Officially known as Vista Media Center Mail, a recent update has made this useful little Media Center plugin Windows 7 compatible. Created by and available for download from OABSoftware getting started with the plugin is a snap.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the plugin you’ll need to open up the configuration software from the programs menu. The first thing you’ll need to do is setup the basic configuration. Tell the program how often you’d like it to check for new mail and what sound, if any, you’d like played when new mail arrives.

New create your first user by pressing the Add new user ()  icon in the toolbar. Select the user’s name in the tree on the left to assign a display name and optional picture to be used if you have multiple users. On single user setups you will enter directly into the mailbox area, while multiple user setups will be able to choose from a list of users inside Media Center.

Next setup the mail accounts for each user by selecting the user and pressing the Add new mail account ( ) icon. For Gmail accounts, use pop.gmail.com, port 995, and enable SSL. Then enter your username and password. When you press the Apply button the program will double check that you are able to login to the server correctly.

For other accounts, check with your service provider for pop3 server information.

Now just open up Windows 7 Media Center and go into the Extra Programs. You should see an icon for Media Center Mail which will allow you access to the plugin. Once inside, choose the user you’d like to read mail for and you’ll be given a list of emails, sorted by date.

It’s worth noting that Media Center Mail doesn’t check for new mail immediately after starting Media Center and instead it appears to wait the default time set in the configuration before checking.

Also, it appears that Google doesn’t appreciate that the plugin attempts to download all emails since the beginning of the account and appears to put the brakes on the retrieval. This could also be a limitation put in place by the plugin developer, either way it make take some time to catch up with older accounts.

Selecting an unread email will take you to a simple reader window. The reader doesn’t support much beyond the basics however. You will be able to read the email as plain text, no images or urls, with no ability to reply or do much other than mark it as read or delete the message.

Maybe in the future we’ll see more features from the plugin but for now it’s a perfect tool for those who just need to take a break from work without missing out on important emails. This is one tool we’d love to see go open source as well, allowing for the collective community to add features to really open up the possibilities of 10-foot email.

For now, download and install Media Center Mail to give it a try. It’s definitely worthy software for your Media Center install and it supports extenders as well. For users with extenders make sure to check the option in the configuration for all users.

The preferred method for getting unsupported media types from your Media Center to your Xbox extender has been to use Transcode 360. Plenty of users are having quite a bit of trouble getting the third party application to work properly on their Windows 7 setups however.

Thanks to CW-Kid of The Media Center Blog we’ve got a new guide to setting up Transcode 360 on Windows 7 machines. The guide takes you through all the steps to get the program working on Windows 7 Media Center. Setting up a number of the most popular plug-ins like My Movies and Media Browser are also covered.

To get going you’ll need to download the guide which is in PDF format, so you’ll also need a PDF reader. Adobe Acrobat or FoxIt Reader which are both free applications you can use to view the guide. You will also need a couple of files during the installation process. Hack7MC has setup a mirror of the files so as to not overload CW-Kid’s Live Drive.

Download the files you’ll need during setup here:

• Transcode 360 1.6.3
• Mencoder and FFMpeg Updates
• Transocde 360 Network Registry

Now just follow the guide and it will take you from setup all the way through streaming your first video to your Xbox 360 Extender.

Thanks to CW-Kid for this great guide! Hack7MC can’t operate without the great community of Media Center users and programmers. If you’ve got a hot tip or trick to share with the community let us know with through our contact page!

I wrote yesterday how EncodeHD can help you convert your video files for use on your portable devices.  It’s perfectly suited and with the list of supported hardware, it should work for just about anyone.  The one issue with using it for Media Center or playback on the Xbox 360 is the limitations imposed by the 360 on the mp4 format which EncodeHD converts your files to.  The 360 doesn’t support AC3 audio and therefore you lose surround sound.

Luckily there’s a solution for this and it’s located in the same place.  EncodeHD replaced Encode360, the first conversion application from Dan Cunningham.  Encode360 converts your files to wmv using ffdshow and Windows Media Encoder.  Using wmv is the (pretty much) perfect solution due to the fact that it’s fully supported in MCE and on the 360 as an extender.  Where the problem comes in is that MS is no longer developing Windows Media Encoder which is used in the conversion process.  This has rendered Encode360 a bit dated (so it seemed) and forced Dan to move forward with the replacement app, EncodeHD.

Having loved using Encode360, I decided it was time to give it a try in Windows 7 to see if the application could still work.  I use EncodeHD for converting files for my Zune since it’s quick, easy to use and and the output files play perfectly.  When it comes to my 360 and MCE however, I want my surround sound.  That’s why I was so happy to find out that Encode360, while no longer supported, is still available for download.

