Month: September 2008

New VidaBox RoomClientHD™ supports Blu-ray & DVD streaming in full 1080p with HD audio support – all in a miniature, palm-sized package Westbury, NY – September 29th – VidaBox is proud to announce the new RoomClientHD™, a 2″ tall, palm-sized media extender that provides Blu-ray & DVD streaming support for full 1080p and lossless audio codecs.  Designed to be easily hidden behind any HDTV, this breakthrough extender allows any room to get instant, on-demand access to any content stored on a VidaBox media server. “We’re thrilled to finally offer an ultra-compact Blu-ray extender that dealers and customers alike have been … Continue reading VidaBox RoomClientHD Supports Blu-ray & DVD Streaming in Full 1080p

Easily search through entire media catalogues and select Internet content utilizing the unified Niveus Search tool, now available for download. Milpitas, CA – September 26, 2008 – Niveus Media, Inc. announces beta availability of the new unified Niveus Search, which enables easy retrieval of content accessible across the local network and Internet. The patent-pending Niveus Search offers Windows Vista ® Media Center users an easy-to-use, 10’ interface that provides an all encompassing scan of both the Media Center and Internet sources. No longer do Media Center users have to scroll through lengthy catalogues trying to locate a certain movie, TV … Continue reading Niveus Brings Unified Search To Windows Media Center

For the longest time SonyStyle.com was the only place that you would buy standalone Digital Cable Tuners.  However a month or so ago Sony pulled out of the market and only started selling refurbished tuners at a discount.  However, most of those refurbs didn’t ship with a power supply, adding additional cost and headaches for buyers trying to find someone at Sony who cared or knew what CableCARD was. With Sony’s exit Cannon PC now aims to fill the void left by Sony by offering both internal and external Digital Cable Tuners online for $300 and $315 respectfully.  The usual … Continue reading Cannon PC Selling Standalone Internal/External Digital Cable Tuners

I’ve just gotten a tip from a very reliable source that Microsoft is looking to take Media Center off the desktop and turn it into a CE appliance.  The only information that I have is that it is planned to be a headless device of some sort.  Other details are very scarce at this point with no timeline to speak of, but I’ve been assured that Microsoft is actively working on such a project. Is the Home Server “Media Center UI integration” that I just said wouldn’t happen the start of this project?  Does it even have anything to do … Continue reading Microsoft Taking Media Center to Headless Appliances’

Media Center users that own Zune’s can see several places where Microsoft forgot to think things through.  Those with the TV Pack installed have a few more, including the fact that Zune 2.0 software can’t do anything with WTV files.  That has now changed with Zune 3.0 software where WTV syncing officially work. Speaking of WTV, Microsoft has finally published some documentation on the format.  The document covers handling WTV files with DirectShow (that includes transcoding). (Via The Green Button).

Internet access provider Wayport enables wireless music downloads for Zune customers in Wi-Fi hot spots at more than 9,800 McDonald’s restaurants. REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 16, 2008 — Zune, Microsoft Corp.’s end-to-end music and entertainment service, today released its much anticipated free software update that will bring new features to every Zune portable media player. Revealed last week, the new software will allow Zune users to wirelessly stream and download music from the Zune Marketplace store on the go; tag and purchase songs directly from the built-in FM radio; and tap into new, personalized music recommendations and programming. To allow … Continue reading Zune Brings Powerful New Entertainment Features to Every Zune Portable Media Player With Software Release

Small bits of “news” keep flowing out about the DIRECTV Tuner for Media Center.  The ever optimistic DIRECTV CSRs are promising that the tuner is good to go for a November launch, sadly that isn’t going to happen so don’t get your hopes up. Once again this is going to be a case of a feature noting getting in your hands until the next Media Center feature release.  The bad news?  That just happens to be Windows 7.  The good news?  PDC is only a month away and I’d expect Windows 7 betas to start making appearances out before the … Continue reading About that DIRECTV Tuner

Long Zheng spotted a good one last week, finding a job posting that implies several things about Windows Home Server v2 including “Time Machine compete UI for backup and restore, Windows Media Center integration UI, Live Mesh integration UI etc..” Windows Media Center integration UI is clearly the part of it that I’m going to focus on, however I think this might end up being the opposite of what most people think (and want) it to be.  Mainly, “Windows Media Center integration UI” doesn’t have to mean “Windows Media Center UI integration.”  The placement of UI in the sentence makes … Continue reading Windows Home Server v2 Media Center Integration? Not So Fast

I survived Ike without any damage here in Katy, sadly that can’t be said for the rest of the Houston and Galveston areas. Ever wonder which of your dozen TV tuners is being used to tune the program you are watching?  If you have the TV Pack there is a bit of a hack that you can do in order to find out.  First spotted by Dave at The Green Button, type 411 and then press More Info in order to access Microsoft’s debug menu. A lot of people have been asking about the TV Pack on CableCARD PCs from … Continue reading Short Bits: Debug Menus, TV Pack OEMs, Hurricane

Early this year it was confirmed that the Media Center SideShow gadgets would support control of Extenders.  However when the first public beta for the gadgets came out Extender support was missing (along with good SideShow devices).  We still really don’t have any good SideShow devices, but Extender support has been made official (hat tip Stuart) for the first time in the Media Center Gadgets for SideShow Release Candidate (RC). The lack of true Media Center Gadgets is likely the reason Ricavision has slipped shipping their SideShow remote.  Summer 2008 has been noted as their intended release date for months, … Continue reading Media Center SideShow Gadgets RC Gets Extender Support