Steve, The Mini, Media Center and Personal Expression:

What’s amazing to me, is how quickly people have started trying to turn the mini into a Home Theater Computer (also check out the AvsForum). The general impression so far is that while "it can be done", "it ruins the simplicity factor" and has "no digital sound output".

Here’s my question: Why isn’t there a larger Windows Media Center Edition cult? I love my Media Center. The user interface rocks and as I’ve previously said: "Starting up Media Center feels like I’m about to experience something cool and I’m in complete control of it."

For me, the only thing that I don’t like about MCE is that I can’t put it in a case with the size and sexiness of a Mac Mini. But maybe that’s the problem.

(Formatting is all his).

I couldn’t agree more. How do we create an MCE like cult? This questions drives me crazy. Why can’t we do it? I have some thoughts on what the current barriers are but if you look at the timestamp it’s 1:30 am. It’s been a long work day with a little fun at the end. Time for sleep! (I have some time blocked off for blogging tomorrow so I will return to this (along with the two other posts I’ve been drafting)).

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Engadget, HOW-TO: Turn your Mac mini into a media center.

You know my thoughts on my subject so I won’t reiterate them, but:

• What’s the total cost?
• When I read the first 50 comments this morning none were very positive

(I really wish our product had a better name than ‘(Windows XP Media Center (Edition 2005)’ because my ‘media center’ pub sub keyword search returns a lot of irrelevant results now :) ).

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Watch your DVDs on a Pocket PC or Portable Media Center.:

This software will allow you to convert standard DVD content into files suitable for your Pocket PC. You can fit over 90 minutes of content on a single 128mb memory card!

Very cool but this is illegal in the United States.

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PBS, Frontline episodes fully available (via Kottke).

It would be great if PBS had an Online Spotlight application so that you could view these from within Symphony (Media Center 2005).

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Furrygoat, Are Codecs the Next DLL Hell?

His conclusions:

• Sharing between the laptop and MCE is easy
• UPNP is a myth. I just don’t believe it any more.
• Codecs are the next DLL hell

(Click through to read why/how he reached his conclusions).

Glad to see that your MCE+laptop scenario works. Though with your ‘UPNP is a myth’, is UPNP the myth or is the problem with the transcoding? Transcoding is not a a UPNP problem at all because UPNP is simply about device connectivity.

And yes, I totally agree that codecs are the next DLL hell. Our users are already hitting this problem when firstly they try and watch a DIVX/XVID video on MCE and realize that they need to install the proper codec. Now after they install the codec everything works until they then try and watch the video on their Extender and then discover that the Extender only has WMV 9 decoding and won’t do DIVX/XVID (uh, and it also doesn’t do WMV 8).

From all the reports I read from CES this year it sounds like there is a movement towards DIVX from CE companies, which is great, but nowadays the majority of my video content is XVID and so it’s not so great. DVIX/XVID/QT/WMV.. We (the users) need a winner which everyone will adopt and put an end to codec hell.

See also: Codec’s = New Age DLL Hell? Hell Yes

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I have been having a debate with some co-workers about standby scenarios. So this post from Meg about her A sleepy DISH Network receiver is very timely:

Soon we discovered that more often than not, when we went to watch a taped program, all that TiVo had recorded was a floating DISH Network logo. It appeared that the DISH receiver had (unbeknownst to TiVo) turned off.

I called DISH to report the problem with the receiver, only to find out that the DISH receiver is programmed to go into “sleep mode” after four hours of inactivity. Which means that every night it turns off (and most times it does so during the day as well), making it nearly impossible for TiVo to tape anything. T

Firstly, have any Media Center users encountered this problem?

Secondly, does anyone have any comments on standby? Is it great that your device goes to sleep and saves the environment (and your pocketbook)? Or are you of the mindset that your PC should always be available, 24/7, power savings be damned? When you setup your Media Center Extender did you also instruct it to change your standby settings?

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Silicon.com, Napster looking to enter movie downloads:

Speaking at the Midem music conference, Napster CEO Chris Gorog said the company was considering offering movies alongside its current catalogue of some one million music tracks.

They should also consider TV shows. IMHO, that would be just as interesting.

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If you are a fan of bonus DVD content here is a the list of discs with MCE specific features built by Interactual:

• Secondhand Lions
• The Butterfly Effect
• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Theatrical)
• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended)
• Elf
• Laws of Attraction
• Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (Rated & Unrated)
• Cellular

Also, I’ve updated the list of DVDs that have Interactual’s MCE software on them (it’s longer than the above list). Click thru for a description of the problems you might run into playing them on MCE (and the solutions).

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I’m collecting feedback on HP’s z545. If you have any feedback you’d like to give please email me mail at mattgoyer com or leave a comment.

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Media Center PC World, Mac Mini � Is It The Best Media Center PC? Their conclusion is no. And so HTMini takes them to task and says it’s fine with the exception of HDTV. The first article forgot to point out the lack of digital audio. That’s a deal breaker for me (yes you can buy an adapter..)

Update: Ming compares building a Shuttle MCE PC with building a Mac Mini Media Center. Conclusion is that the Shuttle is $860 and the Mac is $1400. A big difference! But if owning a Mac makes you cooler at school then do what you gotta do.

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