Installing the application is a pretty straight forward process.  There are a few things you’ll need first though.  Windows Media Player 11 is required but we’re up to 12 in Windows 7 so you shouldn’t have to worry about upgrading that.  You’ll also need Windows Media Encoder and a Hotfix that is available.  After you’ve installed these two executables, you’re ready to install Encode360.  Something to keep in mind here:  Unlike EncodeHD, Encode360 is an installer package.  When you run the installer, the package installs K-Lite codec pack on your machine (optional but codecs are required).  We all know that codecs can be absolute havoc with video playback in Media Center and other applications.  I’m lucky enough to have a laptop to use for file conversions so that nothing touched my main MCE machine.  Be sure you know what you’re doing before installing Encode360.

Once you have the app installed, it looks a lot like EncodeHD as far as layout.  You can drag and drop files for conversion and then choose your settings.  You can see at the top of the app that you can choose your resolution.  I typically try to match the input file so there’s no change.  The only time I lower it is if I happen to be converting a file for the Zune.

Before you start converting files you’ll want to be sure and head into “Advanced Settings”.  This is where you can choose your bitrate, exact wmv encoding you want along with a plethora or other settings:

As you can see from above, this screen will also provide you more details on the file you have selected for conversion including the actual input resolution so you can match it up if you want to.

While Encode360 is no longer supported, if you either know how to manage codecs on your PC or if you have a spare PC you can use for conversion, it’ll work in Windows 7 and provide you a way to get different video codecs to play nicely with Media Center and extenders.

Find even more home theater guides and news on The Digital Media Zone at thedigitalmediazone.com

Don’t worry, we’re not going to leave you hanging behind! Here’s the solution to the problem, we need to give the extender permission to access that folder. First open up Windows Explorer and navigate to the users folder at, “C:\Users\” on the host computer. If you’ve already set up your extender you should see a user that begins “Mcx1” or something similar.

Copy down that username into the clipboard (or however you’d like to copy it) and then navigate on over to the “C:\ProgramData” folder. This folder is hidden by default, you can either enable hidden folder viewing in Folder Options or enter the location in the address bar and hit enter. Now, right-click the MediaBrowser folder and select “Share With –> Specific People…”. This should bring up a dialog like the one below.

Paste the user name you copied earlier into the dropdown box and hit the “Add” button. Most likely, through the magic of Windows, the username will be transformed into a uuid like the one you see above and that’s fine. Next to this new user set the permission level, chances are “Read” will do just fine for most circumstances. Setting this to “Read/Write” will enable Media Browser’s cache functions to properly save newly cached metadata when using your extender however.

That’s all there is to it, just load up your extender and enjoy Media Browser in it’s full shiny toy glory!

For even more Media Browser customization have a look at these guides on Getting Trailers Inside Media Browser and Adding Actor Images to the movie details page.

The first thing we need to do is get the proper hardware. I don’t know about you but I haven’t used (or even seen) an analog modem in the last decade. So the first thing we’ll need to do is pickup the proper hardware. I went with the Rosewill RNX-56AG which at $7 from Newegg is by far the cheapest component in my home theater setup.

Once you’ve got the hardware installed it’s advisable to get the latest drivers for your caller ID capable modem. Throughout the rest of this guide directions will be given specifically for the Rosewill RNX-56AG but may work with other brands. The lastest drivers for the RNX-AG56 can be found at Rosewill.com’s driver page. As of the time of this guide no Windows7 specific drivers are available but the proper Vista drivers work just fine.

After you’ve got the latest drivers installed you will need to download a program called Caller ID Repair Utility, also from VistaCallerID.com. This will add the proper values to the driver’s .inf file to allow for Caller ID to work with the VistaCallerID program. Download the program then right-click to “Run as Administrator”. Inside the program window choose “AT+VCID=1” in the drop box, the other options should remain the same. Press the “Repair” button and restart your machine.

Next, you will need to download and install the Vista Caller-ID program and the Media Center plug-in from VistaCallerID.com. After installing these, launch the main program to bring up the settings window. Select the modem from the listing in the box at the top, it should be marked with a green checkmark. Right-click the entry and select “Configure Options”. In this window you will need to enter your area code and press OK.

Back in the main options window, there are a number of interesting features available. Vista Caller-ID includes support for importing contacts from Microsoft Outlook which will allow the program to display pictures of your known contacts when they call as well as edit the details for each contact through Outlook. You can even enable a feature to have your PC announce the caller by name when they call.

