This is great:

Here is the “making of”:

It would be fun to be part of a project making something like this I reckon.

(via @cauld)

This is the final part of a three part series about the past, present and future of Windows Media Center.

• Part I – Past
• Part II – Present
• Part III – Future

Over the last couple of years three things have challenged the dominance of Media Center in our living room…

1. Apple

I switched to using an Apple Mac laptop in 2007 and haven’t looked back.

But, one area which has never “just worked” well is getting iTunes and iPhoto to play nicely with the photos and music we store on the NAS. Unlike their Windows equivalents, which are happy to just scan the file system, both want to maintain their own custom database, which makes it difficult to have content like this shared across multiple computers. I’ve tried various hacks to get this to work, but in the end we have reverted to simply exporting new photos and music to the NAS manually. I have setup a Firefly Media Server on the NAS, which gives us an easy way to play the music on the NAS through iTunes, but this is a read-only connection so we can’t add, modify or delete tracks this way and annoyingly cover art and track ratings don’t translate to iTunes.

Solving this seems like such an obvious area for Apple to address. It’s not hard to imagine a modified version of the Time Machine product they already sell acting as a home media server. But this is something that others have been anticipating longer than me, and we’re yet to see any sign of this, so I don’t hold my breath.

And, despite speculation they have a lot of work to do to even match the functionality of our current setup. For example, the AppleTV does not currently include a TV tuner card, let alone an EPG, and the current generation of Time Machines contain a single disk, which would be a step backwards from the RAID storage in our current NAS.

Even Front Row, which is the Apple equivalent to the Media Center interface, is some way behind Media Center in my opinion.  Recently there have been a few third-party solutions which appear to be worth keeping an eye on – such as Plex and Boxee, but these are all still beta products.

The net result of all of this is a feeling that our integrated solution doesn’t work quite so well as it did before we introduced OS X into the mix.

2. Freeview

I was blown away by Freeview during the Olympics.

High definition was great.  But, even more than that, this was the first time since we started using Media Center we watched a TV signal directly off the decoder.  And the difference was more than I realised.

Even at standard definition the picture quality was so much better when connected directly to the TV than when the same signal was run through the Media Center. The Freeview decoder includes an HDMI output, as does the graphic card in the Media Center, but in between the two is a Hauppage TV tuner card which only supports at best an S-Video input.

So, for a while it became a trade-off between good picture quality on Freeview and time shifting on the Media Center.

Until…

3. MySkyHD

MySky solves that problem plus it also includes a program guide that is generally always accurate and up-to-date.

But at what cost? There is also lots not to like about it, in my opinion…

It’s a closed system. It is oblivious to external content – either on the NAS or on the internet – so we’re back to flicking back and forth between different systems to access different content.  Plus, there is no way to access the programs you have recorded which are stored on the hard drive inside the decoder. You can’t increase the storage space and we’ve found that between The Wot Wots, Bob The Builder, and Blues Clues ours quickly fills up – and look out when the program you recorded accidentally deletes those without warning!

I find the interface quite clunky and boxy compared to Media Center. For example, in Media Center the program guide is displayed on top of whatever you are currently watching or listening to (which fades slightly into the background to make the program listings easier to read), where as in MySky you are forced through multiple screens just to get to the listings (on the first screen you have to select from different channel categories, which just adds an unnecessary step to the process in most cases), and the program you are watching is stopped while you browse. Rather than scrolling through channels and listings you need to use the coloured buttons on the remote to page back and forth. MySky seems to consist of lots of top-to-bottom lists which run to multiple pages, where as Media Center takes advantage of the width of a widescreen TV to display more options at once left-to-right. MySky is completely lacking the nice graphical touches and animations which make the Media Center interface look great. And, compared to the back button on the Media Center remote which always takes you back to where ever you came from, the back button on MySky is like a lucky dip option.

