Chris Lanier

MCE Controller 1.0.3 Released

MCE Controller allows the Media Center application of Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) to be integrated into an advanced control system by enabling programmatic control of the user interface via a TCP/IP connection.

To put it simply, MCE Controller, allows you to simulate a press of any button on the MCE IR remote control by sending a text command to a TCP/IP port on the MCE machine. For example if MCE Controller receives the string “mypictures” it will tell Media Center to go to the “My Pictures” page.

This application was initially developed to enable integration of MCE into a Crestron whole-house audio/video system. However, it is general enough that it can be utilized from any control system that supports sending text strings to a TCP port. Most control systems, such as Crestron, Premise, or AMX, support IR emitting. For many applications, emitting the MCE IR commands will suffice. However, for some installations the reliability of IR emitting and other factors may make IR emitting problematic and MCE Controller offers a robust solution.

MCE Controller can act as either a TCP client or server. When acting as a client the target host and port can be configured. When acting as a server the incoming port can be configured.

MCE Controller 1.0.3 Download 
http://www.kindel.com/Default.aspx?tabid=25

Windows Media PlaysForSure

Choose your music. Choose your device.
Know it’s going to work.
 
When your device and music service are compatible with each other, all you have to do is choose the music that’s compatible with you. Look for the PlaysForSure logo on a wide selection of devices and music services.

This website features services and devices that all work together, can Apple say that? ;-)  Check it out.

PlaysForSure
http://www.playsforsure.com/

New Online Stores Launched Today!

A world of music at your fingertips. One click access to the world's largest music collection. Buy a song from one store or an album from another—mix and match from a variety of stores and take it all with you.

With the built-in Digital Media Mall, you have the largest selection of music and video stores from within the Player. Whether you are looking to purchase music downloads, sign up for a music subscription, or even rent a movie, you can find exactly what you want from a variety of stores.

MSN Music Easiest way to find, discover, and download high-quality legal music with 99¢ song downloads and free online radio.

Napster Improve your music collection by 750,000+ tracks. Discover new music. Collect all your favorites and create custom playlists.

CinemaNow Watch thousands of movies on demand. Download and stream the latest Hollywood Hits! Try it Free.

MusicNow Huge selection of the best classics and new releases. CD-quality and virus-free. Buy individual songs or complete albums. Play complete songs on-demand and get access to over 40 exclusive channels with MusicNow's FullAccess Membership.

MusicMatch Download music and hear the hottest hits from today's top artists.

Wal-Mart 88¢ Every Song. Every Day. Rock to country, hip-hop to pop! Exclusives too. Get Wal-Mart Music downloads now!

XM Radio Online (New!) Tune in now and listen to XM Satellite Radio live!

Court TV Extra (New!) Watch live video, news and highlights from famous and fascinating court cases. Try Court TV Extra for FREE.

f.y.e. download zone (New!) Missing a tune? Sign up for a free trial and get unlimited access to over 1 million tracks or full albums. Try before you buy. First 30 days free.

PureTracks (New!) Search more than 600,000 tracks in the highest sound quality available on the Net. Quickly browse and preview our top sellers and best-of collections. Sample over 100 expertly programmed radio channels in hi-fidelity sound. Go to Puretracks, music pure and simple.

audible.com (New!) Download digital audiobooks, magazines, newspapers, and radio programs quickly and easily. You can also listen on the go using your Pocket PC. Get two free audiobooks! Audio that speaks to you wherever you are.

MLB.com (New!) Watch or listen to live/archived Major League Baseball online. Sign up Today!   Choice of Online Stores http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/onlinestores.aspx

New WMPlugins.com Site Launched Today!

Check out the new and very improved www.wmplugins.com.  Now featuring a forum, redesigned UI, and of course more plug-ins for Windows Media Player.

The place to find and share plug-ins, skins, and visualizations to enhance your Windows Media experience
http://www.wmplugins.com/

Roundup of MCE 2005 Launch!

I have not had a whole lot of spare time this week, but lucky for me many of the other MVP's have. :)  Below are links to a ton of MCE 2005 information.  Find out what's new and cool with MCE 2005!

