Update: if you are a Rogers customer, this may have triggered lower usage limits. CBC news is reporting that Rogers is lowering their download limits.

Here’s what you’ll see if you access the site from a Canadian IP address.

CBC news has posted info, including the fact that this will be streaming only (no DVD’s by mail). “English only to start, French to follow over time”.

I don’t know if Media Center access to Netflix for Windows 7 Canadian users will be turned on at launch, but am trying to find out.

One comment, if you are a HD snob (and I have no qualms admitting that *I* am), the content is pitiful. And the content for PC’s and Mac’s (a subset) is shameful.

Eye-Fi on its own is cool enough. Send digital photos from your camera to your desktop via 802.11n (2.4 GHz only)  for editing, to various online photo sharing sites, Facebook, and so on. It sure beats connecting cables or removing cards from a camera.

I thought that the advertised free iPhone app for Eye-Fi (available in the App Store of course) might be useful on my iPad since its function is to send photos from the iPhone via 3G to your desktop or a supported online photo sharing site (Facebook, Flickr, MobileMe, Picasa, Smugmug). And I was right.

Surprisingly, there was virtually no setup to speak up. You authenticate by entering the credentials for your Eye Fi account and the little app “just works”. Once I logged in, the computer showed an additional tab on the left labelled iPhone (which I promptly changed to iPad). A settings window popped right up (and it can be accessed at any time) that let me specify a folder hierarchy and type and some other options.

Back on the iPad, since there is no camera and because I don’t yet have my hands on the camera connector for iPad, I was able to upload photos stored on the device. I used this feature to take the screen captures I made of the Eye Fi functionality on the iPad and send them to my desktop for editing and inclusion in this post.

Well, I can’t take a photo with the iPad as I said, but I sure can choose an existing photo and upload it. I just selected my Saved Pictures folder on the iPad and selected three images. The two above and one showing all the saved screen shots (appears below as iPhone005.JPG inside the Windows Explorer image).

I could tell the image uploads were completed via both a tool tip in the system and the Eye-Fi center window below.

Here’s the Windows Explorer view.

Yup, this is way cool. I really want to get my hands on that iPad Camera Connector. I’m relishing the thought of all my pictures being uploaded and ready for editing on the home computer when I walk in the front door at the end of a day of photo shooting.

This technology, first demo’d at CES 2010, may be one of the bigger successes in the HTPC and networking arenas as new computers (currently only laptops) hit the market with the Intel 2010 i3/i5/i7 processors. In a nutshell, I can use a laptop computer with an Intel i5 processor, Intel’s embedded graphics chip, Intel’s 6200 WiFi adapter, and a Netgear Push to TV bridge to stream any content I want to any TV connected to a PTV device over HDMI. The tiny Netgear device is connected to the TV via HDMI, and everything happens over a wireless Personal Area Network between my laptop and the Push to TV device.

So why is this such a big gap filler for me? My current home theater setup includes V2 Media Center extenders connected to the three HD TV’s in my home, with the Media Center desktop residing in my loft home office. What I can’t get with this set up (without buying a PC and connecting one to every television) are all the Internet based Media Center extra’s such as Internet TV and Netflix.  Problem solved. With WiDi, I’ve got a nice, light (4.2 pound) 13.3 inch widescreen laptop to use anywhere in my home, around town, or on the road AND I’m able to display all of these Media Center extras. I gain the ability to browse the web and display anything I want on my TV’s.

The technology is nearly idiot proof. Connect the Netgear device via the included HDMI cable. Hit the special button on the laptop keyboard and enter a 4 digit code after your device is found. All the networking setup is handled without user intervention. WPA2 security is configured via WPS (wireless provisioning services) behind the scenes to secure the Personal Area Network (PAN) connection between the laptop and the PTV device. An ICS connection to the Intel internal WiFi is also established behind the scenes. You won’t see this in any of Windows 7’s GUI’s or discover it with netsh, but it is present. In fact, while the 6200 Intel NIC is a/b/g/n capable, when using WiDi with the Netgear device, it is not possible to connect to the 5GHz radio in a dual band router. An error message is returned stating only 2.4 GHz is supported. Some additional good news, even in my overly saturated 2.4 GHz environment of 19 different SSID’s, I had absolutely no interference.

