Chris Lanier's Blog

I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional!

Still kind of busy right now, but I just passed my MCP exam 20 minutes ago!

Time Travel Now Possible In Media Center?!?

Stephen Toub does it again! | Stephen Toub has another great Media Center article to add to his Fun with DVR-MS offering.  His latest being Time Travel with Windows XP Media Center.

The Media Center Show #5

The Media Center Show #5 | 21st April 2005 (38min 12sec) MP3 - 19.4MB

This week I (Ian Dixon) talked to Dean Weber CEO of One Voice Technologies makees of Media Center Communicator a very cool voice control system for Windows Media Center ( I talked about it in my blog).  We talked about Communicator, Media Center, Voice control systems and Harry Potter DVD’s!

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Create DVD Update

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Create DVD Update | The Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Create DVD Update enables increased reliability when creating a video DVD using recorded TV files (.dvr-ms).

Quick Info
File Name: Q894553_xpmce_sp2_x86_us.exe
Download Size: 2163 KB
Date Published: 4/20/2005
Version: 1

Overview
The Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Create DVD Update enables increased reliability when creating a video DVD using recorded TV files (.dvr-ms).

This update has the greatest impact for users who create DVDs using TV recorded from a PAL broadcast but is also recommended for users with an NTSC broadcast.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP Media Center Edition

Note: This update is only needed for Media Center PCs that support Create CD/DVD. If the Create CD/DVD option is not available in Media Center, please contact your computer hardware manufacturer for more information.

The F-Stop Blues Interviews Me (and others)

Site Feed of the Day: Chris Lanier | I recently did an interview for Tim Coyle and his blog The F-Stop Blues.  Tim covers many of the same subjects as I do and has had a number of great articles, guides, and reviews that compare and contrast services or products related to digital media.

Be sure to check out Thomas Hawk's interview also!

Updates:

Interview with Peter Near

Interview with Ed Bott

New Version of My Netflix Available

My Netflix for Media Center | Ryan Hurst has released a new version of My Netflix for Media Center.  Changes below….

• New MCE Look And Feel
• Slightly better performance
• Support for Extenders
• Support for 16x9 displays
• Minor bug fixes

NAB Needs RSS!

NAB2005 Daily News Online | Kind of annoying that the National Association of Broadcasters doesn’t have an RSS feed for their Daily News Online feature.  An interesting quote from the About NAB section is "NAB works to keep our members out front on policy issues, technology and management trends”.  Apparently this doesn’t extend past broadcasting to the web. :(

Why I Wanted To Be At NAB2005

So, I said a few days ago that NAB2005 kicked off today.  Here's part of what I missed out on.  :-(

Microsoft Launches Global Campaign Inspiring People to "Start Something" With Windows XP

Warner Bros. Studios and Microsoft Collaborate to Release HD DVD Titles Using Windows Media Video 9 (VC-1)

Industry Leaders Embrace Windows Media Video 9 (VC-1) and Windows Platform to Reinvent Broadcast Distribution and Media Creation

Microsoft Connected Services Framework Solution Deployed at Sony Pictures Entertainment

Windows Media Video 9 (VC-1) Powering the High-Definition Revolution With Broad Industry Support

THX and Microsoft Announce THX Best Practices Laboratory for Windows Media

Crown Castle Mobile Media Selects Windows Media and Windows Media DRM 10 to Deliver Live Television to Mobile Devices

GridIron and Microsoft Unveil GridIron X-Factor for Microsoft Windows Media Encoder

My Outlook For Media Center (and more!)

My Outlook from SAM-Consult Software | If you use Microsoft Outlook as your e-mail client/PIM then you might be interested in My Outlook.  My Outlook is a new plug-in that will enable you to read your emails, view your calendar, browse your Contacts, check your tasks and look up a notes within Media Center.

In addition check out My Web News which includes: My Web News, My Weather, My File Manager, My Special Folders, My Menu Editor, My Music, My Translation, and My Outlook!  Damn!

Meedio Has 200 Media Center Plug-ins! Special Promotion To Celebrate

Meedio Celebrates 200 Media Center Plugins With Massive Price Promotion | Meedio (formally known as myHTPC) now has 200 plug-ins and has cut the price of Meedio Essentials down to $20 until the end of this month.  That's a hell of a deal from the normal $60 price tag.  Check it out!

I also just noticed that Meedio's headquarters are 10 minutes away from my parents house in Houston.  I might have seen some of the Meedio guys around and never known it!

Thomas Hawk's Dinner With Allchin

My Dinner With Microsoft's Jim Allchin | Thomas Hawk got the interesting chance to have dinner with Jim Allchin, Evan Williams, Adam Hertz, Doug Kaye, Gabe Rivera, and Bob Wyman.  Check out his write up where topics from Longhorn to Media Center were discussed. 

You guys need to make a trip down to Texas or I need to move up that way, so I can get in on some of this action!

mceAuction: eBay on Your MCE v1.0 Released

mceAuction | Christoph has also finsihed up the first final release of mceAuction which will allow you to do just about everything you could do with ebay.com via your remote inside of Media Center.  It is now an official "eBay compatible application" and donations are needed in order to keep the program free and alive.  If Christoph can't get enough to cover the money he has to pay to eBay, the plug-in will stop working.

mceTapiRex Shows Skype Calls Inside of MCE!

mceTapiRex and TapiRex | Christoph Buenger’s mceTapiRex beta now will show incoming Skype calls inside of Media Center.  If you use Skype and MCE, check it out!  This also extends Caller ID functionally inside of MCE too.  He has also released an SDK for TapiRex.

