modrepublic

I bought my shiny green limited edition Xbox when it came out, put a modchip inside and replaced the hard drive with a 120 Gigabyte drive. The first application that I put onto it was XBMC, the Xbox Media Center, which functions as my main entertainment hub ever since. I usually drop movies on it once every while and replace old ones because the hard drive has limited space but it gives me the pleasure of viewing movies that I download or rip on my LCD television and not my computer. I never really liked watching movies on the computer either.

Windows Media Center really is quite a decent application to use for media management and Microsoft doesn’t get enough credit for the steps it’s taken to establish the PC as the home entertainment hub.
One of the lesser known features of WMC is that quite a large number of third party plugins are available, and I’ve made up a list of a few good ones. I intent to start using Media Center a lot more in future to manage my media.

I came in contact with a Windows Media Center PC only recently, specifically with Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. I noticed that it did not recognize DVDs that were stored on the hard drive of the computer which was kinda odd for a Media Center.
Well a little research revealed a Registry setting that would enable the option to enable the DVD library in Windows Media Center 2005. That DVD Library can store the DVDs that are stored on the hard drive in a Video_TS folder.

It’s Olympic year and this time we’re heading to Beijing to watch the best athletes in the world battle it out for glory. If you’re lucky enough to actually be going to Beijing for the Olympics, then you’re sure to enjoy yourself. However, if you’re like me, you have to make do with trying to watch it online.

For those people who use Windows Media Center, it can be a pain to have to navigate around the program using the mouse, especially if you’re watching a movie and you need to access a particular feature.

Microsoft and D-Link want to challenge Cupertino's Apple TV as your digital media hub. We take the DSM-750 for a test drive to see how it compares to the revamped Apple TV. The search for the perfect digital media center continues.Read More...

Filed under: home entertainment hacks

The 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit hosted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) at the Los Angeles Convention Center July 15-17, 2008 is going well and we bring you some of our day two coverage. We stopped by and took a look at the newly released Toshiba Intel Centrino 2 based notebooks, some console coolers by the folks and Nyko and ended up having a Taco with Sony at King Taco down the street from the convention center.