Media Center 2005 Launch Central Forum
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/messages.aspx?ForumID=52

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005...Summary of the Highlights
http://blogs.msdn.com/mcreasy/archive/2004/10/12/241347.aspx

Quick and Dirty Rundown of the Launch Presentation
http://mcemvp.us/blogs/pnear/archive/2004/10/12/278.aspx

The Best MCE 2005 Features That You'll Never Find
http://mcemvp.us/blogs/pnear/archive/2004/10/11/268.aspx

In Depth, Dual Tuners in MCE 2005
http://mcemvp.us/blogs/pnear/archive/2004/10/11/266.aspx

Thomas Hawk's Excellent Coverage (Large Number of Articles)
http://thomashawk.com

ISF to certify MCE2005 Systems For Video Quality
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=457115

I will continue to update this, anyone who has new sites or posts about MCE 2005, feel free to post them in the commonts and I will add them to the big post.  And thanks for all the MVP's and MS Folks for the great information.  Also, there will be a lot of new posts here throught the next week, so much has just been launch today in Digital Media at Microsoft.

Holy Crap! My WMP 10 Is In Greek!?!?!

For several hours on October 8 and 9, 2004, the Greek version of Windows Media Player 10 was inadvertently posted to the Microsoft Download Center. This situation has been resolved, but if you already downloaded the Greek version, it's easy to update your computer. Just uninstall the Greek version, and then download the English version of Windows Media Player 10 again by doing the following:

1. From the Start menu, click Control Panel, and then double-click Add or Remove Programs.
2. In the Add or Remove Programs dialog box, click Change or Remove Programs.
3. If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), select the Show updates check box.
4. In the list of currently installed programs and updates, click Windows Media Player 10, and then click the Change/Remove button.
5. Follow the instructions for rolling back Windows Media Player 10 to the previous version of the Player that was installed on your computer.
6. Go to the Windows Media Player 10 Web page to download Windows Media Player 10, and follow the instructions on your screen.

Note
You might want to remove temporary Internet files from your computer before downloading. Open Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options. On the General tab, under Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Files.

If the above does not help, try the information below.

Download WMP 10 Again: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=34505

***Important - Do this before you do anything else***
While that's downloading open My Computer and go to Tools | Folder Options | View | Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files".  Now go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache and rename wmploc.dll to wmploc.bak.  This should stop the file from being regenerated.

Now, go to Start | Search.  Search for "wmploc.dll".  Right click and rename the one in C:\Windows\System32 and C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages\{DD90D410-1823-43EB-9A16-A2331BF08799} to wmploc.bak.
***Important - Do not rename any of the other ones.***

After you download is complete close WMP and any open Interet Explorer windows.  Also disable the Mini-mode toolbar.  Right click on the Taskbar and go to Toolbars, uncheck Windows Media Player.

Right click on your new copy of mp10setup.exe and select Properties.  Select the "Version" tab and make sure it says "English (United States)" under Language.

Start the installer.  At this point it should be in 100% US English.

When the install is finished, reboot your machine.  This should fix your problem.  If not, please post.

Update: It appears that parts of WMP mgith still be in Greek after doing this process.  If this is so on your system, please post what parts of WMP are still showing up in Greek so I can find out what file that relates to. Once the file is found that process should basically be the same to fix it.

---------------

If you get "This version of Windows Media Technologies is incompatible with this version of Windows. For more information, view the information at the Microsoft web site." then you need to copy an *English* version of wmploc.dll to C:\Windows\System32 again.  http://msmvps.com/chrisl/archive/2004/10/02/14743.aspx should cover that issue, you will be copying an older file, so it should be English to start with.

Announcing TweakMCE!

Alright, check this out.  Over at The Green Button (TGB) it looks as if there will soon be a new plug-in that will add some rather cool features to Windows Media Center Edition (MCE)  Check out the list of current features below and the thread for screenshots.

