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March 2004 - Posts

Star Wars on DVD (at last)

This is the DVD set I've been waiting for since I first started buying DVDs (which was about six years ago, when the number of released DVDs in the UK was about 20). I'm sure there will be another boxed set in the future with all six films, but I can't Read More...
Posted Wednesday, March 31, 2004 7:09 AM by mcreasy | 4 Comments
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Microsoft Speech Server launch

John has a couple of posts on the Microsoft Speech Server launch. That's the team I worked on for almost three years before joining the Windows Media Center team. It's pretty exciting to see it finally get launched :-) Read More...
Posted Wednesday, March 24, 2004 5:48 PM by mcreasy | 1 Comments
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Puzzle Hunt (or how to spend a weekend at work without working)

I spent almost every minute I was awake this weekend on the Microsoft campus; other than closing some bugs Saturday morning I didn't do any work at all. I spent the rest of the weekend taking part in Puzzle Hunt 7 (Alice in Puzzlehunt). The Puzzle Hunt Read More...
Posted Monday, March 22, 2004 12:32 PM by mcreasy | 6 Comments
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iRiver Portable Media Center

See iRiver for the details. Read More...
Posted Friday, March 19, 2004 6:32 PM by mcreasy | 0 Comments
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Installing Windows XP Service Pack 2 will upgrade Media Center to Media Center 2004

If you've got a Media Center PC running the first version of Media Center and didn't get an upgrade to Media Center 2004 then don't worry. When you install Service Pack 2 for Windows XP you'll be upgraded to Media Center 2004. See here for more info. Read More...
Posted Friday, March 19, 2004 6:27 PM by mcreasy | 7 Comments

Portable Media Centers to arrive later this year

If you've been waiting to find out when you can get hold of one of these devices there's a bit of info about that here . For those who haven't heard about Portable Media Centers yet, they are handheld devices with a colour display and built in hard drive Read More...
Posted Thursday, March 18, 2004 3:41 PM by mcreasy | 3 Comments

Scooby-Doo dancer for Plus! DME

This caught my attention today, there's some Scooby-Doo related goodies for Plus! DME and Windows Media Player available to download here Read More...
Posted Thursday, March 18, 2004 3:35 PM by mcreasy | 16 Comments
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More on the "Broadcast flag"

I touched on this subject last week . Yesterday the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) annouced they are suing the FCC... "The FCC's digital broadcast television mandate is a step in the wrong direction because it would make digital television cost Read More...
Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2004 5:30 PM by mcreasy | 3 Comments
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Canabalizing a MP3 player for it's Microdrive

It's been all over the web (well at least the digital media parts of it) in recent weeks about new portable MP3 players shipping with removable Hitachi Microdrives that can be used in anything with a compact flash socket - notably there's been a lot of Read More...
Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2004 1:29 PM by mcreasy | 4 Comments
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Using FindService and PlayMedia to change the TV channel in Media Center

If you've used the MSN TV pages on Online Spotlight in Media Center you might have noticed buttons on some pages to tune to MSNBC or to The Weather Channel. The page uses the Media Center API FindService to find which channel MSNBC is in your particular Read More...
Posted Tuesday, March 09, 2004 11:04 AM by mcreasy | 12 Comments

Curious about which version of Media Center you have?

When the subject of which version of Media Center someone is running there is often some confusion - this is because the version of the Media Center software and the Windows XP version are different. To identify the version of Media Center you are running Read More...
Posted Tuesday, March 09, 2004 10:07 AM by mcreasy | 0 Comments

New Media Center Online Spotlight application - ESPN Motion

If you haven't visited Online Spotlight on your Media Center recently, there's a new reason to - ESPN Motion. It's in the News/Sports section and delivers video highlights of recent sports. There's a small download and install required so it can download Read More...
Posted Friday, March 05, 2004 11:15 AM by mcreasy | 3 Comments

The "Broadcast flag"

Here's an interesting article on the the MPAA's "Broadcast flag" and what it could mean for the future of digital recording broadcast TV. I'm in favour of preventing wide distribution of copyrighted works, but I'm really not in favour of not being able Read More...
Posted Thursday, March 04, 2004 2:57 PM by mcreasy | 11 Comments
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Movieoke

I'm surprised nobody thought of this sooner. It's karaoke for movies, just think of all those famous clips you could recreate in you're own style. Endless possibilities. It could be easy for DVD's to add this as an extra feature, they already have subtitles, Read More...
Posted Thursday, March 04, 2004 2:35 PM by mcreasy | 3 Comments
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Digital Media Thoughts

Short plug for Jason Dunn's new site - Digital Media Thoughts , it's off to a good start and if the success of PocketPC Thoughts and SmartPhone Thoughts are anything to go by it should be a good source of news. Read More...
Posted Wednesday, March 03, 2004 5:33 PM by mcreasy | 1 Comments
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Musing on an iPod

I gave into temptation last week and ordered an iPod. It arrived yesterday much to my delight. I went with the middle of the road model, the 20GB one, with all the accessories, it's actually not that much more expensive than the mini iPod, plus it looks Read More...
Posted Tuesday, March 02, 2004 2:17 PM by mcreasy | 6 Comments
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Hello World - Media Center Dialogs

The Media Center API has a function to displays dialogs, similar to the ones Media Center uses itself. An HTML application can take advantage of these to ask the user a question, or simply display a notification. Here's a simple example of how to create Read More...
Posted Tuesday, March 02, 2004 10:45 AM by mcreasy | 5 Comments
 
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