Theme Patches/Installers

• Around The Mountains – 20.8mb
• Midnight Magic – 48.5mb
• Astrotoy7 Black – 15.2mb
• Bokeh – 27.6mb
• Soylet Green – 27.8mb
• Flying Whales – 39.9mb
• Nowhere Road – 50.1mb
• Homeworld – 24.2mb

Channel Logos

• UK Freeview – 236kb
• UK Freesat – 621kb
• UK Channel pack – 2.8mb
• Canadian Channel Logos – 339kb

Looking for Media Center Studio Packages? Find five of these themes in MCT format right here!

If you’re new to Hack7MC have a look at some of our most popular articles for Windows 7 Media Center users:

• MKVs for Minimalists on Windows 7
• Playing FLAC files in WMP & Media Center
• The Short List of Small Fixes for Windows Media Center

Also, become a subscribing member through any of our free subscription methods including RSS and Twitter.

Over the coming weeks progress will continue to be made on improving the Download Center area to make it easier to find downloads and information about them through that area. Currently holding almost a hundred downloads, each entry will be getting a once over to add additional information and directions to allow to reader to begin using the download immediately. At the moment most downloads should have a Read More link under the download button which should take you to the most relevant article about the download here on Hack7MC.

With any luck we’ll also be expanding the Download Center to include even more programs and files available for download. If you’ve got any programs, hacks or files for Media Center that you would like to be included in our download archives drop a line at mhealy@hack7mc.com. Hopefully this will make it easier to not only find the downloads you’re looking for but also get some basic information on using them.

Thanks to all our regular readers and media center fans for being a part of the Hack7MC community!

• MCEBuddy Still Saving Space and Cutting Commercials now in WTV

• Remote Potato now Streaming Recorded TV and more

• Changing Windows 7 Media Center Plugin Icons

• Using MetaBrowser 2.0 to tag a Movie Library

Thanks for being a member of the Hack7MC Community!

Enter Here to Win a Free ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Dual Tuner new in box (no remote included), the exact same one pictured above!

Entry Closed.

At the end of the giveaway, which will run through April 17th, 2010, a winner will be chosen randomly from all the entries received. The winner must respond to the receipt of an e-mail at the end of the contest within 3 days with mailing information or a new winner will be chosen. ALL information received will be used exclusively for the giveaway then deleted at the completion of the giveaway.

In the near future we’ll be releasing both a forums and a dedicated downloads section to our offerings here at Hack7MC. Adding a forums area to the site has been a much requested feature recently from the users and it’s logical that should you want to discuss Windows 7 Media Center and the hacks, guides and tools covered here at Hack7MC that you need not find a different site to open up a discussion. Creating a forum here on Hack7MC will provide our users the ability to start and participate in ongoing discussions beyond the basic comment areas of each post.

A dedicated downloads section will provide easier access to the tools and downloadable files already provided inside the various guides and articles here at Hack7MC without having to scour through the content of each page to find the relevant download links you’re looking for. Simply visit the download section and browse through the categories or do a quick search to find the downloads you need. This method should prove to be quite a bit more user friendly and a boon for those who are always searching through the guides while setting up a new feature on their own Media Center to get the downloadable tools and hacks they’re looking for.

Hopefully both of these new features help to provide our users with a central location for all the information and downloads they need to get their Windows 7 Media Centers into top shape. With a little luck and the participation of our excellent and fast growing community we’ll become a hub for Windows 7 Media Center enthusiasts everywhere. Thank you for being a part of that community and we hope you stick around for a long time to come!

But wait, there’s more! This layout has been designed from the ground up for rapid feature development in mind. What this means for you is that new features here at Hack7MC will take hours or even minutes to deploy as opposed to days. This will allow us to focus more on Hacking Media Center and spend less time keeping up with site development. Hack7MC uses Wordpress as a backend and this new layout provides a total of eight widget areas and twenty-two custom hooks installing new functionality is a snap.

Additionally, for those using CSS3 capable browsers you’ll see an improved user experience with the reduction of images being used in the layout without a reduction in style. This should greatly improve load times for low bandwidth users as well as non-US residents, cutting down on the amount of data that needs to be transferred.

For those not so interested in the backend we haven’t left you out in the cold either. There have been a number of improvements already implemented in the front end. For example, navigation of the site should be exponentially easier with the inclusion of paged navigation and breadcrumb trails. You can now use the paged navigation at the bottom of the front page to go through the entire archive of posts or use the green arrows located inside each post to navigate back and forth through time. Also an improve search function has been included which should provide much more relevant results than the previous solution.

Of course, we’re still working on improving the search function even further so look for even easier searching of the archives in the near future. There are sure to be a few bugs in the works as well however. If you happen to notice any glitches while browsing around the new site be sure to post a comment below or send it in through the contact form!

