Cheap Geek

One of the biggest features that Windows Media Center has going for it is its extender model. Once you have a Windows Media Center PC setup you can use other hardware devices, extenders, to connect to other televisions within your home and get basically the same user experience on your TV as you do on your PC. One such extender is the DSM-750 by D-Link.

The DSM-750 is packed with features. The biggest one being that it includes Draft N wireless built in. If you’ve ever tried streaming high definition video over a Wireless G network then you’ll understand why upgrading to the speeds of an N network are so important. If you don’t have a Wireless N router you can use Wireless G on the device also. Of course you don’t have to use it wirelessly; it does have a built-in 10/100Mbps Ethernet port. It also offers a plethora of output options that will allow you to connect to any television you have in your house. It offers the one cable simplicity of an HDMI port, but also has component, S-Video, and composite for video output. For audio you can also use coax or optical for digital audio, and composite audio. The device also has other built-in software called Media Lounge, but none of that is integrated into the Media Center experience, so I spent very little with that.

Setup of the DSM-750 as a Media Center Extender is simple. In fact, if you’ve ever setup an XBOX 360 as an extender the process is exactly the same. The only difference would be if you are using wireless then you’ll need to setup your network connection prior to entering the Media Center setup. Once inside the MC setup it will present you with an eight digit key that will need to be input on the PC when the extender is detected. The total setup time, including setting up my secured wireless connection was less than 10 minutes. The process is also easy enough that anyone who can use a computer and Media Center Extender could do this. You don’t need to be a computer programmer to figure it out.

Once its setup you are presented with the same user interface for Media Center that you have on the computer itself. You can watch live and recorded television, in standard or high definition. You can also listen to your entire music library, view your photos, and watch all of the videos you have on your computer. Of course the DSM-750 doesn’t support every video and audio codec under the sun, but it does support more formats than the XBOX 360. In Windows Vista Media Center you can watch divx/xvid videos on this extender, something the XBOX wasn’t able to do until Windows 7.

The DSM-750 also surpasses the XBOX 360 as a Media Center Extender in two other key areas. This extender looks like all of the other equipment in your entertainment center. It’s small, thin, and the same width as most standard A/V devices. It could be confused for a DVD player if it actually had a DVD drive, and didn’t have the three antennas on the back. The other major advantage is that it’s completely silent. Anyone using an XBOX 360 knows how much of a benefit this is in the living room environment.

There are some negative aspects to the DSM-750 though. The user interface does not run as smoothly as it does on the Media Center PC. It’s not even as smooth as the XBOX. You will notice a little bit of choppiness and delay when navigating the menus. It also doesn’t have the beautiful animated transitions of the PC or XBOX. None of this matters once you’re watching television of course, but it does detract a little from the otherwise gorgeous visual experience offered by Windows Media Center. The other major disadvantage of this device is the price. It currently retails on D-Link’s website for $289.99. Even on Amazon the price isn’t much better at $271. When you can get an XBOX 360 for $199 it might be hard to justify the additional $90 for this device.

So the biggest question left to answer is whether or not I would recommend this device, and like so many other questions the answer is: it depends. The D-Link DSM-750 biggest features are important. Having Wireless N, multiple output options, and increased video codec support in a silent box that looks like it belongs with the rest of your A/V equipment are significant reasons to choose this device. If however you are looking for the absolute best looking and performing, user experience, and for less money, then you’re better off sticking with the XBOX 360.

Now that Linksys and HP have pulled out of the Windows Media Center Extender market this is your only option other than the XBOX 360. In the end you will have to weigh the positives and negatives of both devices to choose which one works best for you.

Linksys DMA2200

This has been floating around the web all day, so I wanted to make sure that I let you all know about an amazing deal. If you’re in need of a Windows Media Center Extender then Dell has the deal for you. You can currently get the Linksys DMA2200, that is the version that has a built-in DVD drive, for $99. It is basically the same device as the DMA2100 that Adam Thursby reviewed a couple of weeks ago. The only major difference is the inclusion of the DVD player.

Buy the Linksys DMA2200 on Dell for $99

MOTOROKR™ S9-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

For years I have been cursing Apple for not supporting A2DP, stereo Bluetooth, on their iPods. I wasn’t mad about the missing feature because I had an iPod, but for exactly the opposite reason. I’ve been using Windows Mobiles phones as my portable media player for over three years. From very early on I have used stereo Bluetooth headphones to listen to my content. I hated having wires running from my head to my pocket. It seemed so 1990s. Plus many stereo Bluetooth headphones also support AVRCP which in laymen’s terms means they have buttons for play/pause, forward, and reverse. So not only am I free of wires, but I also don’t have to pull my phone out of my pocket just to pause the podcast I’m listening to when a co-worker walks into my cubicle.

