CEPro, First Install! Sony Vaio XL1B2 DVD Changer with 3rd-Party MCE:

But the best feature was the compatible 200-disc DVD changer with seamless MCE integration.

Julie talks to Kevin Buchanan about his experience with a standalone Sony XL1B2 changer and I’m glad to hear that they think the DVD changer is the best feature of MCE 2005 UR2!

…I agree the My DVDs and My Changer menu items are a little confusing. The My DVDs is a Media Center category, and My Changer is Sony’s category. To simplify things we were going to implement a navigateToPage function so that the My Changer category could link to My DVDs, but we ran out of time.

I’m a little baffled about the hard drive expandability issue. You should be able to swap out the two 160GB drive and put in up to three 500 GB drives which would give you more than enough internal storage (because the unit has 3 internal 3.5″ drive bays). And likewise, I’m confused about the Extender support issue, since the Extender should work with the XL2 just like it does with any other MCE on the market (maybe they’re hit a firewall or anti-virus issue?).

And streaming DVDs… We’d love to do it but the number of our customers who own DVD changers is a very small and a decreasing percentage of our install base. Plus, it’s only a matter of time before HD DVD and managed copy surpasses traditional DVDs.

Comments(2)

Mammoth Software has release, PowerExplorer, that lets you view attached PowerFile DVD changers and perform some basic changer operations on them. I wonder if it works with derivative changers like the Sony XL1B2 and the Niveus Ice Vault?

Comments(2)

Aaron’s got a post about all the registry keys in use by TweakMCE if you’re into registry hacking. Looks to me like Aaron is volunteering to PM (program manage) the Windows Vista version of TweakMCE :).

Comments(0)

PVR blog recently wrote about Lost’s new scheme, Tonight’s Lost is going to be “TiVo-proof”:

Tonight’s episode of Lost — a show already so deeply embedded with secret signs and clues — will feature details about the episode sprinkled within ads themselves. This is both brilliant and frightening. I can’t recall wanting to watch commercials other than the annual Super Bowl but tonight I’ll actually refrain from hitting the FFWD button so I don’t miss anything.

Now I didn’t watch Lost ‘live’, and while I had recorded it with MCE, I resisted watching it because I wanted to watch it online. After watching it online and seeing only commercials for Jennifer Aniston’s new movie, I was suprrised to find out about these ‘fake’ commercials embedded within a stream of real ones. I guess these fake ads are not about enhancing the story, or else they would have included them in the online version of the show, and are instead about getting users to ease up on the thirty second skip button.

My main complaint about ABC’s online streaming solution is that you can’t watch the videos full screen. While full screen HDTV would be best, I’d settle for full screen standard def.

Comments(0)

Every weekend I install a new version of Windows Vista at home. Every Monday I try and watch Prison Break and 24 on it. This weekend’s build marks the first time I’ve been successful in not just watching those shows, but listening to music, playing back videos, viewing pictures, using my 360 as an Extender for all those same tasks, etc. I think now is the time to move my external hard drives over to my Windows Vista machine and make the switch full time!

Comments(4)

Build 5381.1 is now available to testers. The exciting thing is that this marks the beginning of the Extender and OCUR beta testing!

Comments(5)

The Telegraph, Replay software bats for Team India:

The Indian cricket team — and its rivals from other countries — have used several kinds of software to analyse players’ performance and mistakes. Windows XP Media Center, with its considerable advantages, is the latest.

They’re also using Portable Media Centers…

Comments(0)

For those of you who have the Sony DVP-CX777ES changer, which is not supported by Media Center, Brian has added supported to his My Movies plugin.

Comments(1)

A few weeks ago Sony released an update for their changer’s firmware as well as for Microsoft’s 1394 driver. This update should improve standby and hiberation performance as well as any other connectivity issues you might have been experiencing.

Comments(0)