It’s also missing the killer feature of digital video recorders (DVRs): the 30-second skip. MySky instead has four different fast-forward or rewind speeds (x2, x6, x12, x30) which require multiple clicks as you go up and down through the gears. With this crazy system, rather than pressing one button once to instantly skip a commercial (or, conveniently, the approximate time it takes for a line out to form) you are instead forced to watch the ads in high speed and then scramble to press the play button in time when the program you want to watch starts again.

It doesn’t even have all of the channels. Because of an on-going dispute between TVNZ and Sky, TV One and Two have only just switched to HD, despite being available in HD on Freeview since last year, and TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 are not available at all.

And, last but by no means least, it’s expensive, with a hefty installation fee and monthly subscription. Even if you don’t want the DVR and EPG functions in MySky you are forced to pay for them anyway in order to get the HD decoder.

Because Sky has complete control over this platform, it seems like wishful thinking to hope for any of these things to improve materially in the short term.  As long as they can limit access to their EPG data, which makes it difficult for other options to compete, they don’t really have any real incentive to innovate.

So, where to next?

None of the options I’ve experimented with have been able to tick every box.

I still think Media Center is a little bit magic, but increasingly prefer the picture quality and program guide reliability of MySky and Freeview.

MySky does okay, but just doesn’t excite me for lots of small reasons. Having to go elsewhere to access our photos and music and other online content, especially, feels like a backwards step.

Our Apple Macs, meanwhile, remain frustratingly orphaned.

Maybe there is a new option on the horizon which will shift the balance again? Windows Seven, or Tivo, or something open source, or something from Apple.

Or perhaps there is an alternative that I haven’t seen.  If anybody has experimented with other options I’d be interested to hear about your experience.

But, in the meantime, a little boy waits.

It all seemed so promising in Amsterdam.

I would have expected the future to be here by now.

This is the second part of a three part series about the past, present and future of Windows Media Center.

• Part I – Past
• Part II – Present
• Part III – Future

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here is the very simple Media Center setup that Jay and Hoani from Mabode helped me put together in 2006:

(full size)

There are lots of other more complicated things that people have done with Media Center – for example, connecting in home automation systems, phone systems, security systems and various extenders to send content to other parts of the house. But, my preference has been a simple system for the living room that works reliably and quietly and doesn’t require constantly flicking back and forth between different systems to access different content.

Perhaps the most important part of our setup is a small NAS where all of our data lives – in our case as NetGear ReadyNAS, which gives us about a terabyte of RAID storage.

Getting all of our photos, videos and music in one place has provided great peace of mind – they are no longer stored on a single hard drive, and they can be much more easily backed-up.

(I’ve even been experimenting a bit with setting up an automated “trickle” backup into the cloud, but that’s a topic for another post on another day).

We haven’t yet come close to filling this space up, but if required it could easily be expanded by swapping out one or more of the hard drives. While this little box can get a bit noisy, it can be kept anywhere provided it’s connected to the network.

The Media Center itself is also connected to the home network, just like any other computer, so it can access all of the content that is stored on the NAS.

The Media Center can be trained to work with any external decoder. We’ve used both Sky and Freeview decoders without any problems. The decoder is connected to the Media Center in two directions – the TV signal out connects to the tuner card in the Media Center and there is also an infrared repeater which allows the Media Center to send a signal to the decoder, e.g. to change the channel etc. As a result we only need one remote, which can control both the Media Center itself (via a USB reciever) and indirectly Freeview/Sky.

There are now tuner cards which can decode a Freeview signal directly inside the Media Center, meaning no external decoder is required. Something like that would simplify this sort of setup even further. (I’d be interested to hear from anybody who has this working with Media Center).

But, perhaps the most important part is the case – ours is an HFX Mini, which looks more like a stereo component than a computer, and contains a big heat sink to cool the components inside rather than fans, so is very quiet.

It’s been interesting how having this sort of setup has changed changed the way we consume content, both broadcast and our own.

The ability to time shift television, and instantly skip quickly over ads, changed our viewing habits a lot. Apart from sport we rarely watch live TV anymore. And, overall we watch considerably less.

Our photos, videos and music are all much more accessible, and get seen and heard a lot more than they would locked away in albums in the cupboard or on a computer in another room.

