Toub\WmvTranscoderPlugin\VBR90_NTSC.prx)

Then I found out about the DVR2WMV plug-in and I’ve been using that ever since. It basically does the same thing but is a more polished program and allows you to select different encoding profiles such as NTSC or PAL. It works as a stand-alone program or inside of the Media Center interface. It is drop dead simple to use and I think it works great – the best program so far out there for converting your DVR-MS files.

If you have a Media Center extender than this is a great way to archive your recorded TV for playback and save some hard drive space. A thirty minute TV show took about an hour to translate at the highest setting available and about 500mb of disk space.

Can Diamond Get Back Into the Race?

I didn’t even know that Diamond was still making graphic cards (it looks like they weren’t for a while) but they are back with a PVR card/remote bundle and Tom’s Hardware has the goods on the XtremeTV PVR-550RC. They start off right by bundling their graphics card with Snapstream’s BeyondTV and Firefly remote but it quickly falls apart from there:

The hitch here is that to continue accessing program listings, you'll have to pay a fee of $4.95 a month, unless you cough up $69.95 for a lifetime subscription, which happens to be the same price as the non-subscription full version of BeyondTV.

Then their claims start to fall apart with careful inspection:

Like ATI's recent endeavors, SnapStream also imparts tuner lag with forced time shifting. Once again, this can be annoying if you have a nearby television tuned to the same station. Yet the box advertises "no delays when you're changing the channel" - Diamond conveniently ignored the effect of included software when making that statement!

And the he bottom line:

Big model numbers might impress you, but the hardware is similar to that used in the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150. Meanwhile, "better than TiVO" claims on the box refer to a BeyondTV review that predates Diamond's return to the market, while other package claims such as "no tuner delay" are rendered false by the included software!

Pinnacle PCTV 200e Offers Media Center Features

Bios Magazine has a review of the Pinnacle PCTV 200e bundle that comes with an external USB 2.0 TV tuner and PVR software. This seems to be one of Pinnacle’s first products to offer both hardware and software and they include a full ‘media center’ program with PVR control as well as music and photo viewing.

The supplied software, Pinnacle's own stylish QuickTime-like MediaCenter, then allows you to view digital TV broadcasts, listen to digital radio, record programmes to hard disk (MPEG-2 format), as well as burn recordings to CD or DVD (Audio CD, MP3 CD/DVD, VCD, S-VCD and MPEG-2).

This looks like a good solution to current laptop owners who want to add media center capabilities with ease.

The Latest Geek Craze: Pocket Projectors

Not ones to be out of style, ultra-sheek geeks are now going for pocket projector’s instead of pocket protectors. PC World has a piece on the Mitsubishi DLP– based ultracompact projector that weighs 14 ounces and delivers SVGA resolution.

The projector produces an SVGA-resolution image and can connect to any device that has monitor-out capability. In demos, Finding Nemo looked watchable, albeit not as bright and vibrant as you’d get with a larger and more conventional projector (an outcome that wasn’t surprising). The unit has a particularly short-throw lens; it needs to be just a foot away from the projection surface to create a 20-inch diagonal screen; a 40-foot diagonal requires a yard. The premium SD version of the projector adds $100 to the price, in return for the equipping the unit with a Secure Digital memory card slot, for displaying photographs and PDF files directly from such a card.

It might not be HD projector quality but for something that can fit in your glove box it’s not too shabby!

eBooks for Your iPod

Make has a great post on how to create ebooks for your iPod. By using the Notes function of the iPod you can store and read text:

There’s a somewhat little know and often-unused function of iPod called "Notes" which can actually be quite handy for storing and reading text, creating a locked "kiosk mode", quizzes, games as well a full-length ebooks. The Notes reader is located in Menu > Extras > Notes. Only the more recent 3G and 4G iPods, including the iPod photo and iPod mini both have the iPod Notes application. Here’s our how-to on making them!...

They even point to a free utility that will help automate the process for you!

The Media Center Extender Is the Media Center Experience

I’ve been on the fence for a while now on getting a Media Center Extender and I came across a good deal on the HP x5400 Media Center Extender so I decided to pick one up. (I can’t confirm it but I think HP discontinued making the extenders because they weren’t selling well) I’ve been running it through it’s paces the last couple of days and here’s my initial thoughts (performed on a standard 19” TV and running off of a straight wireless G network):

Design. The unit is very well designed. It is about the size of a normal DVD player, it’s black and sleek – just the right mix of functionality and appearance. It has a cool ‘jog’ wheel on the front and the green button of course.

