Hacking Windows7 MediaCenter

Need to convert a video or two into a different format? Have some MKV files you’d like to play on an extender as MP4 files? Handbrake has the solution for you. Handbrake is a free, open-source program with more features for converting and encoding video than you’ll likely ever need. The interface, however, is easy enough to for basic users to jump right in.

To get started you’ll need to download and install a copy of Handbrake. It’s available for a number of platforms including Windows, OS X and Linux. Command line versions are available as well but for this we will be using the Windows GUI version. Once you’ve got Handbrake installed open up the GUI by selecting HandBrake from the programs menu.

Once inside the first thing we need to do is select the source video. To do this press the “Source” button in the toolbar then select “video file” from the drop down menu. Next set the output file in the Destination File input, you may either select the output type in the Save as type drop down box in the file save window or select the type in the main window.

After setting your source and destination files, make sure that the Format listed under Output Settings is set to the correct format. If you are converting videos to use on an extender it will most likely be necessary to select an MPEG-4 Codec on the video tab. Switch to the Video tab and select “MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)”. For converting to MPG4 to play on an extender these are the most compatible settings to use.

To begin converting a single file simply select “Start” from the toolbar. For multiple conversions you may want to setup a queue, which will allow you to add multiple source videos and output files to a batch process. Settings for each conversion can be set individually, simply press “Add to Queue” then go through the same steps for each video.

When you’ve finished adding videos to the queue, press the “Show Queue” button to bring up the queue listing. Check to make sure there are no errors in the listing, for instance non-alphanumeric characters in filenames will cause blank entries. These should be removed and re-entered so as to not cause problems in the process.

From the “Show Queue” window you have the option to begin the conversion process by pressing the “Encode” button. Alternatively, you can save or load Queues from the “Queue” drop down box. Also, you will be given the option to create a .bat file which can be executed from outside the Handbrake GUI. This .bat file can be used to run a scheduled task or for any other reason you may want to do a batch conversion without the GUI.

That’s all there is to doing some basic conversion using Handbrake. Simple to use with plenty of extra options, including advanced options for h.264 if you should choose to use a compatible codec. The ability to setup conversion queues and batch files for scheduled processing make the possibilities even greater. Include the fact that this is free, open-source software and there’s no reason to not give Handbrake a try.

You can use Handbrake to rip video from your DVDs too, check out this guide on Bringing DVDs to your Media Center with Handbrake!

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Tagged As: extender, handbrake, movie library, programs

You probably want the best quality audio for your CD rips for playback on your Media Center setup, who wouldn’t? Ripping audio to FLAC is the preferred method for storing audio CDs without losing any of the original detail. FLAC is known as a lossless codec, meaning there is no loss in quality between the original CD and the FLAC file, unlike MP3 which can degrade the quality quite a bit.

How do we get that data off the disk and onto our drives though? Simple, a program called Exact Audio Copy. This apply named program will take the pure audio from your disk and encode it to FLAC without much hassle at all. It even includes the ability to retrieve disk information from freeDB and some fairly advanced error correction (for those less than new CDs).

Getting started is easy, just download and install Exact Audio Copy then run the program. An initial startup wizard will appear asking you to set some of the basic options. During this you should let EAC know that you’ll be encoding to FLAC not MP3. Also, entering your e-mail address is required to retrieve information about CDs from freeDB.

Once the initial setup has been completed insert a disk into the drive you setup as the default during configuration. After a few moments EAC should display a listing of al the tracks on the disk in the main window. You’ll notice that none of these tracks have any tag information and EAC will most likely want to process offset information on a first run. Go ahead and let that happen and any gap processing EAC would like to run.

Now to retrieve information for this CD automatically you can press the CD icon in the toolbar to access freeDB. As long as freeDB recognizes the disk you’ve loaded it should automatically retrieve artist, title and track information. Otherwise, you can edit basic information in the main EAC interface before ripping.

To begin ripping the CD to separate FLAC files you just need to press the MP3 button on the left. This slight confusion in the interface can cause some trouble for new users but the button will use your default compression mode, MP3 or not. There are also options available to rip the disk to a single or multiple uncompressed WAV file(s) with or without a cue file. Unfortunately, at this time WMP and Media Center do not support cue files.

During encoding you can monitor the process through a small dialog displaying the progress of the current track, the entire disk and any problems that arise in the Status box. You will also be able to monitor any error correction taking place through the small red grid box on this window. Any error processing will appear as a progress type display in the box.

Once the encode has completed that’s all there is to getting the audio from the disk to your hard drive. You’ll need to follow the guide on Playing FLAC Files in WMP and Media Center before you will have access to them in those programs. Then just sit back and enjoy your high quality lossless encoded audio!