We’ve even been able to put a couple of the kids favourite DVDs on the NAS and setup Media Center to access these, so they can play them without having to worry about swapping disks in and out.

Also, we are able to much more easily access content directly off the internet. Three examples…

1. We can download video – i.e. when the new Where The Hell Is Matt? video was released, we downloaded it to the Media Center where we could all watch and enjoy it together (okay, I’ll admit, dance along!)
2. We can watch live video streamed off the web – i.e. live triathlon coverage, which is not screened in NZ but is streamed on the ITU website. The picture can be a bit jumpy and grainy on the big screen, but it’s better live than not at all.
3. We can mix and match different audio and video – i.e. for a bit of variety during a live rugby test we have mixed the sound from the Alternative Rugby Commentary (streamed) with the pictures from Sky (broadcast).

Of course, things don’t stand still.

A setup like this can quickly get out-of-date…

Next: Media Center – Part III: Future?

This is the first part of a three part series about the past, present and future of Windows Media Center.

• Part I – Past
• Part II – Present
• Part III – Future

I remember the exact moment that I fell in love with Windows Media Center.

I was at TechEd in Amsterdam in 2003.

I had a few hours to spare one afternoon and so ventured into the exhibit hall. I didn’t get any further than the Microsoft stand, where they a Media Center setup complete with big leather sofa and a large LCD TV.

Like all great software, when I first saw it and used it, it seemed like magic.

When you boil it down it’s just a computer connected to a TV and remote, but the way you interact with it makes it feel like something completely different.

Microsoft talks about Media Center having a “10 foot” interface. In other words, an interface which is designed to be used from 10 feet away, as opposed to the standard “2 foot” interface that you use sitting at a desk.

What’s different?

Firstly, everything is big.

All of the buttons and text is super-sized, so everything is clear and obvious even from a distance.

There are significantly fewer elements in the user interface than you would normally expect.

It is designed to be navigated quickly using a remote control rather than a mouse and keyboard.

When you select an option on the screen whole viewpoint changes, often with an animation to make it obvious that you’re moving from one place to the next.

Spaces are filled with gradients, colour and very subtle animation rather than grey boxes and whitespace. The background animation, which you won’t even notice unless you’re really paying attention, also serves as a screen saver of sorts.

The menus are specifically designed for larger widescreen displays – so the items tend to run left-to-right rather than top-to-bottom – meaning they make use of all of the space available.

Most importantly, the interface brings together all of your content and puts this front and centre - all of your photos, all of your video, all of your music, and all of your television, with an integrated electronic program guide (EPG) and the ability to record and time shift shows plus pause and resume live television.

Needless to say, I wanted one!

When I got back to NZ it became my project.

If you want to see the future of technology look at things that the hobbyists are tinkering with. In 2004 Media Center was definitely in that category.

Nobody was selling Media Center as a complete off-the-shelf package, so I had to buy the various components, including TV tuner card, infrared receivers and remotes, and try and put it all together myself. It took me several iterations to get it working at all, and even then that was only by the loose definition of “working”.

I spent a lot of time on forum sites like The Green Button looking for help with various problems (the name comes from the green button which is on all Media Center remotes as a one-click was to go “home”).

Getting the electronic program guide (EPG) to work reliably was a constant and complicated dance.  Various people had hacked together different solutions and it was a matter of trying one option until it broke and then switching to the next.  Even today, several years later, there is still no official EPG data feed for NZ, so getting it to work requires a bit of patience and knowledge of secret handshakes.

But by far the biggest issue was what people in the industry call WAF, or the Wife Acceptance Factor. This is not a project you can play with in the safety of your shed – you are putting a PC in the living room! When the TV blue screens at the wrong time it’s a very bad look.

And then there was the noise. I tried several different case designs, including a Shuttle PC and a funky looking Silverstone case, but all of them had cooling fans which created a constant, and very annoying, hum.

By the end of 2005 I was almost over it.

I decided to throw in the towel on the DIY approach and get some professional help…

Next: Media Center – Part II: Present