Remote Control. The remote has all of the same functions that the Microsoft remote has plus it has a ‘Radio’ button which I thought was pretty neat. It did not light up when the buttons were touched like the Microsoft remote does so you can see the buttons at night. I did notice that the HP remote had more line-of-sight issues with the extender receiver than I have with my Microsoft remote unit.

Installation. The installation would of been seamless had I not had Microsoft’s latest anti-spyware program installed. It had caused problems with my Media Center PC so I disabled it but did not uninstall it. Trust me, you will want to uninstall it otherwise the extender will keep telling you that your CPU bandwidth is all used up.

User Interface. Since the user interface on the extender is the same as the Media Center interface this worked out great. (I think the Xbox Extender has a slightly different interface) Some plug-ins work and some do not work on the extender. The best approach I have found is when installing a plug-in on the PC to make sure it installs under ‘Everyone’ and that it shows up under the Media Center interface start menu.

Performance

Music and Pictures. Playing music and viewing photos over my wireless G network worked flawlessly. I had no issues at all doing this. You can definitely use extenders to spread your music around the house.

Video. Playing video across my wireless G network was a little more tricky but still worked surprisingly well. Occasionally I will see the video playback hitch or stutter but for the most part playing back MPEG-2 and WMV ripped DVD’s worked great. I use the My Movies plug-in for this and it is the killer app for video on the extender in my mind.

TV. TV playback was the most frustrating feature to get to work all of the time. Sometimes live TV would work fine and the recorded TV wouldn’t and other times it would be the opposite. When your network doesn’t have enough bandwidth you will get a warning message that says ‘network congestion’. If you check out the forums everyone has a solution: upgrade your router, use a hub and not a switch, stand on your head, etc. I think the bottom line for video playback to work at it’s best is to get the fastest router you can (A/G) and you mine as well make sure it has the ‘designed for Media Center’ logo on it. (My router is not on the certified hardware list)

Image Quality. The image quality on the HP extender is great – the live TV looks better through my extender than it does on my host MCE machine! I’m not running on any high-end displays but I was still happy with the results.

Speed. Using the interface through the extender is a lot slower – you can notice the difference especially when accessing the TV menu’s.

Overall Performance. I was very impressed with the overall experience of the Media Center extender – I thought it really imaged the Media Center interface well and I didn’t notice any major differences between the two. The extender will suffer due to your network bandwidth so get a fast network if you want to stream TV and video because you are going to need all of it. (Yes the extender has limitations on how much bandwidth it can stream but routers are cheap it’s always better to have overkill than just-not-enough) Even with these issues the extender gives you so much opportunity to place your digital content where and when you want it that it is too tempting to pass up.

Why the Extenders Aren’t Selling: A lot of people have been talking about the recent research survey stating that the Media Center extender’s are not selling well. For me the initial $299 price was way too much seeing how you could purchase the full Media Center operating system for $150. Plus a lot of people have been down on the extenders because they do not have a DVD drive and only support limited video playback formats. I really think Microsoft missed it’s chance by not selling every copy of Media Center with an extender  all for $299. Surely Microsoft could of afforded to give away the hardware and that would of guaranteed that people would put the extender in the living room. How many people use their Media Center PC as their main display in the living room? The Media Center extender IS the Media Center experience and I think that concept failed to get out in the marketing message. I can use my Media Center PC as normal, without even having the Media Center interface open and someone in the other room can be watching TV, listening to music and living the digital life – that’s the Media Center experience.

Firefox Tricks: Choose Whether to Open a PDF or Not

Try out the Firefox internet browser and see what you have been missing!

Here is a great extension that pops up a window to allow you to choose whether you want to a view a PDF file inside the browser or download it. No more annoying PDF’s opening in your browser!

[via The TabletPC Weblog]

 

Full House Audio with Media Center and Extenders

I read a great thread on The Green Button about syncing multiple Media Center extenders together to create a full audio system for your house.

Install Windows Media Encoder on the PC, and set it to broadcast over TCP/IP the sound coming out of the sound card/default directsound device.   This will give you a stream from your PC of the music the PC is playing.

