Hacking Windows7 MediaCenter

Sometimes when Media Center has a problem we don’t even know until it’s too late. Missed recordings, stopped services, tuners gone bad, these things can all wreak havoc on an otherwise Zen-like Media Center experience. Fortunately, Ian Dixon of The Digital Lifestyle comes to the rescue with an app that will monitor your Media Center for problems and notify you as soon as something goes wrong.

Media Center Health Monitor stays on top of both problems and successes notifying you in a number of ways. The program monitors your scheduled recordings for problems letting you know whether the latest show has recorded successfully or failed for whatever reason. Even better Media Center Health Monitor will monitor Media Center’s Recording and Scheduling services for trouble alerting you to potential problems before they happen.

How does Media Center Health Monitor keep you up to date with your Media Center’s issues? Let me count the ways. One of the best in my opinion is the ability to setup the program to use a Twitter account to send tweets with any problems or successful recordings. It’s the perfect solution for those already on Twitter to receive immediate updates from your Media Center.

Other options include the ability to receive updates via an RSS feed from the Media Center Health Monitor website. The Media Center Health Monitor website itself also provides another option for remote viewing the current status of Media Center as well as any problems that may have occurred recently. If all those options aren’t enough, or maybe you just like to kick it old school, you can even have the program send you a good old fashioned e-mail.

However you use it, Media Center Health Monitor is sure to be an indispensible application for anyone running a Media Center. Even more so for those who have family members running Media Centers who always seem to call you when something breaks. Prevention is the best medicine and Media Center Health Monitor will let you know at the first sign of trouble.

Now that you can relax, check out these 5 Hacks to get your Media Center into top shape!

Written by MHealy | Leave A Comment

Find something you liked?

Tagged As: network, programs

Direct from Josh at MN Maven, comes this tip on sharing your recorded episodes between different PCs on your network. This will even work inside Windows Media Player, letting you watch your recorded TV shows while getting a little work done at the same time.

This requires that the receiving pc be running Windows 7 (the Media Center should also be running Windows 7 or TV Pack 2008). The first step is to share the folder you record to on the Media Center machine. Typically this is the “Public\Recorded TV” folder which would be shared by default.

If the folder isn’t shared, locate the folder, right-click and select properties. Select the Sharing tab and press Advanced Sharing. Select the “Share this folder” checkbox and assign a name. Before pressing OK be sure that “Everyone” is listed under Permissions. If not, add it now by pressing Add and typing Everyone into the objects box at the bottom.

Once the folder has been shared, you need to add the folder to the library on the receiving computer. This can be done either in Windows Media Player or Media Center.

To add the folder to Recorded TV in WMP, make sure Recorded TV is listed. If it isn’t right-click in the left pane and select Customize Navigation Pane then make sure Recorded TV is selected.

In Media Center select Recorded TV from the start menu then bring up the right-click menu. From the menu select “Manage Libraries” then choose the option to add a folder. Select the option to add a folder from another computer then locate the folder on the next screen. Once you’ve done that let Media Center finish setting up the library.

That’s all there is to it. Though this doesn’t add the ability to watch live TV from the Media Center as is possible with non-PC extenders this is one step closer. At least now we can share our recorded shows between full HTPC machines or even just watch that show from last night while we work.

Don’t stop there! Check out these 10 other steps to maximize your Media Center experience.

Written by MHealy | Leave A Comment

Find something you liked?

Tagged As: extender, network, tv guide

Nothing kills a Media Center user like having to pull out the old keyboard and mouse just to sit in front of the TV and run some updates or install new software.  Many have turned to a feature in Windows known as Remote Desktop Connection. This feature, though only included in some versions of Windows, provides an easy way to connect to your Media Center form your everyday desktop PC.

Unfortunately, as long as you are logged into the Media Center no one else can use it.  This means that even though you may feel a little more comfortable the family still loses out on movie time. The solution is Concurrent User Sessions, allowing the Media Center to remain on the TV while letting another user in behind the scenes.

Thanks to the fine folks at Missing Remote  and friends, getting your Windows 7 machine to allow concurrent user sessions is as easy a running a simple command line program.  Just download the program from Missing Remote here then right-click to “Run as Administrator.” That should be all there is too it.

There are also a few command line options which can be run from either an elevated command prompt (type cmd into the start box and press ctrl-shift-enter) or a shortcut run as administrator. To enable blank passwords use “–blank”, “-multi” to enable multiple sessions per user.

Thanks to Missing Remote, Pinobigbird, untermensch and cocoa, we can now sit in the comfort of our well worn desk chairs to work on Media Center without disturbing the family (and incurring the wrath of significant others). Find the original article from Missing Remote right here.

Written by MHealy | Leave A Comment

Find something you liked?

Tagged As: install, network, programs, windows 7

In this new age of digital distribution our ever growing pile of devices needs to be able to interconnect with one another unlike ever before. The time for proprietary software and voodoo tricks to get all your devices working happily together has come and gone (long gone!).  Windows 7’s new “Play To” feature may just be the first step towards this reality.

This new feature built-in to Windows 7 allows you to control the media being played on any number of enabled devices including other Windows 7 machines and Media Center.  You can find a long list of capable devices over at The Digital Lifestyle, including the capabilities of each device. Getting going with Play To should be simple and is between Windows 7 machines; the abilities of other compatible devices may vary however.

The easiest way to get started with Play To on Windows 7 is to open Windows Media Player 12. Once inside WMP we have to enable the ability to receive media streams from other devices by clicking the “Share” tab in the library view and marking the checkbox labeled “Receive media on your network.”

Once you’ve enabled this feature (or similar features of non-Windows devices) you can choose which devices will have access to your media files across the network.  This will also give us some idea of what devices we might expect to see in our “Play To” list, for instance if you expect to play media to your Xbox 360 you should ensure it’s available on this list.

As you can see from the picture above there are three devices listed but later on you will notice that only two are available in the Play To list.  This is due to the fact that one of the devices listed is running Windows Vista which does not currently support Play To and so is excluded.

The next step is finding the media you want to play across machines.  This is where one of the best new features of Play To comes in, if you want to play a media file that isn’t natively supported by the other device Play To will convert the file before streaming it to the other box.  Many compatibility issues will surely be solved by this simple but ever so useful feature.

Once you’ve located the media you want to play on your other Play To capable device right-click to bring up the menu and navigate to the “Play To” menu.  From here you should see a second menu listing your Play To devices.

After selecting your device from the list you should get a new window with a list of the files you want to send and a number of other controls.  This is going to be the area which you control the play of the other device, not the native WMP interface. As you can see below this windows has controls to play/pause, next and previous track and volume. Also in this display we can find our playlist and display of the currently playing media, this playlist will also present you with any errors that may have come up during the playback of certain files.

From here you’re all set to stream your media to your other Windows PCs, Media Center and extenders through out your entire network.  This feature is one of Microsoft’s main goals with the release of Windows 7 and will surely see further development both before and after release with support for more devices and features to come.  For now, enjoy your transcendent ability to play your media from every corner of your world!

You can also check out a number of more in depth articles on the Play To feature at The Digital Lifestyle: Multiple Devices and Sync, Play To and Media Center and the List of Devices mentioned earlier in this article. 

Written by MHealy | Leave A Comment

Find something you liked?

Tagged As: extender, network, play to, windows 7