We used to have the full deal.  Digital Cable and all the trimmings.  HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, you name it.  Slowly, over the years we’ve cut back.  This was mainly because we realized that we simply didn’t use the services we were paying for.  We’re a movie family for sure, but we had already seen everything that was hitting the big movie networks.  Kinda pointless to pay for something you’ve already seen and have no interest in seeing again.
When we moved to northern New York, we started out on Dish Network.  …

With the latest Media Center update, many power users learned that their customizations aren’t supported and were removed.  While MS certainly has no requirement to support community hacks, it’s too bad this had to happen.  What should be seen as the addition of some decent content has been marred and turned into a bit of a witch hunt by some.
Either way, there’s a fix available and it worked for me this morning so I thought it would be good to share.  All it takes is the renaming of one file …

Yes, you can go searching around the web and learn how to build your very own PC.  It’s not a difficult process and there are lots of how-to’s out there.  That said, since we deal quite a bit with HTPCs here at The DMZ, I thought it would be good to share with our readers how you too can build your very own HTPC and know exactly what’s going on with your system.
While pre-built systems offer you convenience and ease of setup, building your own PC offers a lot …

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While Windows Media Center provides access to broadcast, local and internet content, sometimes it’s just not enough.  Some people, like myself, want more.  Conversely, we also want less.  Less scrolling and less clutter within our menu structure.
How to get more content?  That’s easy with the use of Boxee, Hulu Desktop and the great integration scripts provided by Teknowebworks.  With the Boxee and Hulu Desktop integration they provide, it’s easy to jump from one application to another without ever getting up from the couch.  The only issue is …

There are many methods for getting content from optical discs into Media Center. Some are more complicated than others, some are more reliable. There’s even been previous posts on this site about this same topic. This is a story about my attempts, and what I found worked and didn’t work. I’m going to write it in a way that I hope will make it easy to follow.
Couple things to lead off with: First, this is not the only method, just the one that worked for me. Second, it’s not perfect, …

Some times you just want to keep things simple or gasp keep it “Apple” like. That is the case with this nice little gem of a find. A user over at Life Hacker found out that with a simple registry edit you can use alternative IR remote controls within Media Center and even Windows Media Player.
A while back I documented on how you can have two media center PC’s in the same room by editing the IR registry settings on one of the Media Center PC’s so that you could …

It’s no surprise to any of our regular readers how much I love Window 7 Media Center. That passion has probably crossed the line into obsession now though. If you’re like me, and for the sake of humanity, let’s hope not, you want to constantly know what your Media Center is doing. That’s where Ian Dixon’s (a fellow Media Center MVP) wonderful Media Center Health Monitor comes in.
Simply register for an account over at http://health.thedigitallifestyle.com, download the software, and you’ll be tracking the status of your Media Center to your …

Since buying an iPod Touch, I’ve been seeking ways to integrate the device into our media system.  Being a Microsoft Windows Media Center user, you wouldn’t think this would be very easy but as it turns out, there are several options that will not only allow you to stream content to a Touch/iPhone but remote control your HTPC as well.  I was pleasantly surprised at the number of apps available to turn your portable device into a full use remote control.  I’ve used two so far and you’ll find all …

If you listen to Entertainment 2.0 or read The DMZ regularly, you know that our own Josh Pollard recently posted a how-to on ripping DVDs to a hard drive.  There are a number of ways to achieve this and Josh has provided a good step-by-step to get you streaming your movies around your home.
Media Center MVP Pete Stagman, who runs the NEDMUG site, has just provided the same service for Blu-rays.  The process is a bit more involved than DVDs but Pete takes you through the whole process from …

If you spend any time at all with Windows Media Center one of the things you’ll want to eventually do is rip your movie collection to Media Center. You would probably head over to The Green Button for suggestions on the best approach. You would very quickly see that there are more options and methods for this than can possibly be covered in a single blog post. Instead I’m going to detail how I’ve chosen to rip my DVD collection. This post won’t cover Blurays as I don’t even …