So what does all of this have to do with Apple and the iPhone? More than you might initially think actually. It’s no surprise that the iPod/iPhone is the dominant player in the portable media player market. You can find aisles of accessories just for the iPod at any big box electronic retailer you walk into. It rules the market so much that consumer electronics manufacturers have focused their efforts on only creating accessories for Apple’s players. Follow that to the logical conclusion: iPod’s haven’t ever supported stereo Bluetooth, therefore, very few CE manufacturers have gotten into the stereo Bluetooth game. 

Today Apple FINALLY announced support for A2DP in the iPhone OS 3.0. With them on board I think its reasonable to expect that by the Christmas shopping season there should be a plethora of options when it comes to finding that perfect set of wireless headphones.

Thank you Apple. I’ve never been more pleased after one of your product announcements. Oh, and by the way, I’m still not buying an iPhone.

We just got new laptops at work so I’ve been going through the awful of process of installing all of the software that I use on a daily basis. While doing so I remembered a great application that I use all the time. WinMerge is a free application that does text comparison between two different text files. I primarily use it for my development work, but have found it very useful in other situations too. It also integrates into the Windows Shell so that you can simply ctrl+click on two files to select them, then right-click on one of them and select WinMerge and it will open them up side by side. All of the differences between the two files will be highlighted.

Download WinMerge

It’s no surprise if you’re a regular reader of this blog that I love Windows Media Center. One of the reasons that I love it is that it makes my life easier. If technology isn’t making your life easier then why are you using it at all? One of the ways that Media Center simplifies my life is that I now only need one remote in my living room. You are probably guessing that I’m using some really expensive programable universal remote, but if you are then you forgot the name of this blog! What many people don’t know is that standard Media Center remote is a proramable remote! What’s even better is that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to program it. You simply put the remote into learning mode, push the button you want to program, push the corresponding button from the remote it is learning, and you’re done. The only small downside is that there are only three buttons that are proramable: the tv power button, and the volume up and down buttons. Using just my Media Center remote I can control the Xbox 360 as my Media Center Extender, turn the power on and off on my television, and control the volume on my surround sound receiver. Its so much easier than trying to show people how to use the cable box remote to control the cable box, and the receiver remote to turn the tv on and control the volume. So if you have the remote that I have pictured here, pick it up, and lets get started!

1. Put the Media Center remote into learning mode by holding down the “Ok” button and the “DVD Menu” button at the same time. Once the lights have gone out, you are in learning mode.
2. Press the button the Media Center remote (TV Power or volume) that you would like to program. The light on the remote will flash once.
3. While holding the two remotes so that their IR nodes are facing each other, press the button from the other remote for which you would like the Media Center remote to learn. If the operation is successful the lights on the Media Center Remote will flash twice. If it wasn’t successful then they will flash four times.

To program the other buttons just complete all three steps again for each button. If you accidently programmed the wrong command you can clear the settings by holding the “DVD Menu” button and the Left Arrow button until the lights on the remote turn off. Once they have push the “Ok” button. The lights on the remote will flash twice to confirm that the settings have been cleared.

With my Windows 7 Media Center machine humming along great I decided it was time to try to get my DVD collection onto my home theatre pc. The task can be a little daunting if you’ve never tried it before. There seem to be so many options, but most seem far too confusing for an average person to actually use. And all of the applications that look to make it easy cost money. I’m a software developer for living, so I’ve got nothing against paying for good software, but if there are great free alternatives then I’m going to at least investigate them first.

The first step in any project like this is to clearly define what you are hoping to end up with. I had three strict requirements:

• The final files needed to retain the original surround sound. I’ve got a surround sound setup, and I want to make good use of it.
• The final files needed to be relatively small. I don’t have a huge hard drive, so keeping lots of 7gb files around wasn’t an option.
• The final files needed to be playable on my Media Center Extender.

Image from BitRipper.com

I started with a very simple program called BitRipper. I discovered this program from the fantastic blog over at www.hack7mc.com. It is by far one of the easiest options out there. With only a couple of button clicks it will rip the data off of the dvd and convert it into any codec you choose. The only stipulation is that you need to have those codecs installed on your computer. In most cases you will already have whatever codec it is that you want to rip your dvd into. I wanted to rip to XviD because Windows 7 natively transcodes it to extenders. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that xvid shows up as an option in BitRipper. I wouldn’t suggest installing the real xvid codec on a Windows 7 box either. I experienced a lot of problems after I attempted that, and ended up reinstall Windows 7 entirely. You can always run the program from a different computer, or in a virtual machine, or simply rip to a different codec. The other reason I didn’t go with this option though was that it does not use surround sound in the final file. 