• Adds right click popup menu to MCE for Filter management and stream selection
• Integrated Vobsub support (requires DirectVobSub installation)
• FFDSHOW postprocessing (beta will support My Videos only)
• Full ATI Remote Wonder support (With complete Green button behaviour and TipTap (text entry) support)

Announcing TweakMCE: Vobsub, Postprocessing, ATI Remote
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=27&MessageID=69230

What Will It Take For Microsoft To Get It Right?

A fair question, right?  What will it take for a huge company like Microsoft to collectively get their act together and fix their software?  You might be asking what I’m talking about exactly.  Some of you are likely think Internet Explorer, bingo on that one.  But I have one more big one!  Windows Media Player.

What’s wrong with Windows Media Player?  Microsoft just released WMP 10, it’s an upgrade from WMP 9, it must be good.  Incorrect!?!  Windows Media Player 10 is a rushed piece of software that should still be in beta.  In a number of products these days, Microsoft wants to push out the finished products months early, this happens for different reasons.  WMP 10 was released for two reasons: MSN Music and Portable Media Center’s.  Make the free product trash and try and get people to purchase other products in which you are making money off of.  That is plain stupid.  Even now that Portable Media Centers are shipping, problems are doing reported that link right back to bugs in WMP!  So, you have you customers spend $500 on a portable device, and then they find out they must use WMP to sync with it, and they can’t have it work the say it should?  Smart business, I think not!

There are so many little bugs in WMP 10 you will be shocked once I get the final list down.  Correct I have around 60 bugs in WMP 10.  I had asked in a post before about bugs in WMP 10, however only 3 or so of the posts I got really have to do with bugs in WMP.  The rest is problems with third party software that WMP uses.  My list of 60 bugs does not include the dozens of Media Library bugs that are featured in WMP 10.

You might be asking yourself “Why so many bugs?”  That’s a good question.  Did the beta testers do a poor job?  Did Microsoft just screwed up?  Answer: Microsoft just screwed up.  During the Private Beta period there were a number of bugs presented to the team that did not get fixes.  Some of these are still standing from WMP 9!  The Technical Beta was a complete and total joke.  Other then losing WMP users, the Technical Beta showed the public that Microsoft did not care about their user’s opinions and fixing bugs presented by the WMP users.  What’s Microsoft response?  I never really got one from them, basically showing me they didn’t even care when the topic was brought on by people at Microsoft!

A number of you might be reading this after I flamed you in the WMP Newsgroup backing WMP.  And I still do!  That’s because 90% of the “bugs” that are reported by the people who want to trash Microsoft, are not bugs in WMP.  You can’t trash a company when you don’t know what you are talking about, that’s a rule of mine.  Now, when you find a real bug, and others can repro it, I have no problem backing you about Microsoft screwing up.

Now, there are a number of people on the WMP Team who work their asses off creating this, and I don’t blame them.   I do blame the people that ignore their customers input on a product and the ones who do not correctly address problems when they are their.  Microsoft needs to get the point that their users have many other choices when it comes to just about every product they make now.  The numbers still show Microsoft leading in many categories, but that will change if they can not figure out how to take their mistakes and improve on them.  I’m just about sick of seeing the same bugs from versions of WMP that are years old still in current versions.  There is zero excuse for that, zero.  Yet, this is the case with WMP.

Great MCE 2005 Walkthrough

For those who might have some basic questions about what MCE 2005 is or does then see the two links below.  There is a Word doc in each that you can download and read.  This includes screenshots and information about changes and additions to MCE 2005.

MCE 2005 Review/Walkthrough Part 1
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=41&MessageID=69077

MCE 2005 Review/Walkthrough Part 2
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=41&MessageID=69101

Another WMP 10 KB Article

Here's another one to add to the pile.

FIX: The wrong icon appears when you insert media into a removable media device
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;886612

First Reviews of MCE 2005 Are In!

I have not had a chance to read it all yet, but check it out below.  Feel free to post comments or questions.  In addition, it looks like Thomas Hawk also has a bit to say.  Links below.

Symphony Arrives : Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=xpmce2005&page=1&cookie%5Ftest=1

Microsoft Media Center 2005... Underwhelmed
http://thomashawk.com/2004/10/microsoft-media-center-2005.html

New ffdshow Build Out

A new build of ffdshow was compiled yesterday!  It just keeps getting better and better.  It's Download ffdshow-20041003 and for anyone who does not know, the numbers are the build date.  So, this build was compiled on 10-03-2004.

