Jensigner has developed just such an add-on called OneShot which I see all kinds of interesting uses for, such as real time presentation work, education, and more. Basically this app takes screen captures of whatever is on your desktop and sends them to a folder named PlayTo, to enable you to quickly take advantage of a neat feature built into Windows 7. Open the folder, range select the images you’ve just captured and send to your PlayTo DLNA enabled TV.

To demo this, I opened my photo blog in IE9 and captured the desktop. Then, I opened the PlayTo folder and sent it to my DLNA enabled Samsung TV. Cool!

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.

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).

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.

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

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:

What you will need for optimum functionality and how to connect it:

1. Coax cable from wall to DTA RF IN

2. cable from DTA to existing Media Center tuner

3. Media Center Remote control

4. Either a built in eHome Receiver or external USB eHome receiver

5. IR two way blaster cable. The DTA adapter comes with a remote and an IR extender. Do NOT use the IR extender to plug into your eHome MCE receiver.

6. Carefully position the sticky adhesive on the LED on the end of the blaster cable over the receiver eye on the front of the DTA. Plug the other end into the port for you eHome IR receiver or the port on your USB eHome receiver.

7. The DTA has a switch on the back to set it to Ch3 or Ch4, for purposes of TV Setup on MCE this setting should not matter.

Now you are ready to re-run TV Setup. Open Media Center, Navigate to Tasks/Settings and then run TV Setup again. This article was prepared using Windows 7, but the steps are nearly identical for older versions of Windows/MCE.

Following is a screen by screen walk through using a Comcast DTA:

1. Since we are discussing DTA’s in thee USA, this is applicable to the United States only. Confirm the US region.

2. Specify your zip code

3. Agree to the terms of service

4. You’ll need to remain connected to the Internet throughout setup. Agree to the PlayReady EULA.

5. Play ready will download and install from Windows Update. This may take a few minutes, so be patient.

6. TV setup data will download

7. Windows Media Center will examine your TV signal

8.  Windows Media Center should detect your DTA and classify it as a set top box

9.  Select Cable

10.  Attempt automatic configuration. If this fails, you will need to re-run and select manual setup.

11.  Currently, the Windows Media Center remote database does not contain the code set for DTAs. Use WMC’s identify functionality to proceed. Use the remote supplied with your DTA. You may need to press one or more keys (and possibly all of them, but fortunately, there are not a large number of keys on this remote).  Select Next to start this process.

12. Press and hold the 0 key. You may be prompted to do this more than once and prompted to select different keys on your DTA remote. Follow the instructions until completed.

13. A message will display when the remote has been identified and the codes established.  Use your Media Center remote to complete TV setup.

14. Select two digits

15. Select enter the channel number and wait

16. Test channel changing by entering a one or two digit channel number that you know you can receive.

17. Use channel up and channel down to test and establish the speed at which commands need to be sent to successfully change channels

18. In my early testing, I found that Slow was the proper setting.

19. A confirmation will display

19. On Windows 7 (still in beta so this may changed) I needed to update PlayReady

20. The Program Guide will download (may take a few minutes).

21. Confirmation displays

22.  Guide Listing finished updating, time to enjoy TV again.

This article will be updated as needed.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, media center, windows media center, how-to, Tip

They say a picture is worth 10,000 words. So I’m saving 20K words with two pictures.

Bottom line: My EeePC (1000HEB) is running W7, and plugging in my MaxVolar Hybrid USB tuner yields just what I expected. Awesome..

The screen on the Netbook is actually quite good. Not sure what this will do to battery life

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, media center, windows media center, how-to, Tip,challenge-laptop