Tuned in and watching the first recorded episode of this show on my TV.

the iPad app is listening and syncing/downloading content. Note that other info about the current show and the upcoming episode in the series is also available.

The app is a great education experience for kids and adults alike with instructional quizzes and FAQs.

Notes from the field about this episode showed the dangers of producing a show in an unpredictable environment.

Kudos to everyone at the Weather Channel for the vision to offer a multimedia experience spanning devices in real time. I hope this is the beginning of a new era. We’ve come along way since Former FCC Chariman Newton Minnow’s famous “Vast Wasteness” 1961 speech.

I’ve used myDVR on my iPxx devices to remote schedule recordings, and I watched the CES demo video that Brian Roberts did and drooled.

After installing the app, at first run, a welcome screen appeared, which I dismissed (being a Type A) kind of geek. Actually, after logging in, I could tell that the application already knew about my two DVR boxes as they were already paired from my use of myDVR.

The Guide in this new app is FAR more usable than the one included with the original Comcast iPhone app. There are filters, as shown below (but I have not yet found a way to specify favorite channels.  Filters aren’t “sticky” so being a HD snob, I do have to turn the setting for HD only to ON each time I launch the app (and am hoping this will change to a sticky setting).

Once a show is selected, two choices are available, record or watch on TV. Record works in the same way as the older myDVR app, but WATCH TV is awesome. As you can see below, when WATCH TV is selected, an animated icon pops up and the channel changes on the TV. (Full disclosure, when I installed this yesterday, channel changing didn’t work for me. I opened a ticket and it was fixed 24 hours later).

Comcast has more features coming, including the ability to watch some shows directly on the iPad.

(Update 11/17) Engadget has posted a video showing off both current and future capabilities of this app. Currently (and I’ve reported this to Comcast), the On Demand listing in the app isn’t as up to date as the EPG on the STB itself. Also, with On Demand, you still have to pick up the Comcast (or Harmony-whatever) remote to confirm “purchase” of an On Demand asset. I’ve asked that they consider a settings option to override this annoying behavior. We’ll see.. (I’m thinking of getting a Red Eye mini which will at least let me confirm from the iPxx device).

What makes this app interesting to me is that, to change channels, NO IR device is needed. This is a good thing because the iPad/iPhone devices do not have onboard IR (although there are some third party add-on devices available). The iPxx device actually communicate with the DAC (Digital Addressable Controller) via some web service that sends commands to the local DAC when you make a channel selection over your WiFi or 3G Internet connection. To accomplish a real time channel change, a lot of moving parts need to communicate and work seamlessly. I’m impressed.

Thanks, Comcast, for a great contribution to my connected home lifestyle!

Comcast promised this was coming, and they’ve done a great job. This really rounds out my options for viewing content wherever I am.  Does it replace Netflix on my iPad? Not yet. But the two complement each other nicely. Comcast promised more and better “TV Everywhere” and they are delivering on that promise.

I fired up the updated Xfinity app that showed as an update and here is a walk through:

First, iPad users will see a new Play Now button (I’ve drawn a red arrow to show this on the screen shot below). This is the key to streaming to the iPad.

After selecting Play Now, you can filter by Network, Genres, Titles, Movies, Series.

Parental Controls are available (but you can elect to not show again)

Once an asset is selected, it is fairly quick to load (about 37 seconds over my home 802.11n WiFi)

I’ve selected a Harry Potter movie available on HBO. Note the HBO GO logo

And here is a shot showing the movies running on my iPad. Slick.

I now have multiple sources for entertainment on my iPad and a larger choice of content. I’m hoping that Live TV streaming is next.

Like many others, while I’d love a new DLNA certified Home Theater receiver DMR, the price range for these is currently $900+. And the Samsung TV is relatively new.

Enter the WD TV Live Hub. This >$200 little box does it all. Like many Home Theater enthusiasts looking for optimum solutions that provide Windows 7 Play To functionality, I’ve been frustrated and was not looking for an expensive solution. This is a very small box with gargantuan capabilities, including a 1TB hard drive to store your favorite media on.

Lots of jacks, including HDMI and SP/DIF, plus USB ports front and back (for connecting USB drives, USB Flash Keys, Wireless Adapters, Keyboards, etc.) For size comparison, in the image above on the right, the WD TV Live Hub sits atop a Samsung BD Player, which sits atop my (broken RRoD’d) Xbox 360. No HDMI or Optical SP/DIF cables are supplied, so you will need your own for the best AV experience. There is an included quick set up poster type guide supplied in the box, but no manual /user guide in the retail box, but it is available online for download in PDF format.  Most of my manuals are still in shrink wrap, so, as usual, I just jumped in without  a net.

