Here’s a quick tip if you’ve ever needed to restart your media center or home server when connected over Microsoft Remote Desktop connection, it is possible by clicking on the desktop, then hitting control+f4 on the keyboard, the brings up the Shut Down Windows dialog, which offers you all the normal control including restart and shut down, not normally offered to remore desktop users via the start menu.
This is an excellent tip for media center users, who would prefer to administrate their pc’s remotely rather than direct, this enables users to quit a session and restore the account to the local account…
All you have to do is run a simple command that will log you off and return the system to it’s console. Create a shortcut on the desktop called End RDP and use this command as the target…
%windir%\System32\tscon.exe RDP-Tcp#0 /dest:console
A couple of things to remember. If you find it not working, check the user session that you are using on the RDP. Open Task Manager and check the users tab. See the session tab at the right? That number, in this case it’s 0, corresponds to the number in the command. RDP-Tcp#0
One thing to note, this tip doesn’t work the hack to enable remote desktop access in Windows 7 Home Premium as home premium doesn’t include tscon.exe, which is unfortunate but a small downside to a very handy hack.
via Home Server Show.
After wasting hours riffling around the internet to try and find a simple and reliable solution for playing mkv files in Windows 7 Media Center, under the x64 bit version.
On paper the shift from the 32 to 64bit version of Windows is pretty painless, as there’s much improved driver support these days (as anyone who tried the x64 version of XP can attest to)
The main pain point is that even in the x64 version of windows, Media Player still defaults to the 32bit version, which is great for compatibility with the existing codecs, it also draws you into a confusing situation where a file will play in Media Player and refuse point blank to play in Media Center.
This is due to Media Center being a native x64 application, so requiring x64 codecs. Forunately things had improved over the last few months in this regard, now there are two free applications I can recommend to add .mkv support…
Divx Lab’s MKV Codec
The Divx Lab’s project aims to utilize the Windows Media Foundation to enable playback of the popular MKV format on both the main Media Center machine as well as extenders. Not only does this mean support for extenders but it could also very well mean the end to playing with various codec package settings to tweak the audio/video settings to match the output of the default Media Center playback.
via Playing MKVs with Media Foundation and Divx Labs.
Haali’s Matroska Splitter
Haali’s Matroska splitter is one of the most popular MKV splitters available for Media Center users who run custom codec setups. Little secret though, there’s a beta Haali splitter available for x64 systems and it works great on Windows 7 systems.
via Finding Haali’s x64 Splitter Beta
AC3Filter
AC3Filter is a high quality free audio decoder and processor filter. It allows media players to playback movies with AC3 and DTS audio tracks. Also it can process any audio track, much of processing options allows to adjust the sound in almost any way. It is possible to upmix any audio source to 6 channels. Filter can do multi-channel and digital (SPDIF) output. It can encode any audio source to AC3 on-the-fly and send it over SPDIF to the receiver. Download the full version for x64 support.
via Ac3filter
MKV Thumbnails in Windows
Finally if you want to enable thumbnails of videos within Media Center and Windows Explorer, you will need to add some information to your systems registry.
Download the x86 version here or x64 version here and more information can be found at hack7mc.com
Big thanks to the always brilliant Hacking Windows 7 Media Center for the in depth and up to date codec information
Looks like a nice little sofa controller for those who like to mix Media Center’s 10 foot UI with a bit of web browsing…
That meager tithe takes home a 2.4GHz keyboard with trackball and USB “nano dongle” for your Windows home theater PC good for about 10-meters of wireless sofa surfing. See it in the wild after the break.
via Engadget.
One of the most annoying limitations of Windows 7 is the fact Microsoft has removed the ability to remote desktop into a computer running the Home Premium edition, fortunately the experts at The Green Button forum are already on hand to not only enable this feature but extend it, with multiple co-current users able to login.
Whilst this doesn’t sound like much, this has enabled me to remote desktop onto my home media center using a second account whilst the media center is still playing happily on my main television. This helps with tasks like updates, media management and even recording dvd’s.