Get more control over audio in Media Center with this guide on Using FFDShow Audio in Media Center!

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Tagged As: flac, music library, programs

Have a multipart video you’d like to merge into a single MKV file? MKVToolnix has just the tool for you! Using this handy little app you can pack those multipart AVIs, MP4s, even MKVs and more into a single MKV video file. Just choose the part and let it do it’s thing. MKVToolnix’s MKVMerge GUI takes what could be an otherwise painful task and makes it simple as can be.

To get started download and install the MKVToolnix program from the MKVToolnix website. This amazing little open source product comes in a variation for almost every platform. Once you’ve got it install run the MKVMerge GUI from the programs menu to open the merging program. The interface is simple for beginners but has enough features to satisfy most any user.

For the basic user, getting started is as simple as adding the separate parts of your video to the input files box using the “Add” button to the right. The file will be read by the program and display the track information below in the “Tracks” box. Separate video and audio tracks should appear for each part added to the input files. Currently, MKVMerge doesn’t support WMA audio however and can’t be merged. An error will appear in the tracks section if this occurs.

From here just set the output filename in the input at the bottom of the dialog and press “Start Muxing” to begin the merge. No flash, no fuss, this is one of those apps that just works and that’s the best kind.

For more advanced users (or perhaps just more demanding) there are also options to include attachments, split files, set chapters and more. All for the same basic interface you have the ability to attach subtitle files and set chapters for your MKV files. There really isn’t much you can’t do with MKVMerge if you have the time or desire to do so.

Once the process has started merging the files into a new MKV file takes almost no time at all since re-encoding isn’t required to create the new file. This narrows the time spent converting videos down from hours to mere minutes, especially nice for those with larger collections need work. In a matter of minutes MKVMerge will spit out your fresh new MKV file.

This really is one of the simplest programs available and the ability to simply remux videos into MKV as opposed to converting them frame by frame is a godsend. Time is precious, save yourself some time by using MKVMerge from MKVToolnix and you won’t regret it. Best of all it’s free!

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Tagged As: matroska, mkv, programs

Though we’ve looked at this handy program for adding channel logos to your Windows Media Center TV Guide when it was first released, it has undergone a number of improvements and increased support since it’s release. Since it’s initial offering, My Channel Logos has added the ability to detect affiliate stations such as those associated with ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. Quite a few extra channel logos have been added for various countries, auto-populating logos has been optimized and support for Dish Network has been introduced as well.

To get rolling with My Channel Logos download the program from the website and install. This is also an improvement over previous version which didn’t include an installer. Once up and running, you’ll need to set the area your in from the “Edit > Preferences”. If you haven’t set up your tuner yet, you will need to do that as well prior to running My Channel Logos. Once set up the program practically runs itself.

Under most situations, hitting the Auto Populate Logos button will automatically assign logos to any stations it has logos for. This function has been improved over previous versions by checking for affiliate station information, allowing the program to detect the proper logos for those cryptic call-signs used by local stations. Assigning custom logos to any station is as easy as clicking the black box area and selecting an image of your choice.

This version of My Channel Logos even includes options to set the default location of channel logos in the guide via the preferences. Buttons on the right will also allow you to clear logos from any station or even remove all channel logos as before. Removing all channel logos should reset your TV guide setup back to it’s default state. There’s no need to save once a logo has been assigned as this is done automatically by the program.

Getting setup with My Channel Logos is one of the easiest and most rewarding hacks you can do to your Media Center. With added support and logos for a number of countries and fixes to the program itself this new version is even better than ever. Be sure to check out this program today and add that missing something to your Media Center TV Guide.

Get even more from your Media Center with these 5 tips to refreshing your setup for the spring!

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Tagged As: plugins, programs, tv guide

  If you’ve been reading Hack7MC regularly you’ve probably noticed that a number of tools are used quite frequently. This quick list will get you on your way to doing some Media Center Hacking of your own in no time.

Find those Hidden Folders

By default, many of the folders Media Center uses to store data are hidden from the user. To get instant access to these folders in Windows Explorer, open Control Panel then Folder Options. On the View tab, scroll until you see the Hidden Files and Folders Section. Set this option to Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives.

Take Control of Your Files

By default, Windows will lock the user out of access to certain system files, including many of those that affect Media Center. To get around this we can use the “Take Ownership” registry fix which allows us to right-click any file and take control. Just download the fix and double-click to apply it to your machine.

Always Make Backups!