I connected an HDMI cable from the device to my TV and an optical cable from the device to a SP/DIF port on my home theater receiver. I also plugged a wired Ethernet cable in to the device and into my D-Link DAP-1522, which provides wireless connectivity as an access point client (like a gaming adapter).  There is a list of supported USB Wireless N adapters, (as well as everything else that WD tested for connectivity including TV’s, routers, etc.) but I found that the one I tried wasn’t as good as the DAP-1522, or MoCA. More later on Network connectivity and speeds.

The WD TV Live Hub by default checks for new firmware. Downloading and installing the firmware that was available was quick and easy.

Once the device restarted with the new firmware, I was ready to try Windows 7 DLNA Play To functionality. One of the best references for Windows 7 Media Streaming and Play To can be found on MSDN.

The WD Live player showed right up in my list of devices since I previously enabled all the settings that are needed.

I selected some music as a first test:

Which started playing immediately with a display showing that the content was from Windows 7:

The next thing I tried was Windows Media Center Recorded TV. All the DRM rules apply, but unprotected content, such as this Stargate episode recorded from SyFy (SciFi) streamed beautifully and looked and sounded great.

On one of my desktops, I have a few favorite Blu Ray movies that I own ripped to MKV. Windows Media Player Streaming/Play To does not recognize the MKV extension, but if you have the appropriate bits (DivX is one option) and rename (or copy) MKV to WMV, you might just find that it works! In my case, this works from both Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player:

Avatar streamed without a glitch, with 5.1 Dolby at 1080p – you may see information quickly displayed as the stream starts, but the blue light in the center of my Sony receiver confirms 5.1 if I blink and miss the info on the screen.

Bottom line, every file type supported by WMP seems to flawlessly “just work” when I use Windows 7 Play To.  If you are looking for a reasonably priced device to enable Windows 7 Play To in your home, I highly recommend the WD TV Live Hub.  The complete list of DMR’s certified to work with Windows 7 is posted here.

While the WD TV Live Hub does have 1TB internal storage, I have a large collection of Recorded TV, plus a few ripped DVD and Blu Ray movies already residing on three Windows 7 desktops, a Vail/WHS 2011 beta machine (which supports Play To if you log into the machine and configure WMP – which you aren’t supposed to do) and 5 TB on NAS. So Windows 7 Play To is almost a necessity in my connected home. I do have a couple of Media Center Extenders which I use on both of my HD TV’s for HD via CableCard (ATI  DCT/OCUR) viewing.

I mentioned the Networking capabilities of the WD TV Live  Hub a bit earlier. Unlike devices from vendors like Sony and Samsung, etc.. who provide wireless N networking only via their own usuriously priced proprietary USN adapters, WD has done the right thing by providing support for off the shelf wireless N USB adapters. Some may work better than others. I tried a Linksys  WUSB600N V2 which the WD device immediately recognized and allowed me to browse available SSID’s, enter a WPA2-AES passphrase, and then use. I found the DAP-1522 (or my MoCA) connection to be more reliable, but this may be a function of the particular Linksys USB adapter that I happened to have laying around. Both the DAP-1522 and MoCA handled the 1080p/5.1 stream perfectly. The source computers are two floors away.  Rather than run up and down the two sets of stairs (and being a couch potato by choice), I use Windows Remote Desktop (RDP host is supported in W7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise, but not Home Premium- any version can be a RDP client) to log into these computers from the comfort of my sofa and use Play To via RDP.

In addition to the complete support for Windows 7 Play To, as a DLNA DMR, there are various options to stream media between devices. Being the aforementioned couch potato, after checking out Windows 7 Play To, my instincts were to fire up my iPad and PlugPlayer.  I was easily able to setup PlugPlayer to use the WD Device as the renderer.

And sent my ripped Avatar from the host computer to the WD TV Live Hub

Since the WD TV Live Hub has 1TB of storage, I decided to copy some of my favorite content to its built in hard drive. WD has software available on their website for managing and copying/content, but Windows Explorer handles this kind of task natively, and being a minimalist when it comes to software, that is the route I selected. The device shows in the network window and you can browse, create/rename folders, copy content, etc. easily.

I found that copying over the network was time consuming, so I let it run overnight. I had two MKV files (about 15 gigs each), about 20 gigs of music and 25 gigs of photos. Not sure how long it took, but it was completed when I checked it the next morning. I found info in the downloaded PDF User Guide about thumbnails for ripped movies. Just create a filename.jpg with the same name as filename.mkv (etc.) and it once again, just works.