WMP Web Help Articles Pass 1,000,000 Views

Windows Media Player Web Help Articles | My collection of Windows Media Player issues that Microsoft doesn’t address correctly (IMO) have now hit over 1,000,000 web views.  1,000,000 views!  Seems like these might be things Microsoft should work better on, right?  A total of 1,151,398 views with all articles combined to be exact.  Leading the pack are the issues with AVI playback in WMP.  Guide To Error's C00D109A, C00D109B, And C00D109C and Guide To AVI Playback combined with total web views of 342,685.

Cody Brocious Claims To Have Reverse-Engineered Napster's DRM Methods?

Realm of the BlackBlade Clan (Cody Brocious' Blog) | Cody Brocious, part developer of PyMusique is claiming that he is working on reverse-engineering purchasing music from Napster.  Here's what he says....

This is the first release of the Musik framework for music store clients. In its current state, it supports the iTunes Music Store and the Napster Music store.

We have not finished reverse-engineering the license issues we’re having, but we’re getting close and we should have a release within the next few days so you can use your purchases songs on OS’s not supported by MS.

AnandTech: MCE TV Tuner Roundup

MCE TV Tuner Roundup: Featuring ATI's Theater 550 & NVIDIA's NVTV | For this article, we took 6 of the most popular MCE compliant TV tuners and pitted them against one another, trying to figure out if there's any difference between them all, and if there's one clear winner.  The cards included in this roundup are:

• ATI's eHome Wonder
• ATI's TV Wonder Elite
• AverMedia M150
• eMuzed Maui-II PCI PVR
• Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250
• NVIDIA's dual tuner NVTV

Now we just need an HDTV Tuner Roundup with the FusionHDTV, ATI HDTV WONDER, and the AVerTVHD MCE A180!

Added: Hardware MPEG2 TV Tuner Round-up | Here's another roundup from The Tech Report.  This one includes....

• ATI TV Wonder Elite
• eVGA NVTV (NVIDIA)
• Hauppauge PVR-150MCE l.p.

Thanks Thomas!

AVerMedia Launches $90 HDTV Tuner!!

AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 | AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 is a full height PCI ATSC HDTV card for free over-the-air digital TV and full quality free over-the-air HDTV reception. It allows OEM/System Integrator to add value to their Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC.

No word yet no how good the card is with MCE 2005, but expect reports as early as next week.  This should be a good break for MCE 2005 users and let more people experience HDTV for very little upfront cost!  I say upfront cost because you can bet another hard drive will be purchased for those you enjoy watching and recording HD in MCE.  :-0

Also, $90 is the suggested retail.  Buy.com has (had) them for $77.64 until they sold out today.

NAB2005 Kicks Off This Sunday!

NAB2005 - The World's Largest Electronic Media Show | NAB2005 will start this sunday, and I really wish I could go!  Just a few of those in the industry that will be speaking are John Gage of Sun, Kevin Martin (FCC Chairman), Shane Robison of HP, Mark Cuban of HDNet, and Steve Saylor of Adobe Systems.  HDTV, IPTV, VoD, Rights Management, Editing, Transcoding, Encoding, Compression, Hardware, Software, everything will be featured here.  I would expect some interesting announcements to come out of NAB about who's doing what and how.

If anyone wants to buy me a plane ticket from TX to NV, please e-mail me.  ;-)

HD Era of Gaming Becoming Real!

All-Star Publishers Commit to Deliver Content for Next-Generation Xbox Platform | Microsoft Corp. today (April 8th, 2005) unveiled its all-star lineup of award-winning publishers committed to making the leap into the HD Era on Microsoft's next-generation Xbox® platform.

The future Xbox will deliver on the company's vision of the HD Era -- an era fueled by consumer demand for experiences that are always connected, always personalized and always high-definition -- through the amazing clarity of high-definition graphics, extraordinary benefits of constant connectedness and exceptional personalization abilities. To help make this a reality, Microsoft has assembled some of the most powerful publishers to drive the industry into the high-definition gaming revolution. Together, these publishers have sold more than half a billion copies of current-generation Xbox console video games worldwide and represent approximately 70 percent of all current-generation console games sold in 2004.

"The key to bringing the vision for the HD Era of gaming to life is our partners: world-class publishers and developers that have molded and shaped the history of interactive entertainment for tens of millions of gamers worldwide," said Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Xbox global content and marketing at Microsoft. "This stellar lineup of publishers and developers is poised to deliver games experiences our customers only dreamed were possible, and is ultimately committed to elevating video games to be the No. 1 form of entertainment."

Publishing heavyweights such as 2KGames, Activision Inc., Atari Inc., Bandai Co. Ltd., Bethesda Softworks LLC, Buena Vista Games Inc., Capcom Co. Ltd., Codemasters Software Company Ltd., Eidos Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., FromSoftware Inc., InterServ International, KOEI Co. Ltd., Konami Corp., LucasArts, Majesco Entertainment, Midway Games Inc., Namco Ltd., Phantagram Co. Ltd., Rockstar Games, SCi Games Ltd., SEGA, Tecmo Ltd., THQ Inc., TWP Corp., Ubisoft Entertainment, Vivendi Universal Games Inc. and Webzen Inc. have committed their support for Microsoft's innovative vision for the future of high-definition gaming.

Hawk Interviews Brightcove Founder and President Jeremy Allaire

My Interview with Brightcove Founder and President Jeremy Allaire | Last week Thomas Hawk got the chance to sit down with Jeremy Allaire who is the president and founder of Brightcove and was the CTO of Macromedia prior to getting Brightcove off the drawing board and into your house!