All you need to do now is to get that stream playing through MCE - there is probably an easy way to do this, but I've done it by writing a small add-on that plays a stream.   I should imagine that a third party app that plays internet radio (My Webmedia?) would do just as well.

Once you know it works through MCE, then try it on your extenders…

Actually you do not need this to be broadcast through your MCE machine. Once you have it broadcasting via Windows Media Encoder just use the My Webmedia plugin on each of your extenders to connect to the internal IP address of the machine running Windows Media Encoder.

This little hack will allow you to play the same music in any room that you have an extender – pretty slick! The host MCE machine will probably be out of sync with the rest of the extenders due to some built in latency but overall this is a cheap solution compared to a thousand dollar plus home audio system.

Song Lyrics In Media Center

I’ve never understood why when you rip a CD the song lyrics aren’t part of the metadata that gets downloaded like song title and artist. Microsoft has a nice article on how to add static or synchronized lyrics to your song. Just right-click on the song you want to add lyrics to in Media Player and select the Advanced Tag Editor. Go to the ‘Lyrics’ section and add your lyrics. Read the rest of the article to see how to add synchronized lyrics so it’s timed with the song.

To get the lyrics to a song (if you don’t already know them) check out A-Z Lyrics Universe which has a very complete collection of song lyrics. Beware that these lyrics are submitted by users of the site so there may be typos/mistakes. Remember to turn on captions and subtitles in Media Player for your lyrics to show up. You can turn captions on by selecting ‘Play’ from the top menu, select ‘Captions and Subtitles’ and then select ‘On if available’.

Here’s what it looks like in Media Player:

I couldn’t figure out how to get the song lyrics to show up in Media Center though – by searching the forums it doesn’t look like there is a way to do it. I guess we’ll have to wait for Longhorn ….

When You Just Can't Miss That Call

Okay, this is just for fun, but I recently stayed at a hotel that had one of those phones in the bathroom. All I have to say is that must be one important call that you cannot miss ….

 

Playing All of That Free Music from the Web

Following the tradition of The Grateful Dead many bands and artists allow trading of concerts and radio recordings. A great site to find some of these recordings is The Internet Archive. (There are some restrictions but it’s mostly that you can’t profit off of these recordings but be sure to check the disclaimers at whichever site you go to) These recordings are often in a lossless format such as Ogg and Flac instead of MP3. Tech Recipes has a quick overview of these audio formats:

Ogg is an mp3-like compression audio format except that it is open-source and patent free. Many audio users like this format over mp3s; however, WMP doesn't play these files by default.

FLAC is a lossless audio format. This means that the audio is compressed (not as much as mp3 or ogg) but there is no loss in quality. WMP doesn't play these files by default either.

Windows Media Player does not provide support to listen to these formats by default. So you can install the codecs required to play these files, install a new media player such as JetAudio that supports these files or you can convert them to another format like MP3. Since Ogg and Flac files are typically much larger than MP3 files and most (if not all) MP3 players do not support Ogg and Flac I decided to convert my files to MP3. To do that you can install a program called dBpowerAMP Music Converter. Once you install the music converter it adds a ‘right-click’ menu to convert an audio file. When you click on that you will get a window to do your conversion where you can choose different file formats:

It’s as simple as that – now you have your Ogg/Flac file in MP3 format! There is a ton of live music out there that you can add to your music library and it is legal and legit.  

Use FireFox in Media Center

I saw an interesting post over on The Green Button where someone said you can add shortcuts to your Media Center program folder for any other program. So I decided to try it out with Firefox and sure enough it works!

Here’s what you need to do: take any shortcut or exe file and put it into your Start Menu | Programs | Accessories | Media Center | Media Center Programs folder:

Now when you select Firefox from within Media Center under More Programs it will start up Firefox and minimize Media Center. (The programs do not run within the Media Center interface) If you have a wireless keyboard and mouse or a really cool remote you can surf the web. To get back to Media Center, just hit the green button and the Media Center interface will come back up again. (Yes, this does still leave Firefox running if you don’t close it) It would be really cool if someone could make a hack so you could get the right icon for your different programs.

This is a feature I’ve been asking for but thought wasn’t available: the ability to launch external programs. It would be even better if it was all done within the Media Center interface but this isn’t too bad of a work around. Here’s a few programs you might want to add:

• ThunderBird
• iTunes
• Office/Open Office
• RSS reader