My 52 inch TV, Netgear PTV attached via HDMI, waiting for a connection

WiDi equipped Laptop, connected and ready to rock and roll

The quality is awesome. My recorded (via cable card and OCUR/DCT) content looks great. (All the DRM rules apply here.)

Some HD Recorded TV..

Stargate Atlantis in full HD, via WiDi

Internet TV (the missing piece in my home theater experience) in Windows Media Center looks good.

Star Trek content, Windows Media Center Internet TV

Streaming Star Trek from Windows Media Center via WiDi.

Anything I want using the Media Center interface is streamed to the connected TV, music.. pix… videos..

Music – WMC via WiDi

Anything displayed on your desktop can be streamed. Want to read email? Use Windows Live Messenger? Participate in newsgroups or forums? Browse the web? Yep, it’s in there.

Windows 7 – Everything and anything over WiDi

And for me, there is another huge gap filler. My main beef with Windows Media Center Internet TV is the lack of HD content. With a 52 inch state of the art 1080p TV, can you blame me for wanting HD streaming? Here’s the good news. If one of the networks or other source offers an asset in HD for streaming, WiDi handles it effortlessly. As shown earlier in this post, Windows Media Center Internet TV offers a large amount of CBS content, including (at least at the present time) all three seasons of Star Trek, the original series. Inside Media Center, only SD is available, but I can navigate to the CBS website and view the remastered Star Trek original series in glorious full screen HD.

Needless to say, I’m a very happy camper these days.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, media center, Media Center Windows 7, windows media center, WiDi, Intel Wireless Display, how-to, Tip

I’ve been bemoaning the lack of support for Nikon NEF 64 bit support for as long as I can remember inside Windows Explorer. And I’ve been wishing for RAW support for NEF inside Media Center forever.

I’m happy to say that there is a really nice solution.

The free image codec pack at http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/ had all the answers and gave me the brass ring.

Here’s a snippet from their web site on what is supported:

Raw Image Formats
Extension(s)	Name	Autorotate	Metadata	Remarks
*.dng	Adobe Digital Negative	Y	Y
*.cr2, *.crw	Canon Raw Image	Y	Y
*.raf	Fuji Raw Image	Y	Y
*.3pr, *.fff	Hasselblad Raw Image	Y	Y
*.dcr, *.kdc	Kodak Raw Image	Y	Y
*.raw, *.rwl	Leica Raw Image	Y	Y
*.mrw	Minolta Raw Image	Y	Y
*.nef, *.nrw	Nikon Raw Image	Y	Y	Can be configured to skip raw conversion and always use embedded previews.
*.orf	Olympus Raw Image	Y	Y
*.rw2	Panasonic Raw Image	Y	Y
*.pef	Pentax Raw Image	Y	Y
*.arw, *.sr2, *.srf	Sony Raw Image	Y	Y
Additional Features
Extension(s)	Name	Remarks
All formats	WIC Thumbnail provider for XP	Provides support for thumbnail views in Windows XP Explorer (SP3), for all the above formats and all existing WIC-enabled codecs.
All formats	WIC Import Plug-In for Photoshop	Enables Adobe Photoshop to directly import images from any installed WIC codec. The plug-in is available as a separate download in 32-bit only at this time (so it won’t work on Photoshop CS4 64-bit edition for the time being).

I shoot Nikon RAW NEF.  And I have full support now inside Windows 7 RTM. Explorer thumbnails, even inside Windows Media Center. Here’s the proof. Worth 3,000 words and a whole lot more.