There are lots of settings that are customizable, including selecting your own photos as a screensaver and setting your own background. I’ve set my own background, and am about to try to find out where that 49 degree temperature is coming from.  The menus are self explanatory and tell you when the device finds new items.

On top of all of this, Netflix, Pandora, YouTube and Facebook (and more) are available.

The WD TV Live Hub just seems to do everything, like a Swiss Army knife. Because it employs flawless and solid Windows 7 DLNA Play To functionality and has support for a massive number of file formats and codecs, this is THE device to grab as it really does fully embrace DLNA and it really “just works”.  If your interested in discussing this, and/or other DLNA devices, see The Green Button  Play To, DLNA, Etc. Forum.

The secret sauce was finding an app called PlugPlayer and installing it on my iPhone and iPad and seeing my iPxx devices show up in the Network Window .

I was intrigued, and not expecting much success, used Windows Explorer, right clicked a music file and saw not only my TV and Sonos Players listed, but my iPhone (via PlugPlayer) as well.

Then, the next task was finding which file formats would be supported.

All my ripped music is now mp3, as I discovered long ago that almost all devices supported this format.

Clearly, Windows 7 can now stream music to my iPxxx devices.

My individual jpg image files also presented no problems. Playing a picture stream to my iPad (did not try the iPhone) sort of worked. A sort of intermediary screen was displayed on the iPad with a button labeled “Done” after each image displayed. I could either wait and the next image would display or push this button to see the next image. So this needs some work or tweaking.

Video, on the other hand, was tough. Neither dvr-ms or wtv are apparently supported by my iPxx devices/Plug Player and it appeared that while mp4 files work, there is no buffered instant play and you need to wait for the whole file to be loaded in memory. So, small video files are do-able, but I don’t see any transcoding taking place or any live streaming. I couldn’t get a small mp4 video file (about 1/3 Gig) to actually play without intervention. For proof of concept I took an old unprotected dvr-ms and converted in to a mp4.

I suspect the file was transferring in the background and being cached locally on the device. I actually closed the Play To window on the computer. Five minutes it showed up on the device on a Playlist screen, where I could push the play button and watch the video clip.

My conclusions – the existing PlugPlayer app is fine for music streaming using Windows 7 Play To, but not so good for images and videos. Still, there is now proof that it is possible to Play To an iPxx device, which opens up possibilities. I may post a message on the PlugPlayer support forum and see if the developer is interested in pursuing these issue.

If you have experience with this app, suggestions for other DLNA controller iPxx that are better, or comments in general, please post on the DLNA forum on The Green Button.

I thought about this for a bit and then tested to see if an HTML page could be hosted locally, placed in the C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsAccessoriesMedia CenterMedia Center Programs folder with the appropriate MCL and PNG file. The answer was yes, and this now opens the door to more customizations.

Further, I thought that the still images needed to be refreshed. Not much value in watching an image on the screen that just sits there. I fired up Microsoft Expression Web and created a page and added in a META REFRESH tag to reload every xx seconds (I used 30 seconds as the interval). While tables should not be used for layout on a page designed to be viewed in a real web browser (a deprecated means of coding), a nested table structure proved perfect for display inside Windows Media Center. I specified the Segoe UI font and ended up with something that looked pretty decent and worked.  Here is the view inside Windows Media Center:

Here is the HTML code. You will need to replace the hostname, port, image path as I documented in the post linked above. The mycameras.html file I created contains the following:

The MCL file (mycameras.mcl) is as follows:

After removing the files I created and used yesterday, I placed the html file, the MCL file, and the new PNG file in the C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsAccessoriesMedia CenterMedia Center Programs folder. Next I launched Windows Media Center,and  opened Extras.

I finished by adding my new My Cameras extra as a top level Extras menu item.

Now, if I add more cameras, I can just edit the existing HTML. I’m sure I’ll have to change (reduce) the size of the displayed image to get more on a single page, but I now have a personal IP Camera viewport inside Windows Media Center. (And naturally, I’ve added the second camera to my iPhone and iPad Smartvue configuration).

My goals were to be able to check activity in my parking lot/walkway on demand from Windows Media Center, my iPhone, and my iPad. The web is a wonderful wealth of information, and putting this together was not really difficult. And definitely worth sharing with others.

Back in 2002, I wrote about adding an Internet Camera to my home network.  Obviously, 802.11b with WEP doesn’t interest me any more, but since the device has a 10/100 Ethernet port, connecting to a MoCA network or using an 802.11n wireless bridge makes the device usable with more modern networking technologies. The device can display a live view with either an ActiveX control or Java (neither of which is usable on an iPxxx device or Media Center friendly.  The trick was to find a way using only a web URL to display real time images. Most IP Camera vendors don’t document this.

