Matt Goyer 's blog - The completely egotistical storyline of my life

Dare Obasanjo, Fun with XMLHttpRequest and RSS: Browsing Photo Albums on MSN Spaces:

It actually took less work than I thought to build a webpage that allows you to browse the photo albums in a particular person's Space or from a randomly chosen Space.

Do any intrepid developers want to build an MCE app that navigates MSN Spaces Photo Albums?

4/26/2005 - 1:33 am GMT - [guid]

Tim Coyle, DVR Smackdown: Media Center vs Cable Company:

While on the surface both Media Center and the Cable Company provide the same DVR functions, Media Center comes out ahead by leaps and bounds.

Media Center has much more program information available and an overall better TV guide and user experience.

And yes, I intentionally left out the quote about Media Center's high cost :).

4/25/2005 - 9:56 pm GMT - [guid]

Transmeta showcases fanless technology for Media Center

Media Center PC World, Transmeta showcases fanless technology for Media Center:

The design, which showcases Transmeta's technology and engineering services with a fully functional reference system, allows manufacturers and Transmeta to create and customize quiet Media Centers for the living room entertainment experience.

Does anyone have pictures?

4/25/2005 - 9:51 pm GMT - [guid]

MCE hits 2 million!

Bill Gates keynote at WinHEC: Windows Media Center hits 2 million units.

That means we've done around a million copies of MCE 2005 in something like seven months.

4/25/2005 - 5:58 pm GMT - [guid]

MCE and Home Integration

Digital Lifestyles, Persistence pays off for Silicon East as the emergence of Microsoft Windows Media enter puts the home integrator back in the game:

Silicon East is now taking it to the next level with Microsoft.

"We are actually talking directly to Microsoft about an opportunity to create a brand that you might call a Media Center-ready home, where there'll be some sort of Microsoft involvement or specification in the building of homes that allows the homes to fully support Media Center—not just audio and video, but also home control, heating, cooling, lighting, security, all of those things," Harrison says.

4/22/2005 - 9:59 am GMT - [guid]

NY Times takes a look at Media Center PCs, With a PC's Power, That's Entertainment:

All these features on the living room screen can make other household TV's seem dull in comparison

4/21/2005 - 4:46 pm GMT - [guid]

HP introduces new living room Media Centers

HP has introduced some new Media Centers.

Check out the z555 and the z557.

I've actually been fortunate enough to have a z555 for the past several weeks in addition to my Silverstone box, and I certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a Media Center for their living room.

Pros:

Great specs.

Triple tuner - Dual NTSC tuner plus an ATSC tuner!

Great case.

When I get home tonight I'll put some pictures online but lots of attention to detail has been paid on both the front and back.

The front has a front panel display, hides connections nicely, looks clean.

And the back panel looks like the back of my receiver and not a computer.

Everything is clearly labeled and makes sense.

Great out of box experience.

HP really put a lot of work into this and it shows.

Great quick start documents.

Nearly every cable imaginable (the only one I feel they need to add is a optical SPDIF cable) is included.

Great keyboard.

Works better than my Gyration.

No external receiver required, it's all built into the unit.

Cons:

Some of HP's included Media Center specific software needs polishing.

Norton Anti Virus pops up annoying 10' dialogs too frequently telling you to go to 2'.

I've fallen in love with my custom MCE remote and wish other remotes included it's features.

So I wish the HP one had backlighting and the ability to control my TV power and receiver volume.

4/21/2005 - 12:52 pm GMT - [guid]

MCE Keyword Recordings

The Onion, Tivo Wishlist Roulette (via PVR Blog):

To test our luck, The Onion A.V. Club entered the keyword "war" into a TiVo WishList and examined the first 14 programs that came up.

Did you know MCE has the same functionality?

Go to My TV > Recorded TV > Add Recording > Keyword and you can setup keyword recordings based on:

Actor name.

Direcotr name.

Movie title.

Program title.

Generic keyword.

Yeah, I know, this feature is pretty buried in our UI. ...You probably wouldn't believe how many times in meetings someone on our team says, 'who designed this thing!?' :).

(Okay, I need to stop working and go to bed.

Good night).

4/21/2005 - 12:47 am GMT - [guid]

Update for PAL burning in MCE

If you're a European MCE user trying to burn PAL content you should get this new update, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Create DVD Update.

4/20/2005 - 10:57 pm GMT - [guid]

Interviews with two Media Center bloggers

Tim Coyle has two interviews this week with bloggers who have thoroughly embraced Media Center.

Interview with Chris Lanier.

Of course I'm most interested in hearing about how we can improve.

Chris's suggestions are:

More HDTV support - I want this too!

My Music library improvements - Like what?

ASIO - I dont' know what this is?

My Videos improvements (playlists, view by list, remove stopped full screen overlay) - I agree on all those but would prioritize view by list as pretty low (why do you want to view videos by list?).

My improvement to My Videos would be Sort By Date would sort descending not ascending.

Extender improvements - It's a v1 product, give us another iteration or two to get it right :).

Interview with Thomas Hawk.

And Thomas's suggestions for improvement are:

Simplicity and stability considering that we are built on a PC platform.

Native cable/satellite support - Yeah, I want this too!

Micro content - Pester MSN about this, they're our content folks.

Compelling search, suggestive and ranking technology - I agree with us building search but would rather third parties like Amazon, Netflix and other experts in the collaborative filtering space provided this functionality.

We just need to ensure they have a good platform to build on.

Build a team of editors to both find and organize this micro content for them - We're a platform provider and I'd expect a third party to do this, not us. (Of course that third party could be MSN).

Fix bugs - Yes, like that help documentation one :).

4/19/2005 - 1:28 pm GMT - [guid]

Disclaimer: The posts on this weblog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.