Thanks for commenting on my BluRay/Yamaha issue. FYI, the Yamaha soundbar converts all uncompressed PCM to 2 channel, which sorta negates the whole soundbar concept. Thus, the BluRay has to covert the stream to DTS which is then interpreted as 5.1. What’s unclear to me still is whether the higher HDMI bandwidth applies to this conversion, since it’s the same conversion used to send the sound over SPDIF or optical. The other issue is that, while I grant what you’re saying about sound, Tom (and it really sounds great to me) it’s disappointing not to really know what you’re missing.

You guys looking for something like this in terms of a portable media center:
http://gizmodo.com/5337532/zune-hd-tv-interface-makes-it-a-media-center-for-your-pocket

(Not saying it gives you everything you mentioned but definitely going that way)

Oh come on now! My e-mail to Gregg wasn’t THAT long. 17 page thesis. As if!

lol

I actually put all of my questions in the comments for the Video Calibration episode, so people can see for themselves what I wrote :p

I guess I’ll have to hit up the message boards for some answers though 🙁

OK, now you are tempting me to send an audition to be a fill in host with all the Windows Media Center talk, because I’ve lived that life for 5 plus years.

Clint is right on about Vista Media Center being easier and much better than XP MC Edition. While the laptop is a nice solution to just hook up to the TV, you could use that same laptop or other PC with Vista (or even better, 7) to attach to an Xbox 360 in extender mode (which is already built into the menu). With that same analog antenna you’ve now got a box that can be a DVR, stream live TV, play quite a few media formats (7 is much better than Vista because it can transcode codecs that the Xbox can’t play in extender mode), etc, all from a box many of us have attached to the TV anyway, the Xbox.

There are some limitations here…Hulu doesn’t work without a hacked add in (SecondRun TV), but it’s a pretty nice environment. And it’s the nicest looking interface to a DVR on the market IMO, and I don’t think I’ve ever missed a recording in recent memory.

The problem is lack of cablecard support on all but a hand full of purpose built boxes. Rumor is Dish is going to have a 7 MC interface for DVR soon, and there’s a hack to allow cablecards on any PC now, but it’s still a bit too tweakish for most.

It’s so nice to have the option to stop a recorded show in one room and be able to immediately resume where you were on another extender in another room. Multi-room DVR is so cool. And there’s an add-in program to even make it automatically skip commercials 🙂

MS is close, but not quite there for the average user. My mom would never be able to just set it up for instance. But if you spend the time, it’s a great environment.

I really hope for integration with a Windows Home Server box with the Xbox as extender model. Make the server a TV/Media appliance with the added benefit of being a great backup and file collection point that you can stick anywhere in the house on the network, plug in a cable tuner just like you would with a Tivo, and just let it run there in the background.

Again, we aren’t quite there, but Media Center in 7 is great with all the Play To stuff, codec transcoding, etc. And it’s got a really nice look to boot.

Thanks for the show guys.

Andy S – I, for one, would LOVE to hear a deep discussion about Windows Media Center!

I’ve been very intrigued by it for quite some time now, but it…just…isn’t…quite…there yet. There’s so much tweaking and 3rd party plug-ins needed – but it’s definitely closer to the idea of what I really want in my home.

In a nut shell, I just want to be able to access any of my content on any screen in my home. I want to be able to pause any content in one room and then go pick right back up in another. I want to be able to join in in a second room if the first room already has some content playing in progress.

Media Center delivers some of that, but honestly, for me, the biggest problem is getting content INTO WMC. Concrete apartment facing North in Canada? Not exactly the best location for OTA TV! We have no Cablecard option either. So the only way for me to get TV into WMC is with the Hauppauge HD PVR and I’d need a minimum of 2 of those plus two HD Set-top boxes from my cable provider.

I also want to put my entire DVD and Blu-ray collection in there – which you can do, but it’s illegal :p

We’re creeping towards what I want, but ultimately, I believe we won’t get there until what we use is an online profile and all of our content lives out in the Cloud. Just go to any screen (they’re all connected to the internet), plug in your user name/password (I actually think a retina scan would be most useful) and voila! You have access to all of your content – streamed to you on demand.

To me, that future makes more sense than setting up home servers and fiddling with all the various transcoding and technically illegal means of getting your content onto that server!

The Dolby Pro Logic IIz height channel thing is pointless IMO. People can’t even set up and position 5.1 speakers correctly! There’s no way they’re going to get the front height channels right!

It’s just another logo to put on the box. Why upgrade your perfectly good receiver? Well because the new one has DPL IIz of course! You don’t want to be stuck with ONLY DPL IIx do you?

lol

“We’re creeping towards what I want, but ultimately, I believe we won’t get there until what we use is an online profile and all of our content lives out in the Cloud. Just go to any screen (they’re all connected to the internet), plug in your user name/password (I actually think a retina scan would be most useful) and voila! You have access to all of your content – streamed to you on demand.”