Before getting into the programs used to hack Media Center’s system files it’s important to note you should always make backups. There is absolutely NO REASON to not take the time to place a copy of those files you’re editing in a safe folder. This can save you more time and headaches than all the others Media Center hacks combined.

A Few Good Programs

Now that we have access to all those hidden and locked files and folders let’s get a few programs to let us into the meat of those files. First we need to open a few .dll files to get to the good stuff inside.

Restorator is the perfect program for editing Media Center’s dll files. This program gives you the ability to extract the image and xml files contained inside each dll. Although there are many other choices in resource editing programs, Restorator is a perfect choice for it’s ability to work natively with PNG files used frequently in Media Center.

Once you’ve extracted those files from the dlls using Restorator, you’ll need a few good tools to edit them as well. One of the main types of files besides PNG files, which can be edited in most any image editor, are XML files. These can be edited in notepad but there’s a better way.

XML Notepad 2007 is a program from Microsoft that is free to download from the Microsoft Download Center. This program will simplify the way you work with XML files by breaking them down into an easy to navigate tree view. This setup is perfectly suited for edit Media Center’s XML files and the price tag can’t be beat.

Once you’ve got the tools you’re ready to set out on your own to try out a few Media Center modifications of your own. To find the bulk of Media Center’s files make your way to \Windows\ehome\ in Windows Explorer. The database and packages for Media Center are typically stored in \ProgramData and Users\Username\AppData folders. Just poke around, make sure you’ve got backups and have fun but remember who sent you! Let me know if you come up with a great new hack at mhealy@hack7mc.com and share it with the community.

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Tagged As: featured, install, programs, settings, windows 7

One of our readers, mrmoto, has dropped us a tip on repairing your broken Media Center system files. Since we’re all about hacking Windows 7 Media Center the need to repair what has been broken is sure to come up from time to time. Hopefully, this command line application should help to get you back up fast.

1. Click on the Start menu, choose All Programs, then Accessories, then right-click on the Command Prompt item and select Run as administrator
2. Click Continue to authorize opening a command prompt with administrative privileges
3. Run this command in the cmd prompt: sfc /scannow
4. The cmd prompt should list text stating "Beginning system scan. This process will take some time."
5. Wait for the scan to complete (this can take several minutes so be patient).  This command will scan all protected system files and attempt to replace incorrect versions with correct Microsoft versions
6. When the scan completes, the SFC tool will indicate whether or not it found any problems and whether or not it was able to fix them
7. If any errors are reported that SFC was unable to fix, there are steps in this knowledge base article that explain how to locate and attempt to fix the errors 
8. After fixing any errors that are found, try to use Windows Vista Media Center again

In place of step 7 you can also use the “Take Ownership” registry fix to take control of any files that SFC is unable to fix on a first run. Simply download the registry file and install the registry entry. Then once you’ve got the “Take Ownership” fix installed, right-click the problem file and select “Take Ownership”. Then attempt to run SFC again following the steps above.

As mentioned in mrmoto’s comments these steps originally come from Aaron Stebner on MSDN blogs.

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Tagged As: programs, windows 7

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!

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Tagged As: network, programs

Spring is only a week away, let’s take a look at a few ways your can breathe some new life into your Media Center. These five hacks can put a whole new face on the Media Center interface bringing a sense of renewal to an old box.

Bring new life to the start menu

Digging through the extra programs menu in Windows 7 Media Center can be a hassle. Even when you’ve added items to the Extras menu it’s just not as convenient as it could be. Why not use this guide to Add New Start Menu Strips to Media Center.

Add some flair to the TV Guide with Channel Logos

Staring down the default Media Center TV Guide’s channel numbers and cryptic channel names can wear a person down.  The lack of quickly recognizable stations can even waste valuable time you could be spending on spring cleaning. Spice up your listings with My Channel Logos which will Add Channel Logos to your Media Center TV Guide.

Launch more programs from Media Center

Don’t limit yourself to programs that support Media Center out of the box. Launch any program from Media Center’s Extra Programs (or a custom start menu!) using Media Center Launcher and Configurator. These two little apps can add tons of new usability to your ten foot interface.

Replace Movie Library with a fresh solution

Media Center’s default Movie Library is a decent way to find your movie’s all in one place but let’s face it, it could be better. Replacing the default Movie Library with Media Browser can open up a world of new options. Sort your movies into folders with custom images using the new configuration program or get Encoding Information or Actor Pictures right inside Media Browser.

Add a whole new theme to your Media Center

Sometimes something as simple as just Changing Your Background can improve your whole outlook. Pick your own background to use in Media Center from a site like InterfaceLift.com or use a premade 7MC theme like Homeworld or Road to Nowhere. Even better Make Your Own Theme for Media Center and share it with the world!