This update is highly recommended for anyone with a dedicated Media Center box and works with Windows 7 Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium 64 bit and 32 bit.
Download the patch direct from mediafire
Buy Windows 7 from Amazon US or Amazon UK
via The Green Button
I‘ve always been curious of the Movie Library function in Windows Media Center, whenever I have gone into it, it just seemed to take forever to index my movies and never contain any more information that the pictures + video browser had.
Only recently have I decided to dig around to work out how to get this element of MCE working properly. As it turns out it’s not as simple as one would have thought, it requires external software to download the movie data and store it in the correct place, but is worth the effort setting it up as it brings a new dimension to browsing your collections.
The core issue is that Movie Libary needs an xml file in each of the movie folders, otherwise it needs to scan each folder, which takes so long, it’s really not worth even considering using this service.
Each movie folder needs to contain an image called folder.jpg, which should be less that 1000px high, otherwise the movie library won’t load the image.
Media center holds additional information for the movie synopsis, genre and year in a folder called DvdInfoCache that can be found by going to %AppData%\Microsoft\eHome\DvdInfoCache. This data must be on the local machine and can’t be stored on a remote server, the xml files within this folder contain a code that matches the xml file within the movie folder, this enables the local machine to pull all the details quickly, whilst not having to store the large movie files.
I ended up wanting to manage the process of creating the folder jpgs and movie xml files manually, so I used MetaBrowser a wonderful free app that I can manage remotely on my home server (via remote deskop).
I have paired that to the DvdInfoCache folder which I’ve shared from my media center, this means I can now manage my Movie Library without having to use my media center locally using an option within MetaBrowser.
MetaBrowser can be setup to automatically pull all the top rated movie details found, similar to another fully automatic application called Yammm, but this at least has some options for going back and reviewing and changing those details, it they are incorrect.
Only recently have I decided to dig around to work out how to get this element of MCE working properly. As it turns out it’s not as simple as one would have thought, it requires external software to download the movie data and store it in the correct place, but is worth the effort setting it up as it brings a new dimension to browsing your collections.
The core issue is that Movie Libary needs an xml file in each of the movie folders, otherwise it needs to scan each folder, which takes so long, it’s really not worth even considering using this service.
Each movie folder needs to contain an image called folder.jpg, which should be less that 1000px high, otherwise the movie library won’t load the image.
Media center holds additional information for the movie synopsis, genre and year in a folder called DvdInfoCache that can be found by going to %AppData%\Microsoft\eHome\DvdInfoCache. This data must be on the local machine and can’t be stored on a remote server, the xml files within this folder contain a code that matches the xml file within the movie folder, this enables the local machine to pull all the details quickly, whilst not having to store the large movie files.
I ended up wanting to manage the process of creating the folder jpgs and movie xml files manually, so I used MetaBrowser a wonderful free app that I can manage remotely on my home server (via remote deskop).
I have paired that to the DvdInfoCache folder which I’ve shared from my media center, this means I can now manage my Movie Library without having to use my media center locally using an option within MetaBrowser.
MetaBrowser can be setup to automatically pull all the top rated movie details found, similar to another fully automatic application called Yammm, but this at least has some options for going back and reviewing and changing those details, it they are incorrect.
I tried this out last week and was hugely impressed, it simply allows you direct access to the whole of the BBC iPlayer experience directly from your remote.
This week it gets even better, the installer now supports Windows 7 x64 media center (the icon previously didn’t appear in the extras library) and support for live streaming and radio services have been added.
This simply is a must have application if you use media center.
Download directly from the new Google Code page, you can find support at this forum, plus you may need to download the Windows Media Security Component Upgrade (using internet explorer browser).
Here’s a useful tip if you ever need to setup a password, I use this approach when setting my Media Center, as with a password, Windows can remember network logins and connect without requiring a keyboard attached (useful when combined with the option to launch Windows Media Center on startup)
Very impressive piece of kit for any US media center
This Ceton Multi-Channel CableCARD is very interesting, both for its ability to decode six cable streams at once to record six shows at once on your Windows Media Center, and for the fact that its not all that expensive.
via Gizmodo.