Then I found the Smartvue web site, which not only listed the URL format for images for a huge variety of IP cameras, but pointed the way to free iPhone and iPad apps. The iCam support site also has a neat interactive test page to determine the proper URL to use and includes some options not listed at Smartvue.

I tested the image path samples on the Smartvue site and found the correct one for my DCS1000W by testing with Internet Explorer using the internal IP, my FQD URL (dynamic DNS) and on my iPhone and iPad.

First up was adding what was needed to view inside the Media Center interface. I found the info to create an MCL file and accompanying tile for Windows Media Center on The Digital Lifestyle and got started tweaking. Here is a sample MCL file to use as a guide:

Since I need to view on both laptops away from home and desktops at home, I used the fully qualified dynamic dns name from my dynamic DNS provider, the port number, and the image path as shown above. (And my home router has the corresponding port forwarding set up. My router supports loopback (and supports dynamic DNS providers), so this guarantees a sweet experience.

Below you can see the MCL file and the PNG image I created (in Photoshop, but Windows Paint will work) and where these were placed so that they would be available to all users. As stated on The Digital Lifestyle information, I had to create the last two folders.

I opened Media Center, and the new Camera tile was displayed as expected. When I opened it, I received a standard Windows login credentials prompt because my IP Camera is protected with a username and password. But since I had already opened the site in IE and selected “remember password”, I could select OK either with the mouse or the remote. Next,  the expected warning about compatibility with the Media Center interface and selected to not warn me and view anyway (a one time task).

I also added the Tile to the top level menu (right click or i on the remote)

And here’s the view inside Media Center of my IP Camera (we had a frost last night so there is some condensation).

Integration with my iPxx devices was next.  Smartvue provides FREE apps for both the iPhone and iPad in the Apple App Store and they are both pretty neat. (And they have apps for Blackberrys, Android’s and more !) They also support a way to view password protected cameras like mine (documented on the bottom of the third party camera page AND in the apps themselves).

On the iPad, with the larger display, there is a list of cameras on the left and the view from the selected camera is on the right, (Out of the box, both the iPad and iPhone apps have some default cameras configured, but you can delete/edit, etc.)

And on my iPhone, here’s the default list, with my own camera at the bottom:

And the view from my iPhone:

And, the camera itself can send email and a screen shot when motion is detected, so no matter where I am, I’m going to know who’s pulled into my other parking space or is walking to my front door!

1. The ability to stream from ANY of my computers (using Play To or anything else) to more than one music player/renderer simultaneously.

2. To be able to control the volume above individually or together.

3. Play Pandora Radio and other Internet sourced digital music

4. Use existing/create new playlists

5. Use iPhones, iPads and  iPxxx whatever to control and manage the device as a remote control (including graphical menus).

6. Use the system as an alarm clock with choices to wake from alarm, music, Internet music, whatever

7. Wireless connectivity in my Living Room

8. A system that was upgradeable.

9. Quality sound

10. Expandability

I’m still stunned that I found a system that does ALL of the above. (And I’m betting I discover more features – I’ve only had a few hours experience with this all, so my exploration and discovery has only just begun).

First, it’s a nice looking system. Available in Black or White, it will fit in anywhere,

Connecting two of these to my complex network was mindlessly simple. I plugged one into a switch uplinked to my router and connected the power. As for the second one, I stuck it in my living room and plugged in the power. The two units found each other over wireless 802.11n automagically, without my having to do anything. My network is secured by WPA2-AES, but Sonos uses “SonosNet 2.0” which is a secure AES peer to peer mesh wireless network, so this is a separate, but secured network. Interestingly, the speakers have two Ethernet ports for Ethernet bridging. And they also have a jack for a powered sub woofer which the devices find automatically. The docs state that you can use TWO of these in a single room for left/right stereo, but I’m wowed by just one in my living room and another upstairs that covers my loft home office and master bedroom.

I downloaded and installed the latest Sonos controller pc software from the Sonos website (rather than even opening the enclosed CD). After installing the software, I had to push a combination of buttons on each speaker to link to the software, but that was easy and fast. I saw that  firmware upgrades were detected for both speakers and they were downloaded and  applied seamlessly. I then connected my existing Pandora account through the Sonos Controller software. Done!

I fired up Windows Media Player (already set up for “Play To” with my Samsung TV which was not turned on at the time) and as you can see below, both units were available for Play To.

And of course, it worked beautifully.