Hopefully you enjoy our new look and spend even more time browsing through the content here at Hack7MC!

Care of The Digital Media Zone we’ve got some big news in the area of commercial removal for Windows 7 Media Center with the public release of the Show Analyzer 1.0 Beta which includes support for the WTV file format without conversion to DVRMS.

This week there was also a big new release from babgvant announced over at Missing Remote. Babgvant, the creator of the indispensible DVRMSToolbox, has put forth the first release of a codec pack project named AntiPack. We’ll definitely be taking an in depth look at that in the coming week.

Over at Theme7MC we’ve got a new set of color channel logos available for download for our Canadian readers submitted by reader Mark Galli.

Finally, we’ve got a story here from a blog by James Poniewozik over at Time Magazine’s site that will warm your Windows Media Center heart. Buying that Tivo won’t necessarily get you out of having a whole new set of problems that come with proprietary hardware and software. Seems that this fellow can’t seem to keep his running for more than 10-months per $700 box.

This project is a from-scratch redesign especially for Hack7MC with a focus on usability. At the same time the newest technologies are being implemented including HTML5 which will allow for easier integration of audio and video features.

Also, this site runs on the Wordpress platform so the redesign is taking advantage of the newest features of the platform to speed up the development of new features. The new template has fully eight fully widgetized areas allowing for on-the-fly changes without the need to edit the codebase of the site.

For usability, paged navigation including options to navigate from the oldest post through to the newest from both the main page and inside each article have been included. Additionally a fluid design adds support for the smallest to the largest resolutions without sacrificing any readability for the user.

There are many more features on the way for Hack7MC as well and hopefully you’ll enjoy the new look when it arrives. If you have any suggestions you’d like to put into the development process send it in using the form below!

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In the future we’d also like to have a series of guide detailing how to get started creating your own Media Center plugins. In order to provide the bets information for budding plugin developers we need to enlist a member or two from the community, however.

What we’re looking for is a volunteer who can write up a few basic guides to getting started with the most basic tasks of creating Windows Media Center plugins. Creating a “Hello, World” plugin with a few controls and and a launch icon in the Extra Programs menu. Keeping the language very simple, easy to read and for the basic beginner with no programming experience. No need to get into the nuances and minor details at this point.

If you think you might be interested in sharing your expertise with the Media Center community and can provide an easy to read guide with plenty of screenshots, you may be exactly what we’re looking for! This stint could also potentially lead to a more involved and steady position here at Hack7MC and in future projects in development.

So if you’re interested in participating in the community here at Hack7MC and helping your fellow enthusiasts be sure to fill out your details in the form at the end of this post letting us know you’re interested. No worries if you don’t have previous experience with online writing or aren’t looking for long term commitment.

Among the improvements are a completely redesigned initial interface, stability and performance improvements and an all new plug-in system. Also among the new features is a very enhanced configuration application. Introduced in the last version of Media Browser, the configuration application now has an advanced tab which allows for much more customization than the previous version.

So head on over and download the latest version of Media Browser and keep checking back to Hack7MC for the full review and future guides on using the new Media Browser.

Also of note this week, though no where near as notable as a new Media Browser, are various improvements to the Hack7MC site.

First you’ll most likely notice that the Friend Connect bar at the top of the site is now gone. You can still post comments using your Friend Connect or Google Account but the actual Friend Connect bar was slow to load and didn’t any anything substantial to the content.

The decision to remove it came as a result of a more general effort to improve the performance of the entire site which has been a great success. Regular readers should see a huge improvement in the response time of the site.

Also under construction here on Hack7MC are the usability elements. Any small images and small text are going to be slowly phased out and replaced with larger easier to use elements.

If there are any areas of the site you’d like to see improvements or changes feel free to drop your suggestions through the contact form.

Hopefully, this collection of tools will help you sort out any issues you come across while using your Media Center. The collection will be kept as up-to-date as possible and can be found on the linked page so you can check back for updates as they become available.

Currently the toolbox contains copies of Radlight’s Filter Manager, Graphstudio x86 and x64, Matroska Diag, MediaInfo, and the registry fix for Take Ownership. Together these tools provide a fairly comprehensive solution to most any trouble you encounter, specifically codecs and filter setups.

Also, included in the package is a quick set of directions for using each tool in the package. Open the included Help.html file in the package to get directions and assistance using each of the tools. Of course you can always come over to hack7mc.com and get help here as well!

If you have any other programs you’d like to see included in the toolbox drop a line in the comments section below or through the contact page. Of course, only free programs will be accepted to the toolbox and open-source software is a bonus as well.

Hopefully together we can build a comprehensive downloadable package to help beginners and advanced users alike troubleshoot problems with their Media Center setups. Download the package today and save it somewhere for that rainy day.