Don’t stop there check out these 10 other ways to customize your media center! Many of us are used to being able to see a channel’s logo instead of just a boring old name in our TV listings from our DVRs and Media Centers but it is also one of those features lacking natively in 7MC. Fortunately, thanks to the [...]
Following up on this article on getting Media Center to use FFDShow Audio instead of the default Windows 7 codecs let’s take a look at some of the settings available in FFDShow Audio Decoder. Let’s start with how to check if FFDShow is in fact being used or not. The simplest way to check is to enable the system tray [...]
Warning: This hack modifies system files and may cause instability in certain Windows applications under atypical situations. It has been tested to the extent described in the article but not beyond. When you’re done setting up FFDShow Audio check out this guide on setting up FFDShow Video as well. Many enthusiasts prefer the ability to set their favorite codec for [...]
Windows 7 includes a new system for organizing your personal files called “Libraries”. On the surface they seem to work much the same as the old system but a closer look reveals that, unlike the previous system where each user gets a documents, music and videos folder, libraries can include many different directories. These directories are important to Media Center [...]
Nothing kills a Media Center user like having to pull out the old keyboard and mouse just to sit in front of the TV and run some updates or install new software. Many have turned to a feature in Windows known as Remote Desktop Connection. This feature, though only included in some versions of Windows, provides an easy way to [...]
Acquiring details for your Media Center’s Movie Library can be difficult. Built-In support for adding this information is slim and complicated, furthermore it can’t be edited by the end user. You’re stuck with what you get. There are a few other options like DVDXml.com, though searching for all those movies on the DVDXml.com website can get tiring. Fortunately, there is [...]
We all love those boxes, our DVRs, PVRs and Media Center PC setups. The problem with all our boxes are similar: there is never anything on and when there is it has too many commercials. Even our precious DVRs can’t go back in time to fetch that episode we forgot to setup to record. Our precious Media Centers are [...]
Missing Remote has a wonderful write-up and download available to help those who have been lucky enough so far to get in to the Boxee alpha test. Boxee is a media center style application that has gained popularity for it’s ability to stream video from online sources such as Hulu and Joost. These two services provide a wealth of content [...]
Out of the box Windows 7 Media Center supports a few streaming radio services including Live365.com and XM Radio if your preferred service happens to be Shoutcast though you’re still in luck. Thanks to a plug-in developed by Sörnt of The Green Button you can get your Shoutcast streams directly into Media Center’s Radio section. The plug-in, called mcShoutcast, is [...]
At times installing codecs for all your music, movies and what have you seems to be 30% science, 70% voodoo. Fortunately, there is a way to double-check our brew to make sure it’s running the way we originally intended. GraphStudio will allow you to load your media files and show you the codecs being used to render it. It will [...]
All too often perfectly good plug-ins get left by the wayside with their original designers moving on to other projects and interests and these programs are simply left to rot. Unfortunately this rot takes it’s toll over time with updates to the main program and even the under lying operating system. Recently, with the release of the official Windows 7 [...]
One of the few things lacking in Media Center has been an easy way to view your local weather without tuning in a news station. Since support for this is still left out in 7MC we have to turn to a plug-in to fill the gap. Heatwave, originally developed by MCExtended on The Green Button, is an elegant solution to [...]
Yesterday I posted about a simple yet effective way to edit the programs in your extras library. Today I’m going to lead you to a pair of programs that make it simple to add, edit and remove new listings from your program library. The first is Media Center Launcher, which can be found for download from Mikinhosoft in both x86 [...]
