Emergintex

coming up in my next post, look out for a cheap digital video recorder solution that i came up with me for home last week.

dvr

ok. so i got the xbox media center extender update also. so far i have been seeing the glossy side of media center extenders. all nice and blue.
once, you get to the actual usage, you see thores of media lying around on your pc, that you now want to watch on the tv in your living room. hmmm i had a avi file for a recent stage show in l.a. xbox media center extender cant stream it. all it recognizes is wmv files, that too not all. only some.
now you feel why would a media center extender would be so picky on the formats. wasnt it supposed to be a media center? to play all your media. come on now, i am not talking of some format thats used by couple of companies. i am talking of avi.
i found some converters for converting your avi vids to recognizable wmv format for the xbox extender, on which i will post more later on.
but how long would i do these conversions? i guess its more sensible to dedicate the media center pc to the entertainment rack, besides your tv, and use the tv as the direct output. you get all you have then. no converters, no extenders.
whats happening about this on xbox-360? i will need to find that out.
Xbox
Xbox extender

i got the media center extender upgrade today from microsoft. this is supposed to play restricted premium channels on the tv via teh xbox, which was restricted in version 1.0. they also included a msn music card worth 5 free downloads from msn music.sweet.
i have not tried out the update yet, but plan to install it this weekend.

as i posted earlier, i had some issues with playing premium channels via the xbox extender on my tv. i was able to see these channels on the media center pc though.
just now i got the link to the update at microsoft that would let me play these channels on the tv.
the link is here

scheduled recording
Originally uploaded by ravneetg.

many a times i have ended up in blockbuster video looking for past seasons of sopranos.
moments ago i was playing around with my new media center, and then thought that why not schedule a recording for sopranos on my media center !
so in i went and created the above scheduled recording. all i need now is to keep my pc on !
nice.

my laptop (win xp pro) had this pattern for dying off one fine day every 6 months or so, sending me in a frenzy of install-clean-install cycles.
also i was looking for a desktop for home use that i can rely to my ever growing collection of digital images. i had no interest wahtsoever in buying a media center pc, and i used to say, what am i gonna do with a media center.
then i spotted this deal at best buy. a gateway lower end media center pc for $699. the machine was with some decent configs (512ram/250hdd/p43.0ht). add up a princeton 19″ lcd flat panel ($280 @ costco) and had a decent setup at home.
media center certainly looked good with the usual microsoft user experiences. the media center console looked real good. but the barebones gateway pc didnt come with a tv tuner card, so i was without live tv working in the media center console. i started liking the console so much that within 2 days i was out hunting for a tv tuner card. luckily got one for $100 next day. next up i linked up the cable into the tuner card, and i was getting live tv streamed upto my 19″ flat panel. so far so good.
the same me, who 2 days ago said i wont be using media center capabililities was now thinking ‘it would be good if i can stream this to my tv in the living room ,but still leaving my pc here in the other room’. i was back in the market hunting for a new solution. luckily i had a xbox lying around under my tv in the living room. now all i needed was to get that xbox online with my linksys router in the other room. tried wireless but failed in that. then saw a existing cabling channel in the living room giving me direct short access to the other room. so i opened it up and ran a network cable right through the wall, to my linksys router. a couple moments into the media center extender setup (which i bought again for $70) and i was streaming live tv via the extender on the tv.
moment to take a breather. while fiddling with the channels i noticed that i was not able to watch premium channels like hbo and hbo2 when viewing via the media center extender. prompts me about ‘restricted content’. seems like there is/was a upgrade for xbox to get rid of this problem but havent looked into it yet. though i am able to watch these channels on the media center pc. so yeah, i can still record these channels.
enjoying it so far, without any issues (apart from the premium channels).

Technorati tag: Media Center
Technorati tag: Media