Thumbnails inside Windows Explorer of my NEF files in Windows 7

Picture Details inside Windows Media Center/Windows 7

A folder filled with NEFs is now viewable inside Windows Media Center

Yes, XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 all can play with this. I’m excited, are you?

http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/ 

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, media center, Media Center Windows 7, windows media center, how-to, Tip

I did a fair amount of online research and put three HD TVs on my “see and compare” list based on features. The best features were on a Samsung 52 inch LN52B750 that also happened to be on sale for $600 off at the time. The picture quality from High Def sources is absolutely stunning. Breathtaking. I was hooked. And there was a LOT of icing on the cake to go along with a superb TV.

Old TV before the attack of the  Purple Blotchies	New Samsung LN52B750

Reading all the user guides which were available on line (to get a good idea of features and performance) really focused me on the Samsung because in addition to all the jacks you’d ever want (4 HDMI, 2 Component, 2 USB, PC, Ethernet, optical digital sound in and out plus some legacy analog ports) it looked to have full DLNA 1.5 support. DLNA “server” software is supplied with the TV (and is downloadable online from Samsung’s support site) but my instincts told me that this TV should work with Windows 7 native DLNA “Play To” support. And I was right on the money.

In my opinion, the Play To/Streaming enhancements in Windows 7 are some of the coolest new features in Windows 7. The team responsible for this work has an extensive blog post at http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/12/media-streaming-with-windows-7.aspx which explains and showcases the technologies involved. It’s really about an ecosystem of smart, transparently connected devices and this is something I’ve been passionate about for several years.  With Windows 7, we’ve reached a real break through. Anyone, novices included, should be able to use and have fun with this technology set. It might give neighborhood geeks like me some free time back because a non geek can easily get it working.

The Samsung LN52B750 (and all the B750 line apparently) include a full set of DLNA 1.5 features. When I display the source list on the TV,  all of my DLNA 1.0 and 1.5 devices are auto detected and displayed. You can see part of this list below, but it also detected my WHS box and additional computers.

Note that it this point, the Samsung TV does not appear to be able to pull the list of available shared media from my Windows 7 computers (or other sources). A folder structure is displayed, but no content is visible to pull and stream. However, using Play To on a host Windows 7 machine (PUSH technology) works beautifully. Perhaps future firmware updates from Samsung will enable “pull”. I hope so!

This TV is all about connectivity, including the Internet. The Samsung TV has onboard Ethernet and accepts a Samsung 802.11n wireless USB adapter. Out of the box, there are some Yahoo Widgets, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Samsung has done a great job with this. Hit the Internet button on the remote and you’re off and running. You can sign in with a existing Yahoo account, too. There is a handy on screen button to run TV in a smaller window while the Widgets, etc. display. You can toggle back and forth. I’ve already used the connection to pull down a firmware upgrade for the TV itself. Another “well done” for Samsung.

I have a fairly sophisticated home network. Everything here is dual homed. One network is Wireless N (both 2.4 and 5 GHz) plus GigE wired Ethernet, and a second network is MoCA plus N. MoCA is short for multi media over COAX. 

W7’s Network & Sharing Center displaying my dual homed network

W7 Network Map of one network segment. The line along the bottom is the second network.

I’ve got desktops, laptops, digital picture frames, NAS boxes, wireless access points and of course my new Samsung TV networked.  Below is a partial view of my networked home (some devices are not powered on all the time).

Barb’s Home Network 

Did I mention that my new TV includes a wired Ethernet jack and can accept an 802.11n (2.4 GHz) special USB adapter? Samsung offers a wireless 802.11n USB adapter as an accessory. It is powered by a Ralink 2880 radio. I was hoping that any wireless N USB adapter would work since I have a bucketful of those here, but only the Samsung branded one will function. Samsung supports Windows Connect Now (WCN) via push button and of course you can manually configure the wireless network. It’s fast and easy to set up.

You can access the settings for media streaming options from several places on a Windows 7 computer. One way to do this is from the Network Window. Right click the device (TV in this case) and then select Media streaming options from the shortcut menu that displays.

From the Media streaming options window you can then specify what permissions to set for each computer and device. This is very easy and intuitive.

Once permissions are enabled, it’s time to have a LOT of fun.

From within Windows Explorer, if there is an available device on the network, right clicking a media file or a group of selected media files invokes a shortcut menu that offers Play To as a choice.