For now we’re only going to look at enabling call notification and turning on the Media Center plug-in. Check both of these options for Caller ID to appear correctly inside of Media Center. You will also need to be sure that you’ve installed the Media Center plug-in which isn’t included in the main package but downloaded separately.

Vista Caller-ID is able to send caller information over the network to a Media Center PC as well meaning that with the correct information (IP/Network Name) it should even be possible to use the plug-in on an extender. Just select the “Configure” link next to the Media Center plug-in checkbox and input the network name or IP address of the box to receive caller ID information.

This is also quite handy for those people who have filled up all their available PCI slots in their HTPC as you can install the modem into a separate box.

That’s all there is to setting up Caller ID in Windows 7 Media Center. You should now see caller ID displayed inside a small window when someone calls. For even more information, support and downloads visit VistaCallerID.com.

To get the latest tutorials from Hack7MC be sure to subscribe to the RSS Feed! Have something you’d like to see on Hack7MC? Drop me a line at mhealy@hack7mc.com or leave a comment!

To get started you’ll need to download and install a copy of Handbrake. It’s available for a number of platforms including Windows, OS X and Linux. Command line versions are available as well but for this we will be using the Windows GUI version. Once you’ve got Handbrake installed open up the GUI by selecting HandBrake from the programs menu.

Once inside the first thing we need to do is select the source video. To do this press the “Source” button in the toolbar then select “video file” from the drop down menu. Next set the output file in the Destination File input, you may either select the output type in the Save as type drop down box in the file save window or select the type in the main window.

After setting your source and destination files, make sure that the Format listed under Output Settings is set to the correct format. If you are converting videos to use on an extender it will most likely be necessary to select an MPEG-4 Codec on the video tab. Switch to the Video tab and select “MPEG-4 (FFmpeg)”. For converting to MPG4 to play on an extender these are the most compatible settings to use.

To begin converting a single file simply select “Start” from the toolbar. For multiple conversions you may want to setup a queue, which will allow you to add multiple source videos and output files to a batch process. Settings for each conversion can be set individually, simply press “Add to Queue” then go through the same steps for each video.

When you’ve finished adding videos to the queue, press the “Show Queue” button to bring up the queue listing. Check to make sure there are no errors in the listing, for instance non-alphanumeric characters in filenames will cause blank entries. These should be removed and re-entered so as to not cause problems in the process.

From the “Show Queue” window you have the option to begin the conversion process by pressing the “Encode” button. Alternatively, you can save or load Queues from the “Queue” drop down box. Also, you will be given the option to create a .bat file which can be executed from outside the Handbrake GUI. This .bat file can be used to run a scheduled task or for any other reason you may want to do a batch conversion without the GUI.

That’s all there is to doing some basic conversion using Handbrake. Simple to use with plenty of extra options, including advanced options for h.264 if you should choose to use a compatible codec. The ability to setup conversion queues and batch files for scheduled processing make the possibilities even greater. Include the fact that this is free, open-source software and there’s no reason to not give Handbrake a try.

You can use Handbrake to rip video from your DVDs too, check out this guide on Bringing DVDs to your Media Center with Handbrake!

Get the Tools

To do this conversion we’ll use DVRMSToolbox which can be downloaded from Andy VT’s Blog. The latest version of DVRMSToolbox will include all the programs we need to do the conversion from MKV to DVR-MS for our Media Center Extender.

The profile for DVRMSToolbox was developed by Ben of Engadget HD with help from Warren Wiltshire of Seagull Consulting. Be sure to head over there and check out Engadget HD as they have lots of great home theater related articles each day.

Let’s Get Started

Once you’ve downloaded and installed DVRMSToolbox launch DVRMStoMPEGSettings from the start menu programs. We will need to tell the profile that we aren’t just working with TV series files and instruct it to not send all the files to Recorded TV.

Since we aren’t exclusively using TV series’, locate “Convert MKV to DVR-MS – mencoder” in the profile listing then press the “Edit Profile” button. Select the line that reads “Read metadata from TvDB and build Sage XML file” and click “Configure”. Check the “ContinueOnFail” checkbox and click OK.

Next locate the line reading “Move file specified in Context(‘OutputFile’) to …” and select it then hit “Configure”. Uncheck the “UseRecordedTVPath” checkbox and double-click the DestinationPath dialog box to set the output directory. This will prevent each converted file from being moved to the Recorded TV directory. Alternatively, you could also simply remove this step from the conversion profile. Once this is done, save the profile and exit DVRMSToolbox Settings.

After saving the conversion profile you should be able to convert non-TV series files to DVR-MS. Open DVRMStoMPEGGUI from the start menu programs. Once inside, double-click the Input File dialog box and select the MKV file you want to convert (you will need to change the file types dropbox to “All Files (*.*)”). Then set the output file name by double-clicking the Output File dialog box and setting the “Save as Type” dropbox to DVR-MS.

