Ian Dixon, over at The Digital Lifestyle, spotted an important new Hotfix from Microsoft for Windows 7 Media Center users. There has been a bug within Media Center that if the application is not shut down properly it can cause the music library to completely rebuild itself the next time it is launched. If you have a large library, and especially if you use the album view, the library can take many minutes to rebuild.
The fix is currently only offered as a Hotfix, so you will not be getting this …

First we want to apologize to those who join us live every week.  When we’re going to be having multiple people on with us, it helps to cut out the live stuff to conserve bandwidth.  Unfortunately it didn’t help much this week due to software errors.  But while the audio quality isn’t going to be what you’re used to, the content is superb.
Josh and I are joined this week by Jose Ortiz of the TDL Mobile Show and AJ Peck, writer and sometimes co-host for The Home Server Show.  …

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 …

We all love watching television on our Media Center computers, but what if you have more than one computer around your house? The only solutions up to this point have been to install tv tuner cards into every machine or to use a networked tuner like the HD Homerun. DVBLink is changing all of that though. Today they released a beta of their Server Network Pack and Network Client software.
With DVBLinks new software you simply install the server software on the machine that has the tuner cards in it, and …

Ben Drawbaugh has continued his excellent coverage of the CEDIA 2009 show floor today. This time he was able to spend a few minutes with the Netflix plugin for Windows 7 Media Center. We of course knew that Netflix was coming, as we posted back in July about the initial unveiling of the plugin. Drawbaugh was able to spot at least one enhancement to the Windows 7 version. You will now be able to see a movie synopsis of the items in your Instant Queue. Checkout the post over at …

Dolby Laboratories, Inc. has announced that Windows 7 will support Dolby Digital Plus. This technology is the next evolution of Dolby Digital. One of the biggest advantages to Dolby Digital Plus is that it offers the same high quality audio that its predecessor did, but at lower data rate. It does this will still maintaining compatibility with current Dolby Digital devices.
This is also important news for Windows Media Center users around the world as Dolby Digital Plus is the audio codec of choice for broadcasters in France, Italy, UK, Spain, and …

We brought you the news back in June when DivX had first announced their tech preview that brings MKV playback support to Windows 7 via Media Foundation.  The great thing about the tech preview is that because it is using Media Foundation it also allows playback of MKV files on Media Center Extenders! The only real down-side to the story at the time was that it was only available in 32-bit.
The wait for those of you running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 is now over. So head on over …

Many people were extremely excited when we announced back in May that Dragon Global was releasing a private beta of ShowAnalyzer that would work with Windows 7. Unfortunately, the beta was time limited, and that time limit has run out for most people by now.  Jere Jones, the creator of the ShowAnalyzer, has more great news for all of the people who were beta testing the great software, and for those who weren’t able to get into the private beta.
ShowAnalyzer Version 1.0 is now available as a public beta. This …

We mentioned last week that a private beta version of DVRMSToolbox, version 1.2.1.7, was available last Friday to Early Access members. Tonight Andy Van Til released this fantastic tool to the public. The biggest new feature is of course support for the .WTV files that are created in Windows 7 Media Center (7MC.) For a full write-up on getting DVRMSToolbox working with version 1.0 of ShowAnalyzer in 7MC, check out the post we wrote last week.
DVRMSToolbox 1.2.1.7 Release Notes
- FW logs to a single file per process
- ConvertVideoFile uses system …

Jere Jones, over at Dragon Global has released the beta of Show Analyzer version 1.0. This is the version that supports the WTV files that are created by Windows 7 Media Center.
For a full write-up on how to setup completely automated commercial skipping in Windows 7 check out the post I wrote here.
Unfortunately you still have to do a small amount of work to gain access to the beta. You will have to register in the forums, and then go to this post, and ask to be included in the …