Once you’ve sent media on its way using this method, a Play To window opens with a list of the items selected. You can drag and drop additional content into this window and even mix and match images, music, recorded TV (non protected). 

On the TV, the incoming streamed content is auto sensed and auto displayed. You’ll see some meta data briefly as shown below.

The meta data header will then disappear and you’ll get a nicely displayed image.

The same technique works for music files, at least for MP3’s. I was not able to send WMA ripped music using Play To. Microsoft has put me in touch with Samsung, and they are investigating. Samsung obviously wants to get this right and I’m hopeful that this will be fixed with a firmware update. Note that since I’m running sound through a Home Theater Receiver, I do have to switch the receiver to a different audio input. I ran a digital optical cable from the TV to the receiver and that handles the sound streamed over the network perfectly.

I’ve saved the best (in my mind anyway) for last. And that is Recorded TV from Windows Media Center. Frankly speaking, I was VERY surprised at the support for this. Both dvr-ms and wtv formats ARE supported. It is important to note that only non protected (non DRM’d) recorded TV will work. I hope Microsoft can change this severe limitation, because this is a kickass feature and then some. I’d also like to see Play To supported inside the Windows Media Center interface itself.

In the image below, I’ve right clicked an episode of Stargate Atlantis (non protected recording from the Sci Fi – now Sy Fy – channel), And once again, Play To (TV) appears as a choice.

My mouth dropped to the floor and I was speechless when this actually worked (see screenshot below). I think this is the future and  that I’ve found a time machine.

It takes a lot to get me excited and I’m VERY excited about this technology. My virtual hat is tipped to Microsoft for the slick implementation and to Samsung for being visionary and being one of the first to embrace this very cool convergent world.

And if you have read this far, I have two recommendations for you. The first is to upgrade to Windows 7 just as soon as you can and the second is, if you are shopping for a new HDTV, the Samsung B750 line will rock your world.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse,Windows 7, media center, Media Center Windows 7, windows media center, how-to, Play To, Windows Media Streaming,DLNA,Tip

So far, I’ve determined that on a host that is hard wired to my home router, the bit rate is 2000 and if the host is wireless 802.11n, the rate is 1200. Note that I am streaming no DRM’d HD content recorded using a Digital Cable Tuner and a CableCard. The client was my ASUS EeePC netbook, connected via 802.11n wireless.  This means that most broadband users should have a wonderful experience. Comcast’s flagship speed is 12/2, so certainly the experience will be a good one for Comcast customers, especially considering that most will have standard definition Media Center recordings. (Disclaimer, I work for Comcast and this does not in any way represent any official statement or endorsement.). Given my own experience with these HD recordings, anyone streaming HD recordings or HD Videos will have a great experience as well. I’m not easily impressed, but this stuff is amazing.

The bit rate is shown in the upper left corner of Windows Media Player when you first start streaming a TV Show.

Here are some screen captures showing this data.

Above is the bitrate between a host connected via 802.11n wireless to a client also running 802.11n.

Above shows a host machine wired (GigE) to a wireless 802.11n client

My conclusion is that real soon now, there will be people slinging content over the Internet from their homes to their laptops and netbooks. And they will all be having as much fun as I am!

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, media center, Media Center Windows 7, windows media center, how-to, Tip

First, this is secure streaming between computers I own. The provider available for the RC is Windows Live, and any computer used as either the host or the client MUST be associated with your Windows Live ID (the same one on each computer). You’ll need to set permissions on the host machine within Windows Media Player, as well.

I decided to try streaming an episode of Stargate Atlantis recorded in High Def from the SciFi channel as a first test. I about fell over because I didn’t expect it to work at all and had guessed that if I could get it to work, it would be glitchy and unwatchable. Wrong. While the content is downsampled, I’d watch it in a heartbeat wile travelling.

Incredible to me, the client I was using was an Asus EeeePC also running build 7100 W7.

While I’m no Steven Spielberg, I managed to capture a bit of this experience:

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, media center, Media Center Windows 7, windows media center, how-to, Tip