Inside the main window set the Process Priority, the higher the priority the faster the transcode should take place. Setting the priority to “Realtime” is not suggested, however, as this can cause system instability. In the Profile dropbox select the “Convert MKV to DVR-MS – mencoder” profile and make sure the “Use Selected Profile” checkbox is marked.

Press “Run” to begin the conversion. This process can take quite a bit of time to complete and doesn’t scale well with multiple core systems. The resulting DVR-MS file will most likely take up more space than the original MKV file as well. Any MKV files that have been converted can be deleted after the process is completed.

That’s all there is to converting your MKVs to DVR-MS using DVRMSToolbox. You should now be able to play the converted file on any Windows Media Center Extender.

Be sure to leave a comment on your experience and tips for using DVRMSToolbox and Media Center Extenders below or in the Google Friend Connect at the top of each page!

This requires that the receiving pc be running Windows 7 (the Media Center should also be running Windows 7 or TV Pack 2008). The first step is to share the folder you record to on the Media Center machine. Typically this is the “Public\Recorded TV” folder which would be shared by default.

If the folder isn’t shared, locate the folder, right-click and select properties. Select the Sharing tab and press Advanced Sharing. Select the “Share this folder” checkbox and assign a name. Before pressing OK be sure that “Everyone” is listed under Permissions. If not, add it now by pressing Add and typing Everyone into the objects box at the bottom.

Once the folder has been shared, you need to add the folder to the library on the receiving computer. This can be done either in Windows Media Player or Media Center.

To add the folder to Recorded TV in WMP, make sure Recorded TV is listed. If it isn’t right-click in the left pane and select Customize Navigation Pane then make sure Recorded TV is selected.

In Media Center select Recorded TV from the start menu then bring up the right-click menu. From the menu select “Manage Libraries” then choose the option to add a folder. Select the option to add a folder from another computer then locate the folder on the next screen. Once you’ve done that let Media Center finish setting up the library.

That’s all there is to it. Though this doesn’t add the ability to watch live TV from the Media Center as is possible with non-PC extenders this is one step closer. At least now we can share our recorded shows between full HTPC machines or even just watch that show from last night while we work.

Don’t stop there! Check out these 10 other steps to maximize your Media Center experience.

This new feature built-in to Windows 7 allows you to control the media being played on any number of enabled devices including other Windows 7 machines and Media Center.  You can find a long list of capable devices over at The Digital Lifestyle, including the capabilities of each device. Getting going with Play To should be simple and is between Windows 7 machines; the abilities of other compatible devices may vary however.

The easiest way to get started with Play To on Windows 7 is to open Windows Media Player 12. Once inside WMP we have to enable the ability to receive media streams from other devices by clicking the “Share” tab in the library view and marking the checkbox labeled “Receive media on your network.”

Once you’ve enabled this feature (or similar features of non-Windows devices) you can choose which devices will have access to your media files across the network.  This will also give us some idea of what devices we might expect to see in our “Play To” list, for instance if you expect to play media to your Xbox 360 you should ensure it’s available on this list.

As you can see from the picture above there are three devices listed but later on you will notice that only two are available in the Play To list.  This is due to the fact that one of the devices listed is running Windows Vista which does not currently support Play To and so is excluded.

The next step is finding the media you want to play across machines.  This is where one of the best new features of Play To comes in, if you want to play a media file that isn’t natively supported by the other device Play To will convert the file before streaming it to the other box.  Many compatibility issues will surely be solved by this simple but ever so useful feature.

Once you’ve located the media you want to play on your other Play To capable device right-click to bring up the menu and navigate to the “Play To” menu.  From here you should see a second menu listing your Play To devices.

After selecting your device from the list you should get a new window with a list of the files you want to send and a number of other controls.  This is going to be the area which you control the play of the other device, not the native WMP interface. As you can see below this windows has controls to play/pause, next and previous track and volume. Also in this display we can find our playlist and display of the currently playing media, this playlist will also present you with any errors that may have come up during the playback of certain files.

From here you’re all set to stream your media to your other Windows PCs, Media Center and extenders through out your entire network.  This feature is one of Microsoft’s main goals with the release of Windows 7 and will surely see further development both before and after release with support for more devices and features to come.  For now, enjoy your transcendent ability to play your media from every corner of your world!

You can also check out a number of more in depth articles on the Play To feature at The Digital Lifestyle: Multiple Devices and Sync, Play To and Media Center and the List of Devices mentioned earlier in this article.