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Tagged As: featured, install, plugins, programs, windows 7

Even though the last build of Lifextender predates the Windows 7 beta itself it’s still possible to use this app to remove commercials from your recorded TV shows. Lifextender provides a number of benefits over DVRMSToolbox, providing a much simpler configuration of file monitoring and commercial removal. This simplified experience can prove to be the most important benefit to many users.

The first step to getting Lifextender to work is getting your WTV files converted to DVRMS. To do this automatically you will need to download and install DVRMSToolbox and follow the guide on Automatically Converting WTV to DRVMS. However, since Lifextender will be handling the commercial removal you should remove .dvr-ms from the watched file types in the FileWatcher tab. This will prevent files from being scanned by both DVRMSToolbox and Lifextender.

To convert WTV files manually you can follow this guide on Converting WTV to DVR-MS. Alternatively, newer betas (7048) of Windows 7 include this feature natively from Windows Explorer by right-clicking the WTV file and choosing Convert to DVR-MS.

Once you’ve gotten your dvr-ms files and Lifextender installed, setting up Lifextender is an extremely easy process. Make sure the Lifextender program is running then right-click the blue orb icon in your system tray. Selecting options will bring you to the configuration, selecting Scan Media Center Library will scan your default recorded TV directory for unprocessed dvr-ms files. Scanning can be automated from the options as well.

Once you’re in the General Settings tab of the options you will be able to set a custom path for your recorded TV if you need Lifextender to scan a directory other than the Media Center default location. There are also option for automated scanning at scheduled times or even when new files are detected. Below that you will find the configuration for how the files should be handled after processing.

Lifextender will remove commercials from the output .dvr-ms files instead of using a plug-in for Media Center as DVRMSToolbox does. While this removes the necessity of having a working 7MC plug-in (something DVRMSToolbox doesn’t quite have yet) it does permanently alter the files. For this reason it’s recommended that you send original files to the recycle bin not delete them immediately, incase there are problems with commercial removal clipping parts of your show. There are also options for removing incomplete recordings and duplicates from your library.

Under More Settings, you will find basic program settings. For automatic scanning Lifextender should be run when Windows starts. Unlike DVRMSToolbox, Lifextender needs to be running in order to do any scanning. This tab also provides tools and guides for tweaking comskip which is the default commercial scanning software. Lifextender also includes support for ShowAnalyser though if you choose to use this you will need to download and install the program separately.

Check back to Hack7MC for future guides on using and tweaking comskip and ShowAnalyser. 

Under the Media Center tab you will notice that Lifextender does come with a Media Center plug-in. This plug-in doesn’t operate the same as DVRMSToolbox however, Lifextender uses this to notify users when a recorded show has completed commercial removal. This is convenient when waiting for commercial skipping to complete before starting viewing your recorded TV. If you should happen to be viewing a show during commercial removal Lifextender may not be able to remove the original when completed. At this time however, enabling the Lifextender plug-in presents errors in Windows 7 Media Center.

Lifextender also includes the ability to add advanced rules to match against show metadata before processing. For example, if you want Lifextender to not process shows with a certain title you can setup a rule for that action. On the advanced tab you will also find options for copying metadata and thumbnails from the original file as well as a file blacklist. Blacklisting a file will tell Lifextender to ignore the file during scanning.

That should get you started with Lifextender, ripping commercials from your converted dvr-ms files. Compared to DVRMSToolbox, Lifextender can be a breeze to setup. Unfortunately, we still need to use both programs to get dvr-ms files to process. Hopefully a simple, commercial free future awaits all who want it from their Windows 7 Media Center.

Stay Tuned to Hack7MC for upcoming guides to Comskip and ShowAnalyser! Subscribe to the RSS Feed or Follow on Twitter to be alerted to the latest articles.

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Tagged As: commercial skip, dvrms, plugins, programs

While being able to skip commercials in your recorded TV shows is a big deal with home DVRs, when your Media Center does it for you automatically that’s huge. This is the kind of feature many previous users of Media Center have become accustomed to using DVRSMToolbox. Unfortunately, with the advent of Windows 7 Media Center there is a change in the format of recorded TV shows from DVRMS to WTV. This has caused a bit of trouble in getting DVRMSToolbox working again.

Luckily, with the latest version of DVRMSToolbox (1.2.1.6) the Media Center Commercial Skipping Plug-in has been  updated to install and work on Windows 7. Now all we have to do is deal with that pesky new file format. The easiest way to do that is to just convert it back into a DVRMS format.

