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 …

Today S1Digital officially released a USB 100 Blu-ray disc changer for use with Windows Media Center. The device can be hooked up directly to your Windows Media Center PC (Vista or Windows 7) or a Windows Home Server. The movies on those discs will then be immediately accessible from within any Media Center using the included My Movies software. The cover art and metadata for the movies is automatically downloaded when using this new device. It can also be used to rip your movie collection to a hard drive without the hassle …

Windows 7 was a big step forward for acceptance of certain codecs and containers by Microsoft.  Prior to the release, Media Center users had a lot of issues getting their movie files to play on extenders.  Even AVI wasn’t supported within the extender UI basically locking you down to some very difficult to obtain formats.  Windows 7 changed most of that.  The AVI container became supported as well as several other popular file formats.  One that was left out however was MKV.
Seen by some as nothing more than a …

The ability to remotely schedule recordings on your Windows 7 Media Center seems a like a feature that should have been included from the very launch of the operating system. After all,  Microsoft did hire the developer of Web Guide, the program that allowed this feature, along with streaming of your content, that was available for Media Center in Windows Vista. Fortunately the developers over at Fat Attitude have come to the rescue! They have developed a new program called Remote Potato.
Remote Potato is actually very similar to Web Guide. It …

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 …

Getting as much content as possible into our HTPCs is important.  It provides choice and choice is what everyone wants.  To be able to watch anything at anytime.  With a lot of the focus on video content, we sometimes forget that Media Center has a great music library.  Unfortunately, while Microsoft has added Internet TV and Netflix to the mix, they’ve only concerned themselves with local audio playback up to this point.
In steps Songler.  Originally titled SpotifyMCE, the app would pull in your Spotify account and allow you to …

Yesterday Ben Drawbaugh and I got into it a little back and forth on Twitter about the HTPC and using it as a HTPC directly connected to your display. Whether that is your tv, your projector or some other display medium or in the case of Ben using your HTPC more as a server in a closet up and out of the way basically running as a headless unit serving up extenders.
Back in July Ben and myself joined Josh (the other Josh) and Adam on Entertainment 2.0 Episode 37 part …

At the CES keynote Microsoft announced enhancements to the MediaRoom IPTV service in version 2.0 that is coming this year. If you’re in America you can experience MediaRoom if you use AT&T U-verse as your television provider. The major enhancements include the ability to watch U-verse through an XBox 360. It will also take advantage of MicroSoft’s Silverlight and SmoothStreaming technologies to bring you more internet content. And lastly, they showed off an on demand video store that not only works on the PC, but also on Windows Mobile phones.