Shauntu شان: XP Media Center

Phillips making patent of the year

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:36:15 GMT

As in, crappiest patent of the year, that is...

Seems like this is targetted towards those 'free' DVRs that Satellite and Cable subscriptions offer nowadays... Make advertisers pay a bit extra for ads that consumers cannot skip (or even change the channel while the ad is playing!!!)... Make consumers pay a bit extra to be able to skip them after all...

This is worse than Tivo's plans to show mini-ads while you forward through the commercials on your recorded programs... I wonder if that got implemented...

Windows Media Center for the win!

(Whats with companies willing to piss off their customers with forcing ads down their throats anyway? Microsoft and Sony officials have spent this year talking up the addition of ads in games as a way to subsidize the costs of the games, even while XBOX 360 games have jumped to $60 from the previous standard high of $50... I liked Nintendo's President's comment on ads in games as being useless cause gamers won't be interested in paying attention to ads while playing games, but he still acknoledged they will keep an eye on how it works out for Sony and Microsoft... I can just imagine, Madden games playing ad banners and the commentators referring to product placements...)

Front Row

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:30:03 GMT

Apple has announced a new video Ipod device... but the bigger and potentially cooler surprise is they have announced their intry into the Media Center computer market...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9674049/

Apple also introduced a new iMac desktop computer with a remote control to allow access to music, photos and movies. The iMac G5 is designed to be an entertainment hub, competing with Microsoft's Media Center computers.

Well, I have to say, sounds cool. I specially like the name: Front Row. MS Windows Media Center Edition 2005 sucks as a name. Apple's website has many more details...

Looking at the details though, I have to say I am underwhelmed. I like the look of the remote -- simplicity is always good. But the simplicity seems to come with a cost... Front Row, in its current form, cannot be used to see TV through a tuner -- rather you have to purchase TV episodes from iTunes for $1.99 per episode. No PVR functionality? Its not really competition for the Media Center market then is it...

No Mac Mini support, no Extender type functionality... its not a development platform for extendability... I really thought once Apple enters this market, they will cause an immediate reason for MS to play atleast a bit of catch up...

Still, it has DVD playback, connection with iTunes, Audio library playback Ipod style, and Pictures slideshows with zooming etc... so its a good product for Mac owners... but MCE2005 still has it beat for now (all the above features, minus the connection with iTunes -- but it has connection with MSN Radio/Music, Napster, Cinemanow, and tons of other online suppliers of content... thats what a development platform can bring).

About that Front Row remote btw -- I'd like to see how they would modify it if it did have to support TV viewing and PVR features... I don't think it would have to be made much more different that it is currently. I like it... See picture to see how it compares visually with the MCE2005 remote...

Fun with DVR-MS files

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:51:16 GMT

http://www.fstop-blues.com/2005/04/windows-media-center-tip-burn-dvr-ms.html

An excellent article that explains basically why my Media Center 2005 PC would only burn data dvds for me using the 10' interface... With the right encoder, things work better now...

Also check out:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnxpmce/html/dvr-ms.asp

A rundown of what is possible programmatically with DVR-MS files, including code samples and a pre-compiled Transcoder for Media Center that works within the 10' interface.