Download the Tools

To get started you will need a copy of DVRMSToolbox 1.2.1.6 or greater installed from Andy VT’s blog. Then you will need to download the WTV to DVRMS profile from right here. Extract the .dpc file to the “Program Files\DVRSMToolbox\Profiles” directory (“Program Files (x86)” for x64 users).

Configure DVRMSToolbox and the Profile

Next open DVRMStoMPEGSettings from the start menu. In the DVRMSToolbox tab scroll down and select the “wtv to dvr-ms” listing and press “Edit Profile”. Find the line marked “Run C:\Program Files\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\todvrms.exe” and double-click to bring up the configure window. Double-click the “ProcessName” input box to bring up a file dialog to select your “todvrms.exe” file.

Now, open the FileWatcher tab in the main DVRMSToolbox windows. Make sure that all the directories you will be recording to are listed under the “Watched Directories” box. If not double-click to add them. Under the “Watched Ext” input box add “,.wtv”.

Depending on the power of your computer you may also want to increase the number of available workers to speed up processing of multiple shows at one time. Conversely, if you have a less powerful PC you may need to increase the “Wait Time” if you notice your DVR-MS files are being scanned for commercials before they are complete. Save your settings then open “ProcessingConditionEditor” from the start menu.

Once inside the ProcessingConditionEditor, press the “New Condition” button on the right. In the Description input give the rule a name such as “wtv to dvr-ms”. Then in the dropbox select the “wtv to dvrms” profile that we downloaded earlier. If you don’t see it listed double check that it’s in the ‘\DVRMSToolbox\profiles\” directory in your Program Files.

Now press the “Add” button on the right of this window. In the first dropbox select “FileExt”, in the second select “equals” then enter “.wtv” in the last box. Press OK then save this new entry. In the main windows select your new entry and press the “Raise Priority” button on the right until it’s at the top of the list.

Now once the show has finished recording (auto-detected when the file’s size has stopped increasing for 10 minutes) it will be converted to dvr-ms. It should then be picked up by DVRMSToolbox as usual and scanned for commercials. To adjust the time to wait after the recording has finished you can edit the profile from DVRMStoMPEGSettings. For more on commercial scanning be sure to check back to Hack7MC soon for another guide.

Now that you’ve got your commercial free content why not share it through-out your network with Sharing Recorded TV Between PCs!

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Tagged As: commercial skip, dvrms, programs, windows 7

For whatever reason Microsoft still hasn’t mastered the art of the MP3 tag. Past versions of Windows Media Player contained an “Advanced Tag Editor” that would allow you to edit the mp3 details contained in the ID3 tag. This time around it’s part of Windows Explorer, a change that can be somewhat confusing for those used to WMP 11. Neither solution is optimal, however.

This is where we will turn to a free little program called Mp3Tag. Mp3Tag will allow us to really get into the details of our mp3 files and will even automatically retrieve details and album art from the web. Being able to pull all the album information from a source like Amazon.com is a sure time saver. Once the program has been downloaded and installed getting tag information couldn’t be much simpler.

Start out by going to the File menu and selecting “Add Directory” to bring up a dialog to choose your music folder. Mp3Tag will then go about loading your music collection and displaying any details about your music it can find. Once it’s finished that select the songs or album you want to change the album art (or other details) for on the right.

Notice the missing album art in the screenshot above, this is what we’re looking to fix. To do this open the “Tag Sources” menu at the top and select a location for Mp3Tag to retrieve the new album cover and details from. Choosing Amazon.com will generally return good results. You will need to tell the program what search term to use while finding the album then select the correct one from the next dialog that comes up.

If the correct album isn’t listed in the results go back and try a different search term or a different source from the menu. Once you have found the correct album another dialog will appear showing the details retrieved. Here you are able to edit the information before it’s applied to the files. By default track numbers will not be altered but check to make sure the songs listed on the left are the same ones listed on the right. The order of the songs listed won’t make a difference.

Once the information is all correct and the album cover is shown in the right hand box press OK to save the information to the files. If you would like to store a folder.jpg of the album cover locally there is an option to do so under the “Utils” button on the bottom left. Once you’ve returned to the main window you should see the results of the edit displayed on the left.

Once all your files have been tagged, restart Media Player and the new album information should be displayed. If it doesn’t appear immediately you can try restarting the system or removing and re-adding the folders to the music library. Sometimes the library will still persist despite everything and you may need to follow the directions in Fixing a Corrupt Windows Media Player Database to solve the problem.

Once you’re Music Library is setup try using Media Center to automatically Play Your Favorite Music!

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Tagged As: music library, programs, windows 7