You almost have what you want with Windows 7. If you tie your Live ID to your Homegroup, you can stream most of your stuff right now.

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/08/stream-recorded-tv-via-the-internet-and-windows-live.html

Also, 7MC requires much less tweaking than Vista. I have been running a box pretty much as it was installed from the release canidate since the weekend that was released. I added one plugin for a pretty interface for my ripped DVDs (which isn’t necessary at all since 7 already has the Movie menu option turned on by default instead of requiring a registry change).

Granted, I don’t use .mkvs, but there are even a couple of good options there that even work with extenders now.

But really with 7 it is much less tweaky at first.

And not having an OTA antenna isn’t the end of the world if all you want is your locals. Most of those are in Clear QAM these days, so a $50 digital tuner will get those.

You can see what’s available where you are at this site:

http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us

Cool! Thanks, Andy S!

I definitely plan to look more closely at WMC when I get Windows 7 in Oct. One concern that I have though is being able to hear the full quality TrueHD and DTS-HD soundtracks from Blu-rays that are ripped to the hard drive. As far as I know, there’s no support for HD Audio via extenders and I know that the Xbox360 cannot output HD Audio, so that is a bit of a sticking point for me still.

Yeah, the one of the bigger annoyances right now is that extenders are imperfect in duplication of some of the functionality. Rumors are that a version 3 of the extender will be announced at some point. Nearly all the non-360 extenders have been cancelled at this point, so it would make sense.

Not a huge loss as the 360 was always for the money a better buy, as the plain extenders were too expensive in comparison.

Right now, HD audio in general on even a PC running media center is not the greatest, as there are only one or two solutions that fully support it due to the “protected path” requirements the standard requires. I assume that will change over time, but the solutions out there right now are pricey.

Not to mention the fact that MC won’t play Blu-Ray natively, you have to rely on add in software that runs from within MC.

Did you see Engadget HD’s review of 7MC?

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/07/27/windows-7-media-center-review/

There really is nothing like a front projector & screen to really make your home feel like a proper theatre!

I blacked out my old (rental) apartment with curtains and used a FP setup for a few years. I honestly thought I would never go back to anything else, but living in total darkness all the time sort of got to me after a while :p

So what will replace the Infocus once it goes back?

Oh, and screens definitely do not have to be expensive. Elite Screens offers some pretty nice ones, even electric roll-down, for very reasonable prices. And a fixed frame screen from Carada is a great deal!

I used a manual pull-down Model ‘C’ from Da-lite with their High Power fabric. It was under $400 US and even though it wasn’t tensioned or powered, it was still excellent IMO 🙂

Andy S – yes, I did see the Engadget HD review! I find it highly ironic that Ben Drawbaugh finds some of the rather complex work-arounds and deep option configurations reasonable when he declared the entire line of Harmony remotes to be unacceptable because they won’t allow him to reprogramme that one “Power Off” button (as though there are no other options on a Harmony for turning on your gear)! :p That Ben Drawbaugh is one odd fellow…lol

Anyways, I find it such a shame that Microsoft did not bake in support for Blu-ray in Windows 7. I guess it somehow goes back to the “format war”, but it just seems silly at this point for Microsoft not to support Blu-ray and all of its features natively.

In truth, I’m tempted to go the route of having a full PC for every room and having them all share content off of a Windows Home Server as opposed to the WMC with Extenders model. Having a full PC in each room would allow for full HD Audio bitstream output (pricey though it may be for the audio cards) and it would also allow for PC gaming with my whole home essentially acting as a LAN party 😀

With one Home Server to which they all connect, I could just put all media content onto the Home Server and then each PC could access it as necessary in any room. There’s no way I could do PC gaming via the Extender model, but, of course, putting a gaming rig in every room would be VERY expensive!

RE Blu-Ray and MS: I think one of the biggest reasons MS doesn’t do it is that Blu Ray uses Java. Remember that huge lawsuit between Sun and MS a few years ago?

It will probably come if BR strengthens over time and downloads don’t take over. But it will take awhile. Just look at XP MC, which didn’t include an MPEG2 decoder/encoder, you had to install a 3rd party one. That was fixed with Vista.

The BR player is a cost + support issue for MS. There are many licensing fees which they would have to pay for every copy of windows sold and very few would actually use blu-ray so there isn’t much !/$ there. Plus as you can see with Cyberlink & Arcsoft, getting it right with all the features that can be used is non-trivial so it would increase support costs for the few people who do use it.

The cost issue is supported by the fact that even with Windows 7 DVD playback is not included in the basic versions. You have to go to one of the more expensive options to get DVD playback, basically it is only included to make Windows Media Center work out of the box.

I love my HTPC! I built mine for $400 using Windows 7 and have been living free from the tyranny of Comcast since early May! I haven’t really missed cable (although I may be singing a different tune once football season starts)and the GF like having easy access to our music collection and a DVD jukebox all controlled from the Harmony 890.