Image from clonead.co.uk

My next step was to try a couple of great little programs that I found over at www.clonead.co.uk. Clone.AD offers two separate programs for free. The first is pgc.NET. It offers an extremely simply way to rip dvds. Insert the disc, click the scan button, select the longest video stream, select your output folder, and click the start button. In about 10-15 minutes you’ll have a single VOB file. You can then use this VOB file for conversion into the final format of your choosing. Be warned though, in most of my uses with it, the resulting VOB file was around 7gb. Once you’ve converted it you can delete the VOB file though.

The other program that is available on this site is avi.NET. It is extremely easy to use also. Point it at the VOB file you just created, select a couple of options, like the final size of the file, whether to use DviX or XviD, and it will give you an avi file just to your liking. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t support surround sound.

Auto Gordian Knot

The final program that I tried, and the one that I decided to use, is AutoGK (Auto Gordian Knot.)  AutoGK is a very full-featured application, but is also very easy to use. Basically just select the VOB file you created earlier, select your audio track, select the size of the file that you would like to have made, add the job to the batch, and click the start button. For most dvd’s it took roughly 90 minutes to compress a VOB into a 1400mb XviD avi file with full surround sound. I couldn’t tell the difference in visual quality between the file that AutoGK made and watching the DVD itself. It should be noted that this is another program that you absolutely do NOT want to install on your Windows 7 Media Center box. It install XviD and many other helper utilities. I created a Windows XP virtual machine using Virtual PC to avoid breaking Windows 7.

Hopefully this clears up most of your questions around getting your DVD collection onto your Windows Media Center. Soon I’ll be writing about custome user interface plugins for Media Center to better catalog your movie collection. If you have any questions definitely feel free to comment below and I’ll try my best to answer them.

Links in this post:

BitRipper
Hacking Windows 7 Media Center
Clone.AD - pgc.NET and avi.NET
Auto Gordian Knot

I’ve added a contact page, which you can find in the top menu. If you want to send me a message without leaving a comment, you can now email me through the contact form.

Without a doubt the biggest news in the Media Center community this week was the launch of a new plugin called SecondRun.tv. The premise is simple, and it only takes one word to get you excited: Hulu. If you’re unfamiliar with the service let me briefly bring you up to speed. Hulu is the granddaddy of streaming television content on your PC. Hulu is deals with most of the major networks plus many cable channels.

Almost since the launch of Hulu Media Center users have been longing to access it through their favorite HTPC software. So when Yaggs announced earlier this week that he had Hulu working in Media Center you can understand why just about every MC blog had a story up about it. Frankly, I’ve never seen so many people get this excited about a Media Center plugin before it was even available!

So now that you are up to speed its time to get into the details. First off: installation. It installed with absolutely no problems on my Windows 7 box, so fortunately there isn’t much to talk about there. Once inside Media Center you can find it in the Extras Library. Fire it up from there and you are greeted with a beautiful screen displaying all of the different networks that are available. The list isn’t small either. One day after its official release and I have access to 19 different networks including Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, Sci Fi, Disney, and more.

Select your network and it displays all of the available shows from that network. It displays beautiful posters for most of the shows. Some of the shows don’t have posters yet, but Yaggs has said that they will be coming, and that you won’t have to reinstall the plugin to get them. Hopefully the posters are enough for you to identify the shows, because while the title is below them, along with a description, the font is entirely too small to read. Honestly the descriptions of the shows could be filled with vulgar language and “your mom” jokes and I would have no idea. This really isn’t a big deal though as the posters are so beautiful.

After selecting a show you are taken to a screen that displays all of the available episodes for that given show. This screen is even more gorgeous than the previous as it displays another poster for the show that takes up about 75% of the screen. There are then thumbnails for the individual episodes below.

Select an episode and the magic happens. After a brief pause, about 10 seconds for me, the Hulu window with the episode inside of it fills the Media Center display. Give it a few more seconds and it goes full screen.

So, does it work?
Absolutely! There are still missing posters, but those should be up soon. There are some big delays while waiting for the content to load, but it still beats waiting for a show to download over bittorrent! Does it totally fill the screen, even in SD? No, but its definitely big enough. There actually is one other quirk that most people, myself included, have ran into. The first time you attempt to watch an episode a dialog appears telling you that the content you are watching is not designed for Media Center. There is a check box to make the dialog never show up again, and a Watch Now button to press, and you’ll never be bothered by it again.

So, does it work on extenders?
As most of you know, this is a huge question for me as 95% of my Media Center usage is through my XBOX 360. It doesn’t entirely work. The menu system works great, but the streaming of the shows still has a lot of issues. The biggest two are: no sound, and the video doesn’t go into full-screen mode. Those are obvious deal killers.

