The Facebook page that will be set up for the Morgridge College of Education is going to be the largest part of the social networking implementation.  The reason for this is that it has the capability for marketing and interaction with both current and potential students, it provides analytics for the MCE, and it also can be used for advertising to reach a wider audience of potential students.

The interaction with current and potential students is going to be evaluated further once the MCE decides the specific interest the Facebook page is playing to.  Currently, it will be a place to advertise events and deadlines for events that are being sponsored by MCE or the programs within MCE.  As the page grows and develops, the role of the page could grow and mold along with it.

The analytics are a very important part for the Facebook page because of accountability.  With the analytics, it is very easy to quantitatively show that social networking is having a positive impact on the visibility of the college as a whole, as well as contributing to the recruitment of new students.  Demonstrating value to the administration of the college will allow for continued use of the social networking as well as opening up avenues for additional technologies or ideas in the future.

Advertising within Facebook stems directly from the analytics as well.  If the analytics are strong for current students, but lacking in new faces, advertising is a way to connect with a different audience.  Within the realm of the different programs that MCE offers, having another link to prospective students through growing social networking technologies provides another route to recruiting students.  A small investment in Facebook advertising could help the college as a whole by finding a new avenue of recruitment.

When adding new Channels to Channel.xml (using XMLTV2MXF) you HAVE to include a logo field for each channel entry.  Whilst the logo doesn’t have to exist, you still need a valid path in the field.

I located this download containing all of the channel logos for NZ.  Big thanks to the uploader for these!

He is my basic Channel.xml file containing the entries for a basic + sport SKy package.  The Logo references are for Andy Holts channel logos.

<?xml version=”1.0″ standalone=”yes”?>
<Channels>
<Channel id=”1″ cid=”tv1″ name=”TV1″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\tv1.png” />
<Channel id=”2″ cid=”tv2″ name=”TV2″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\tv2.png” />
<Channel id=”3″ cid=”tv3″ name=”TV3″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\tv3.png” />
<Channel id=”4″ cid=”c4″ name=”C4″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\c4.png” />
<Channel id=”5″ cid=”maori” name=”Maori Television” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\maori.png” />
<Channel id=”7″ cid=”prime” name=”Prime” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\prime.png” />
<Channel id=”11″ cid=”e” name=”E!” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\E!.png” />
<Channel id=”15″ cid=”sky1″ name=”The Box” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\The Box.png” />
<Channel id=”16″ cid=”uktv” name=”UKTV” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\uktv.png” />
<Channel id=”18″ cid=”living” name=”The Living Channel” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\living.png” />
<Channel id=”19″ cid=”food” name=”Food Television” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\food.png” />
<Channel id=”30″ cid=”skysport1″ name=”Sky Sport 1″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\sports 1 a.png” />
<Channel id=”31″ cid=”skysport2″ name=”Sky Sport 2″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\sports 2 a.png” />
<Channel id=”32″ cid=”skysport3″ name=”Sky Sport 3″ logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\sports 3 a.png” />
<Channel id=”33″ cid=”skysporthighlights” name=”Sky Sport Highlights” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\sports highlights a.png” />
<Channel id=”34″ cid=”espn” name=”ESPN” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\espn.png” />
<Channel id=”40″ cid=”disney” name=”Disney” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\disney.png” />
<Channel id=”41″ cid=”nickelodeon” name=”Nickelodeon” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\Nickleodeon.png” />
<Channel id=”42″ cid=”cartoonnetwork” name=”Cartoon Network” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\cartoon network.png” />
<Channel id=”45″ cid=”playhousedisney” name=”Playhouse Disney” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\playhouse.png” />
<Channel id=”70″ cid=”discovery” name=”Discovery Channel” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\discovery.png” />
<Channel id=”72″ cid=”natgeo” name=”National Geographic” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\” />
<Channel id=”73″ cid=”history” name=”The History Channel” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\history c.png” />
<Channel id=”74″ cid=”documentarychannel” name=”Documentary Channel” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\” />
<Channel id=”75″ cid=”animalplanet” name=”Animal Planet” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\Animal Planet.png” />
<Channel id=”90″ cid=”skynews” name=”Sky News” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\Sky News b.png” />
<Channel id=”91″ cid=”cnn” name=”CNN” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\CNN.png” />
<Channel id=”92″ cid=”foxnews” name=”Fox New Channel” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\Fox News.png” />
<Channel id=”93″ cid=”bbcworld” name=”BBC World” logo=”file://c:\Guide\Logos\BBC World.png” />
</Channels>

Getting the EPG running in Windows 7 MCE at first glance appeared a little cumbersome.  I started using xmltv2mxf but found a bug with it, in that you couldn’t search the guide without crashing 7MC (I’ve since found out why and am working on a fix).  So, I have resorted to Big Screen EPG (BSEPG) which is currently free while in Beta – just sign up to the forums.  You will still need xmltvnz (you need to donate to be able to use the necessary version 3 which is in beta) to download the local data, but after that, it’s all point and click.