Our TV is on about 16 hours a day so when ever we aren’t actually watching anything a slide show of all our pics plays, another feature my GF really likes.

She does miss her girlie cable channels like WE and TLC. I know some of that content is available online, but she doesn’t like having to leave media center and pull out the wireless keyboard.

Anyone know of any good plugins so she can watch crap like say yes to the dress and other wedding related garbage?

I already have RSS feeds set up in bittorent for some of the shows she likes, top chef and jon and kate plus 8, but she misses the other stuff.

Any ideas?

Oh and for those of you living far from your favorite sports team’s market, I highly recommend getting a Hava Monsoon. It is like a sling box but cheaper and has a free ap to watch on your smart phone. Set it up at a friend or family member’s home that still lives near your favorite team and never miss another game again. Warning, the quality isn’t there, but you can’t beat the price!

David – Are you using Extenders, or do you have your HTPC running WMC connected directly to the TV?

I’m also wondering how you set up your DVD jukebox. To what file format did you rip the DVDs?

I’m still trying to figure out the best way to set up a Blu-ray jukebox. I don’t want to give up ANY video OR audio quality. I want the full TrueHD or DTS-HD audio quality, so that is one sticking point.

So far, I’ve had the most luck just using AnyDVD HD and ripping straight to an ISO. Then using the free Virtual CloneDrive to mount the ISO file. I’m using InterVideo WinDVD as the player and it all works fine on the PC, but it isn’t something that would work well using a Harmony Remote :p

The CloneDVD software is fantastic for creating DVD rips that only include exactly what I want, but I don’t know of any software that will do the same and be as easy to use for Blu-ray. I’m ok with the ISO because they are an exact 1:1 copy and retain 100% quality, but they also keep all the stupid trailers and warnings and such that I like to remove with DVDs. It isn’t about saving hard drive space at all, it’s just about keeping the menus, the main feature, the extra features and only cutting out the annoying and unnecessary stuff 🙂

Rob, 7MC now has MC’s built in Movies option turned on by default and it’s pretty good. I like to play, so I added Media Browser as well, and it’s really pretty to look at. Google it and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

For DVDs if you don’t plan to play them on the media extender, you can just rip them pretty much as they are on the DVDs…video_ts folders. I use the free RipIt4Me that’s basically an automater for DVDDecrypter/DVDShrink. If you want to run them on extenders you could just get the main .vob file or convert into some other container that’s basically uncompressed.

I think people often rip Blu Ray with AnyDVD into .iso format for full use (like you mention)…again…not for use through extenders. If you want full quality video through an extender you use mkv files as containers and install one of a couple of options to be able to stream those to extenders (I assume without HD audio…but I’m not sure).

thegreenbutton.com is a great place to dig around for a lot of deep dive technical stuff.

David, have you looked at:

http://secondrun.tv/

or TunerFreeMCE:
http://tinyurl.com/dfp9ug

If the cable shows she’s interested in stream from the network’s website, they might be supported by one of those.

Rob, my HTPC is connected to my AVR and then to my display via a long HDMI run.
I plan on adding an extender in the future.

I use a combination of DVDShrink and AnyDVD, ripped to their normal video_ts folders pretty much like Andy S described. I also don’t use any compression in order to preserve their original quality.

Andy S, thanks for the links I’ll be trying those out soon 🙂

Well I’ve installed and tried both secondruntv and TunerFreeMCE.

The interface on both is pretty nice, although I like secondren better so far.

The drawback is neither of these seems to work properly yet. The menus and navigation are fine, but when you launch the video, it just show a tiny video window in the middle of a hulu web page. TunerFreeMCE has a full screen button that can be selected via remote, but it doesn’t work. I’ve tried clicking on the full screen button on the actual webpage useing a mouse, but that seems to be disabled too.

I also don’t like how both are buried in the Extras, instead of being in the main menu.

🙁 Guess I’ll have to endure further complaints from the GF and wait for further development in these programs or more income to pay for cable.

I still love my HTPC though!

Wow I just reread my post and am ashamed of all the grammatical errors. I really need to proof before I post. I wish there was way to edit posts.

Sorry everyone.

Update: after a recent Windows system update, the full screen button in TunerFreeMCE became functional. However, the picture is severely shifted down and to the right in full screen mode, making it both better and worse than it was before.

HTPC’s are a complicated mess especially for Blu-Ray/HD DVD playback.

Tom, Travel HD is available (in your area) with U-verse and Dish Network. Bizarre Foods is awesome. Man vs. Food ain’t bad, either. Both definitely qualify as dude friendly.

Is there any way to get ISO files (full rips of DVDs or Blu-rays) to play from the WMC interface?

It’s easy enough to get them to play by mounting them on a Virtual Drive, but I don’t know how to get the WMC interface to automatically mount and play back the files. Is there a way?