Archive for the 'Media Center' Category

ASUS: Eee Keyboard to launch in October

Published on September 14, 2009 in Media Center, Tech Review and Tech World. 1 Comment

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Looks like those DigiTimes sources were right: the ASUS Eee Keyboard will officially launch in North America and Europe in October. And while CEO Jerry Shen is keeping quiet on pricing, the original $400 to $500 estimates should hold-up. The Commodore 64-esque keyboard PC originally announced at CES in January features an integrated 5-inch display, 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of memory, either 16GB or 32GB of SSD storage, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Blutooth, HDMI and wireless UWB HDMI. And given the October launch, we’re expecting this thing to run Windows 7 unlike the XP prototypes we’ve seen so far. Maybe Moblin too, if you want to save a nickle.

Pinnacle 7010ix Sleep Solution

Published on July 13, 2009 in Media Center, Microsoft, Software and Tech Lessons. 0 Comments

Iv recently completed a new Media Center build for the parentals, a Windows Vista Ultimate setup using a Pinnacle 7010ix dual DVB-T card as its primary source of freeview television broadcast. Alas this card seems to have a small issue with sleep mode within vista (saying that, vista itself seems to have a little problem with sleep mode, as in it wont stay in it for any duration of time without waking up and forgetting to sleep again)….

I was having some issues with scheduled recordings, such as when the machine came out of sleep mode, it would only utlise one of the tuners on the 7010ix, thus making it kinda annoying when trying to watch one channel and record another, as media center would auto switch the channel for you, then not allow you to turn back to watching the other channel.

Im gonna be the first to admit, i have no idea why this problem occured in the first place, but here is the makeshift solution i found which seems to get the card back on its feet !

You will need the following peices of software ;

Firstly its a nice note to say, that id personally reccomend killing the Windows Vista power saving options and use the Standby Tool to completly replace this, its a much more reliable application (not surprising, since microsoft didnt make it) and actually has some quite cool features (although the daily reboot option never seemed to work for me, but no biggie).

  • Install the Media Center Standby Tool (pretty simple… Configure it to your liking, Iv got mine set to send the PC to standby if no activity is detected for around an hour, but use your own judgement)
  • Download and stick the 32-bit or 64-bit version of devcon into your C:\Windows\System32 folder
  • Open notepad and copy the following script into the document

net stop ehrecvr
net stop ehsched
devcon restart PCI\VEN_1131
net start ehsched
net start ehrecvr

  • Save the file as resume.cmd onto your C:\
  • Goto the start menu, Run and type “regedit”
  • Navigate to “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Herman van Eijk\MceStandbyTool”
  • Locate the entry “RunAtResume” and edit this to say “C:\resume.cmd”

And thats about it folks, that should make the media center standby tool automatically force the card to restart every time that media center comes out of sleep mode, seems to work for me and has proved itself quite well !

Any questions or comments, throw them over !

Enjoy !

Media Center Backup Utility

Published on July 9, 2009 in Gadgets, Media Center, Microsoft, Tech Lessons, Tech Review and Utilities. 0 Comments

Right O… Iv been looking for this god like application for some time now. As an avid lover my my Microsoft (Sigh) Windows (Sigh) Vista (Sigh) Media Center machine, im often in a position where i need a quick reinstall, or im creating a new build for another house machine, family machine, test machine etc etc..

If you’ve ever been in this position too, then its obvious that microsoft has missed out on a great opportunity to throw out one of their leogondary (usually buggy) powertools to create backups of all your scheduled recordings, channel listings, etc !

well, the days of dreaming are finally over, and here we go…

Ian Dixon over at The Digital Lifestyle has created and released (some time ago, 2007, sigh) a beta of a program which does all the following ;

Features:

  • Backs up TV channel assignment
  • Backs up Scheduled recordings and series recordings
  • Backs up recorded TV to local drives, or networked drives (via UNC paths)
  • Backup up an additional folder
  • Has its own schedule engine for automating backups
  • Displays the status of critical Media Center services
  • Command line and GUI version available, 10 foot version coming soon
  • Works with Vista and XP
  • Can be used to transfer settings from one Media Center PC to another

Get over there and download it now !

Windows 7 might actually sleep !

Published on May 19, 2009 in Media Center, Microsoft and Tech World. 0 Comments

win7energyreport1Anyone whos tried to get windows Vista to sleep knows its almost an impossible task, not only do the devices within your computer have the ability to wake it up, but also the hundreds of wonderful scheduled tasks which are generated automatically upon install (YAY)… well, despite much of my tweaking im yet to come up with a way of stopping my Media Center from waking up every single day at 5PM (even after removing half a dozen scheduled tasks from the media center management console)….

Windows 7 might have a solution for this though, The Windows Help blog points out a hidden command-line switch that generates a report with loads of helpful troubleshooting information. The report lists all of the devices that are causing problems with sleep mode, explains the different power saving modes your computer supports, and even gives you detailed information on your battery—invaluable information when your system takes forever to go in and out of sleep mode. Generating the report is easy enough—just open up a command prompt in administrator mode using the context menu -> Run as Administrator option, and then type in the following:

powercfg -ENERGY

The utility will take a while to generate the report, sometimes more than the 60 seconds it quotes you—but when it finishes you can open up the generated file in your favorite web browser. Once you’ve examined the report, you can attempt to use it to figure out exactly what is waking your PC from its slumber !

MoviX2 Creates a Bootable, Self-Playing Video

Published on March 15, 2009 in Media Center, Movies, Tech Review and Utilities. 0 Comments

movix_fullWindows/Linux: MoviX2 puts a tiny Linux system on a disc or thumb drive that boots up and plays almost any video file you burn it with, making a handy tool for demonstrations or less-than-capable computers.

Yes, yes, we know—most people can simply use VLC Player, or burn a video to DVD. If you need to play a video on a system without a DVD drive, though, or make it seriously simple for someone to watch (“Put disc in drive. Restart. Done”), MoviX2 fits the bill.

Terminal-savvy Linux and Windows users can hack together an ISO with their video of choice if they’d like, or use one of the graphical options at the project site—Windows users should grab MoviX2 and the most recent package ending in .exe and follow these instructions, while Linux users can just grab the latest MoviX2 files. Need more help? Check out the MoviX2 documentation, and you’ll find it’s not too hard to get a disc imaged and burned with a bundled MPlayer—which means it handles a whole heck of a lot of formats and codecs.

MoviX2 is a free download for Windows and Linux systems only.

MoviX [SourceForge.net]

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