Here' a little run down of the changes and additions. 

• Updated libavcodec, somewhat smaller libavcodec_dec.dll
• Added (and disabled) encrypted dvd video support
• Attempt to support ogm subtitles
• A hack to not crash nero express
• Support AAC audio supplied by nero file source
• Small mp3lib and libavcodec updates
• Faster matrix mixer
• Optimizing matrix mixer
• Working on ac3 output
• Working on better support for illiminable's ogg directshow filters
• Register to more mpeg1/2 audio media types/subtypes combinations

Download ffdshow-20041003
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=53761&package_id=59355&release_id=272514

BuyMusic Offers High Definition Downloads?!?

Sound good, right?  Well, Buy.com's BuyMusic must think so.  They are now offering 256kbps WMA files for download.  Hardly what I would consider High Def audio, but it's a start.  These have got to be WMA Std still, I would rather have BuyMusic start pushing WMA Pro.  We need services to start pushing WMA Pro to get more CE device makers to add support!  For those who don't know WMA Pro is basically a great audio codec that Microsoft is sitting on.  In listening tests at 128kbps WMA Pro ranks at about the same as Vorbis and just below that of AAC and MPC.  But there is another step that WMA Pro has on other codec's.  Up to 7.1 channel sound!  If you have purchased any of the WMV-HD titles you have experienced WMA Pro 5.1.

Get WMA Std out and pick up with WMA Pro!!!  Dispite my views on purchasing music online, if WMA Pro tracks were offered I would start to reconsider quickly.

Ballmer Calling Me A Music Thief?

Well, kind of.  According to a post over at Macworld UK Steve Ballmer does not think Apple can lead the way in the digital home market.  The reason?  Lack of a proper DRM system.  According to the post he also goes on to say "…the most common format of music on an iPod is ‘stolen'."  While on one can argue with the amount of music piracy we have, does it really relate to a single portable player?

I have to say that I purchase all of my music, in the stores however.  I was also an iPod owner for a while.  In addition I promote most of Microsoft digital media products because they work and they are easy to use.  Is Steve right about Apple?  There Fairplay DRM has proved to be less then perfect in securing the media (which is the point of it).  There have been at least 3 breaks of their DRM in the very short time they have been using.  Microsoft has had one break, but that was a long time ago and at the time I don’t remember there being “that much” media out there.

DRM sucks, both Apple and Microsoft need to know this.  They need DRM systems in place that do not have problems.  A user does not need to spend money on media, and then have WMP not able to play it.  Microsoft has not done great with that, Apple has been a nice job having their DRM system not get in the way of media playback.

Biggest issue here is people will steal content until the content owners get it in there minds that we want to own the content we pay for, not rent it.  Whether they are using an iPod, Portable Media Center, or whatever.  There is no reason why I should have restricted rights on a song I purchase off MSN Music, iTMS, MusicMatch, etc when I can go to the local record store and purchase the CD, rip the tracks in a Lossless format, and then do whatever I want with them!  Telling me I can not give this to a friend of mine when they did not pay for it is fine, telling me I can not move it to a portable device is not!  Sorry, that I kind of lost track of the topic, but whatever.

Hauppauge's New Line of MCE TV Cards!

Check out the links below.  You have got the PVR-150 MCE, PVR-500 MCE, and Nova-T MCE.  Note that the PVR-500 is a dual tuner card.

PVR-500 MCE
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html

PVR-150 MCE
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr150mce.html

Nova-T MCE
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_nova-t_mce.html

Discussion at The Green Button (TGB)
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=41&MessageID=68626

"Windows Media Technologies Is Incompatible..." Information.

It's getting narrowed down!  Currently it appears that wmploc.dll in C:\Windows\System32 is the file causing hell for some users while trying to WMP 10.  The solution might be rather simple, navigate to C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 and copy wmploc.dll to C:\Windows\System32.  Now, run the WMP 10 installer again and see what you get.