Review Horizon

If you want to receive clear QAM or over the air ATSC 8VSB TV channels with your computer, the cheapest solution I could find was a small USB stick produced by MyGica (actually based on the drivers, the tuner is produced generically somewhere in China and MyGica is packaging / branding / selling it in North America). I was initially skeptical to its quality, especially considering the very low price (under $30 shipped) but I bought one anyway and I will review it so you can make an informed decision.

Unpacking:

MyGica A680 comes packaged in a small box containing the USB stick itself, an infrared remote control (compatible with Windows Media Center), a mini antenna, a mini RF to F connector converter and the software CD containing the driver and a somewhat old software, Total Media 3.5. Read More…

Probably the best deal for today (and not only) is the Microsoft Windows 7 Family Pack coming back for only $150 and covering licenses for three computers. Even better, Amazon has it for only $129 which is a really good deal considering that you get three Windows 7 licenses. The version that you’ll get is Home Premium that also includes Windows Media Center for the HTPC aficionados.

Microsoft also said the offer will be available for limited time, “while supplies last”. We are not sure what that means from the company that actually makes the product, but it probably means they just plan to sell a limited number of copies at this price for business reasons.

In a move that I am sure many of you were waiting for a long time, Hauppauge finally announces native support for Windows Media Center for their flagship product, HD-PVR. You can find the newly released drivers (albeit in beta) here.(be sure to navigate to HD PVR for Windows Media Center Tab). Amazon has it available for $194 with no taxes and free shipping in most of the country.

The HD PVR support for Windows Media Center allows you to use the HD PVR to watch, pause and record high definition TV under Windows 7 Media Center from a cable TV or satellite set top box. It operates in a similar way as other Hauppauge TV tuners for Windows Media Center, but the HD PVR records in high definition using H.264 encoding.

Currently they only support the DirectTV EPG (electronic program guide) but not the Dish Network one. (watch and record still works, just the integration is not complete).

My favorite Windows Media Center plug-in is now at version 2.2.4. Among other things like bug fixing, the new release allows clearing the cache from the configuration wizard, the previously experimental SQL Lite allows now to share the play-state, allows localization and sports an increase in performance due to cache optimization. Because of that, be prepared to wait a while (depending on your media library size) until Media Browser rebuilds the cache first time it is used. As usual, I highly recommend using a SSD drive with Windows media Center in general and media browser in particular. The difference vs. a regular drive is like night and day.

Highlights:

• The Media type is now retrieved from locally stored metadata.
• Better support for using MyMovies and Media Browser side-by-side. The user can now set the preferred order of local artwork.
• Watched status indicators are working normally again. Read More…

As you might know, several days ago Microsoft released an update to their Windows Media Center, update that would enable Netflix to stream in HD (720p). On some systems the update went without any problems, on some it wasn’t triggered for some (probably Microsoft related reasons). There are two ways to force the update, a mild one and a hardcore one (in case the mild method doesn’t work). We’ll describe both of them in detail after the break.

Mild Update:

1. Open Windows Media Center, and navigate to Tasks->Settings->General

2. On the General page, navigate and select Automatic Download Options

3. On the Automatic Download Options page, enable (check) the first two settings (Retrieve CD Album Art… and Automatically Download Windows Media Center data between…) Read More…

Well, after Netflix announced several days ago the availability of HD streaming (720p) on PC, everybody expected at some point that the Windows Media Center Netflix streaming plug-in to be upgraded as well. Guess what, it already happened and there is a new client available to be updated for your streaming pleasure. The update process is fairly similar with the first one you went through to install the Netflix client for the first time, so no surprises here. If the update doesn’t start by itself, just go to Settings->General->Automatic Download Options and click Download Now. And by the way, I just did the whole process on train, while commuting back home from work tethering via my iPhone. It literally took 2 minutes. Check some screenshots after the break.

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A very good news indeed for the HTPC aficionados using Windows Media Center. Windows 7 Embedded version will soon be available and, most important, include Windows media Center functionality. Expect a flurry of devices to pop up, with vastly reduced start time for your media consuming pleasure. It is true, there are many other embedded devices available already on the market (or announced) like POPBOX, but the market is only now heating up, so I’m very sure Microsoft will find its place. Now if you can only buy a box capable of 1080p and MKV under $200, that would be a deal. Visit Microsoft’s website for more info.

I’ll never write myself tweets while watching TV, but reading the ones I follow might prove useful from time to time. I have been looking for a while for Windows Media Center plug-ins to improve my TV watching experience, and TwitterMCE from MCEZone seemed to be a rather useful one, so I went ahead and install it.

Description:

TwitterMCE will allow you to post tweets, view friends, followers, timelines, Read More…

If the recent history proved something right, is the need to have an integrated experience, regardless of what software platform we are using. The phenomenal success of iPhone is not related to any amazing hardware, but to the fact that everything works so well together. One doesn’t need to tinker endlesly with software configurations, or dig on various websites to gather whatever software packages might be compatible with his platform. (Yeah, I know, WE do it, but if you want something to be really popular, you got to make it simple for the average Joe).

That being said, many companies are headed to the app store dirrection, Microsoft being one of them. However, Read More…

Introduction:

I promised an in-depth look of the mediabrowser plug-in for Windows Media Center and I am ready to deliver. My experience with mediabrowser started more than a year ago after I built my first Home Theater PC (HTPC). I used for a while the Movie Library provided as default, but something was lacking. After a while, I installed My Movies but it just wasn’t reliable enough for my configuration. I store all my movies on a central server and , My Movies client just didn’t work properly. So I looked around some more and found mediabrowser, a plug-in which at the time wasn’t as mature as My Movies but worked better for my configuration.

I will start describing mediabrowser by using it’s authors own words:

Formerly known as Video Browser, Media Browser is a personal media aggregator that takes your recorded, digital, or ripped media and presents it in a simple, easy to use interface. Media Browser prides itself on delivering a fast, intuitive, media rich experience for the whole family.

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