windows media center
Software
Ten Ways To Improve Your Media Center Experience
7:30AM Dan Nosowitz | Our sister site Lifehacker put together a list of ten app-based ways to boost your media center’s potential, adding support for remote controls, remote TV scheduling, Hulu Desktop and more. My favorite: Ad removal. Suck on that, ad-supported entertainment! [Lifehacker] More »
Hardware
Ceton’s CableCARD Solution Has Six Tuners In One Slot
8:23AM Jason Chen | This Ceton Multi-Channel CableCARD is very interesting, both for its ability to decode six cable streams at once to record six shows at once on your Windows Media Center, but for the fact that it’s not all that expensive. More »
Entertainment
Zone Pro Hands On Part 2: Copy Freely And Windows 7
3:48AM Jason Chen | To continue our review of the Niveus Zone Pro media centre, we put Windows 7 on there to try out all the new features, like better sharing of recorded shows. More »
Hardware
Normal People Can Now Install CableCARD Tuners On Windows 7 PCs
9:44AM Jason Chen | FINALLY. Microsoft and CableLabs are finally opened the door to have regular people add in CableCARD tuners by themselves, after they’ve purchased the PC and set it up. This is good news. More »
Software
Windows Media Center Opens Up DRM Restrictions On Shows
8:57AM Mark Wilson | If you record a lot of shows using a CableCard in Windows Media Center, know that the upcoming 1.19 update will loosen the reins on these recordings and allow you to copy them to other WMC machines and portable devices. In other words, you record into WMC, you can copy the content wherever you want—save for Pay-Per-View and premium content. So it’s not the Holy Grail, but it may be as close as we’re going to get.
Software
Windows 7 Media Center: The 10-Foot Experience’s New Features
1:55AM Adrian Covert | Microsoft has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to the living-room PC experience, thanks to Media Center. Slick interfaces and powerful audio/video features combine with the power of a full computer to create a nice experience—though it pays if your PC is CableCard-compatible, for full HD over cable. In Windows 7, Microsoft added even more functionality to an already polished package. More »
Software
Windows Media Centre Update Might Get Partner Later In the Year
11:00AM Matt Hickey | Windows Media Centre still isn’t what Microsoft wants it to be, but it has its fans, and its getting an update this month that they’ve been waiting for. Word is coming down, though, that this update isn’t the one the users are lusting after, the one with H.264 and DirectTV tuner support. Instead it’s a minor upgrade that adds things like international support. But fret not, users, as now it seems like there’s another rumour flying around about another update later in the year which will add many requested features. Patience, my fellow home theatre nerds, we’ll get our updates. [EngadgetHD] More »
Entertainment
NBC to Offer Free, Automatic Downloads through ‘Olympics On the Go’
3:20AM Mark Wilson | I’m not a huge Olympics fan, but NBC is partnering with digital content provider Wavexpress to provide some pretty remarkable coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Dubbed “Olympics On the Go,” Vista Media Centre users will be able to schedule their favourite summer events to download automagically to their PCs or laptops (through TVTonic). Clips will come in “up-to-HD quality,” meaning that at least some of the downloads will be good enough to be worth watching. And it’s all free. The only catch seems to be that there’s no mention of Zune syncing, but what good is synchronised swimming on such a small screen anyway? More »
Entertainment
Microsoft and Windows Media Center Love Broadcasters More Than You
1:40AM Matt Buchanan | Last week, courtesy of NBC, people with a Windows Media Centre DVR setup got a rude reminder that broadcasters can flip a switch (called a broadcast flag) to tell DVRs not to record a show. Here’s the thing: Honouring the flag is actually optional for software and hardware makers, after courts smacked down the FCC proposal to make them mandatory. But Microsoft has confirmed that they do whatever the broadcaster tells them, again, even though they don’t have to. NBC hasn’t confirmed yet whether or not the American Gladiatorsflag was intentional, but their history doesn’t give me a fuzzy feeling. More »
Entertainment
