Those of use who use Media Center in our homes as more than just a DVR have this love/hate thing going on.  On the one hand, we love Media Center.  The interface, the functionality, the DVR capabilities, all of it.  We also hate the fact that Microsoft has, so far, decided that extenders should be half-hearted affairs that just can’t do everything the PC can.
Well the times they are a changin’ and you can thank Ben Drawbaugh and Andres Echevarria.  Working together the two have come up with a …

I wrote yesterday how EncodeHD can help you convert your video files for use on your portable devices.  It’s perfectly suited and with the list of supported hardware, it should work for just about anyone.  The one issue with using it for Media Center or playback on the Xbox 360 is the limitations imposed by the 360 on the mp4 format which EncodeHD converts your files to.  The 360 doesn’t support AC3 audio and therefore you lose surround sound.
Luckily there’s a solution for this and it’s located in the same …

Reading here, you know I love my Zune.  But, there is one thing I absolutely hate about it and that’s the fact that Microsoft refuses to allow you to convert and sync certain video codecs and containers.  A lot of MS products are like this so it isn’t really a surprise.  The same goes for iPods and other portable media players (PMPs.)  They each only support the file types that the company has decided to support, but I want to be able to watch my content on the go.  Luckily …

The iPod doesn’t like certain file types.  The same goes for most other portable media players.  Companies only add support for so many codecs and containers and unlike a PC, it’s not possible to add your own decoders so all of your files will work.
doubleTwist aims to make content playback on PMPs as easy as drag and drop.  Co-founded by Jon Lech Johansen (the guy known as DVD Jon for cracking DVD DRM back in 2002), doubleTwist is currently in public beta.  It basically takes the worry out of …