So, would I recommend it?
It depends on how you’re using Media Center. If you’re using a computer, and not an extender, then it totally works. If you’re using an extender, you’re going to have to wait. Overall it shows great promise, and Yaggs has shown great commitment to quickly squashing bugs and churning out new releases. Definitely keep your eyes on this plugin.

Windows 7 Doesn't Love Windows Mobile

Rarely do I ever have a need to plug my Windows Mobile phone into my home desktop. I do sync it at work all the time, but only ever plug it in to my home desktop to copy music. As I’ve posted before I don’t listen to very much music, as I’m a huge podcast junkie. This weekend I bought an 8gb microSD card though. 

The process of getting a new memory card for my phone is pretty straightforward. Copy everything off of it onto a computer. Put the new card into my phone. Copy everything from the computer onto the phone. Sounds pretty simple. Unfortunately doing this on my Windows 7 box wasn’t easy at all.

On second thought, that probably isn’t the most accurate description. It was easy to connect, and to copy the files to the computer, once I switched the USB-to-PC setting by unchecking the “Enable advanced network functionality” box.

The problems came when I went to copy the files back on to the phone with the new memory card installed. It would copy for about five or ten minutes, and then the phone would apparently disconnect. The phone didn’t think it had disconnected, but Windows 7 did. The phone would still show up under “My Computer” but if you opened it, it would show an empty folder.

Oh well. I chalk it up to Windows 7 being a beta right now. Either that or the fact that I have a hacked rom on my phone! I was able to get everything to copy fine on an XP box.

My experiences with Windows 7 Media Center have for the most part been very positive. The UI is even more beautiful than Vistas, the extender sessions seem noticeably quicker to respond, and Xvid is now natively supported, even with resume functionality, and on extenders.

And with that I decided that the next thing to try would be QAM. I have two physical tuner cards in my computer. I have a single tuner Hauppauge 150, and a VistaView Saber DA-1N1-I combo analog/digital tuner. The Saber’s digital tuner supports over the air ATSC and Clear QAM. QAM is only available under Vista with the TV Feature Pack, or Windows 7. VistaView’s provides drivers for the card under Vista TV Pack, but also requires a registry edit to get it all working.

With much trepidation, and some coaxing from Adam I decided it was time to give QAM a try. I was especially excited to do this as I’ve had little success with my limited trials of over-the-air HD. With my small indoor, non-amplified, antennae I was able to receive most of the local channels, but I always experienced jitters and skips with the video.

I first installed the drivers, which of course required a system reboot. After the system was backup I installed the registry edit patch. Just to be safe I reboot the computer one more time. After the second restart I fired up Media Center and started the tuner setup wizard again. The setup progressed normally, but ended with a new step. The last step was for the system to scan for all available QAM channels. The scan process took at least 20 minutes, but I wasn’t about to sit around watching a progress bar, so I don’t know exactly how long it took. Once it completed it had found 12 channels. The list was restricted to the local network channels and PBS. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who happened to get ESPN or anything considered premium.

Unfortunately my dreams of an HD panacea were quickly crushed. It was only a matter of seconds before I was experiencing the same jitters and skips that were present with the over-the-air setup. I began to wonder if the multiple cable splitters that are present in my setup were affecting the performance. My normal setup (prior to running an extra cable to the QAM tuner) included a two-way splitter at the initial cable run into the house. One wire went to the office (where my Media Center pc is) and one went to the basement. The one in the office was split with a second 2-way splitter and feeds two set-top-boxes. The basement hosts a 4-way splitter sending cable to my living room DVR, cable modem, and kitchen TV. To get the third cable in the office for the QAM tuner I inserted a second 2-way splitter into the office because I didn’t have another 4-way splitter lying around (remember, I’m the cheap geek.) 

My first step was to simply remove all of the splitters in the office. It was the easiest step to try. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to improve the quality at all. Next I unhooked the 4-way splitter in the basement. So I was essentially just working with a 2-way splitter at this point with one end going to the QAM tuner and the other one not being used at all. Unfortunately the video quality remained poor.

This leaves me with a few theories:

1. The QAM signal through my cable provider is just crap, and that there is nothing I will ever be able to do about it.
2. My computer just isn’t man enough to handle to handle the challenges of HD. It’s an older box, with an AMD 64 3200+ running at 2.2 GHz with 1.5 GB of RAM.
3. The last option is that my tuner card, the VistaView Saber just doesn’t do a very good job. 

I seriously doubt theory three is the answer though as ATSC/QAM tuners don’t really have to do much as all of the heavy lifting is done by the computer’s processor. So considering my computer’s lack of speed, and the fact that my results for QAM and ATSC were extremely similar, I’m leaning towards theory number two. Unfortunately, there’s no free way for me to test this theory. 

I guess my next test will have to wait until I build a new computer.