I’ve got music stored on a flock of computers, including WHS1 and Vail. So how can I stream to my new Sonos speakers without moving from the sofa or booting up a laptop? Well, Sonos has apps for the iPad/ and for the iPhone/iTouch.  Just below is a screen capture from my iPhone. I can browse all my media servers and drill down to Artist, Album, etc. etc. and add to queues, play now, (etc. again). And I can stream my Pandora stations, too!

The iPad Sonos controller software, with more screen real estate, is a real knock out, as shown below.

And yes, there is a Line-In on the speakers themselves to connect even more devices. Like a Zune or whatever. Both the desktop software and the iPad software allow me to set alarms and sleep timers (!)

I will be setting up a series of alarms that I can turn on or off. This is so slick.

The sound is great. Sonos supports a wide variety of music formats (but not WMA lossless or Apple AAC enhanced
or Fairplay). Most of my content is mp3, so I’m all set.

This is the most advanced, converged system I’ve seen, and I’m more than just a little impressed. Kudos to Sonos for having the vision that supports my connected home.

I just had one of those A HA moments and uploaded one of them to my iDisk in the cloud  (which comes with my MobileMe subscription).  I had been thinking of iDisk as a place in the cloud to stash files, but not as a streaming server.  I downloaded the iDisk app to my iPad (and to my iPhone) and yup, I’ve got another place to store media files that can be served to my computers and iPxxx devices over the Internet.  Apple supplies 10GB of cloud storage space (compared to the 25GB Microsoft supplies with SkyDrive, but MS doesn’t seem to have an App in the App store <G>).

Here are a couple of captures from my iPad:

I’d ripped a bunch of movies at 720p to stream to my iPad using Air Video and other options. I was browsing the network folder over RDP that housed these mp4  and double clicked The Day After Tomorrow without really knowing what might happen. My expectation was that since RDP has been so bad at streaming media of any kind that it would be dreadful. To my surprise, it actually worked smoothly and well, including video and audio in sync.

Here’s a shot of my TV where you can see the RDP session and the movie in a Windows Media Player window.

And here is it when I expanded to full screen

I admit that I prefer the Windows Media Center interface over RDP as that losses the menu bar and gives me full screen. But this brings up interesting possibilities of traveling to a friends house with my Push2TV adapter and WiDi enabled laptop and having access to a remote library over the Internet. Probably won’t work as well over the Internet, but I’m up for trying.

The Netgear site http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13206 indeed has totally accurate instructions that work as advertised. I updated the laptop, rebooted, launched the utility, accessed the check for updates and the PTV1000 updated beautifully.

As you can see from the screen shot above, you can watch the progress of the Push2TV device upgrade on the laptop. It took about two minutes.

Similarly, the connected TV shows that the adapter is being updated.

When complete, you will need to re-associate your laptop with the adapter just like you did when you first setup the pairing.  If you’re just buying this gear, chances are that it will have the original firmware. You will need to set up the pairing with your TV prior to updating and then re-pair.

Once completed, I recommend you grab the even newer Intel My WiFi on the Netgear site and apply it for increased behavior control including as well:

Microsoft WHQL Certified Release
Fast Cursor
Support 1366×768 Display Resolution
Dynamic Wireless Status (More Frequent)
Prompted Firmware Update
Extended Desktop & Remote Only Display Modes
Automatic Microsoft* Firewall Approval
Support for Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1000
Switchable Graphics Interoperability Support

What they don’t tell you is that you need a specific computer with Intel GMA HD graphics and the Intel WiFi embedded radio. Initially, three laptops only were initially  available, exclusively from Best Buy.

For more in depth info on the technology see:

I’ve been using this technology since it became available in January and recommend it highly. You can read about my personal experience with this technology HERE.

Intel announced on June 21,2010 that "Intel Wireless Display is now available on more than 25 systems based on Intel Core i3 or Intel Core i5 processors from manufacturers like ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba. It is now available at more than 10 retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Dell.com, Fry’s, Sony Style, OfficeMax, Tiger Direct, and more. Enhancements to Intel Wireless Display are available for download with the 1.2 software version. This enables people to access an extended display mode for watching a video on TV while surfing the Internet on the laptop. New remote only mode allows you to watch a video with a black screen on the laptop to lower glare and distractions. A new fast cursor improves navigation on the TV. Intel Wireless Display is available on select Intel Core i5 or i5 systems and requires a Push to TV adapter from Netgear."

Dell has just announced an Inspiron model that can be custom ordered to include this technology.  You will need to be sure to order or configure to order the right combination of components including the Intel HD GMA video chip and Intel WiFi. And be sure to order the Netgear Push2TV adapter as well.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, Wireless Streaming, Windows 7, TV On Your PC, how-to, Stream your PC to your TV wirelessly