Once the data is in 7MC you need to associate the EPG data with channels that you receive.  In my case, I am using a STB as my only source of channels so my examples below may be overly simply if you have multiple channel sources (DVB-S, DVB-T etc).

Once in 7MC, go here:

1. Settings – TV – Guide – Edit Channels.  Choose the correct channel number as it relates to the Sky Channel.  I am going to use channel 40 (Disney) as an example.
2. Select Clear All first.  This will deselect all  of the channels.  In my case I had 999 channels, so it was easier to clear them all and then select the 20 or 30 that I wanted.
3. Select 40 and press Enter, select Edit Listings, select Sort by Name, press End and it will take you to the channel list.  Locate the channel listing that relates, in this case Disney.  Select Save and you’re done.  Repeat this for all the channel listings you have.
4. As you move down through the channels, make sure you tick the channels that you want.  (Once you do this, when you edit a channel it will prompt you to save.  Select Yes).
5. Save and check your guide.  Assuming my instructions weren’t too brief, you should now have a working EPG.

As mention, in my case all I had was a STB (Sky) connected to a single tuner in my HTPC.  The only EPG data I wanted was that which related to Sky, and not FTA.

My comment above about having to donate to use xmltvnz is only whilst the product is in beta.  When it reaches public release I believe it will be free.

 You will already have a laptop or two and possibly a desktop PC.  You may even have an XBOX 360.

If you do then your XBOX360 will most likely be connected to a flat panel TV.

The XBOX360 can stream Music, Video and Pictures from your computers to your flat screen PC.

If your PC has Windows Media Centre or Windows Visa Home/Premium then you can “extend” that to your flat screen TV in the living room via the XBOX 360.

Some of the background steps need to be quickly explained before getting into the meat of really implementing many of the social networking technologies.  The background is not technologically based, but existing within any institution it is good to know what has been done and through what channels in case they need to be followed a next time.

The first aspect of the social networking for the MCE was to obtain permission to set up the presence on the web.  The permission to set up the social networking came from the head of the Office of Admissions and Enrollment Services (OAES) as well as through the Associate Dean of the college.  Included in obtaining this permission were some examples of how other institutions are using social networking, and some examples of why it would be beneficial to the college.

After obtaining permission to initiate the social networking presence of the MCE, an email address was needed to sign up for many of the services that were going to be used.  The idea of using a current email address was discarded because of the though that the single email address would become too cluttered in the future.  Having an email that was used for many many different objectives would make the email address difficult to navigate.  Plus, if the social networking/technology grows in the future, there will now be an email address dedicated to that task.

The first piece of social networking implemented by MCE is a blog.  The blog will be important mainly for internal use, but it may also grow into a tool to connect with individuals outside the staff of the MCE.  As of the initial implementation, the blog will mainly be used as a narrative recording of the steps taken by the individual who is implementing the social networking for MCE (specifically this blog, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account).  The hope is that when the job is passed to other individuals, the blog will allow for a recorded history of what has already been done and why, so that a new employee can just pick up where the last employee left off.

The major decision for the blog was which free blogging tool to use.  WordPress was chosen because it offered many back end amenities that are easy to use, and there is the option of upgrading the wordpress blog to be hosted somewhere else, or to make it look much more professional.  In essence, the wide variety of customization options offered by wordpress were why it was chosen.

Hello, and welcome to the Morgridge College of Education (MCE) blog at the University of Denver. As of right now, the blog is still in the development stages and will mainly be used  as a way to record and pass on knowledge of the technology being used within the college by the Office of Admissions and Enrollment Services (OAES).

In the future, the blog may expand to be more than an oral(written) or narrative history and guide, but that is the current purpose.  It is a way to record best practices and give an idea to future workers in OAES what has already been done.

Thank you and feel free to contact us with any questions!

As stated in my previous blog, my goal is to evaluate each program on a clean installation of Windows 7 so I can judge each program based on their own performances and drivers (also called Codexes).  During these tests I will be evaluating each program based on the following items:

Quality of video after ripping (1 to 5 rating, 5 being the best, 1 the worst)
Quality of sound (2 channel vs 5.1 channel)
Sound sync w/video at end of movie
Time to sync vs Actual Movie Time

The first package that I’ve decided to evaluate is called Magic DVD Ripper.  I found this package after doing several searches for DVD Ripper and reading several blogs on this topic.  Every post that I read gave it high marks so I was very eager to try this program out.

My first impressions with this package was good.  The installation was quick and easy, the interface is clean and simple, and when a DVD is inserted into the drive, the software automatically grabs the movie and marks the chapters to burn.  It has the ability to unlock DVD’s as well as convert the DVD into several formats all using a batch editor (ie, convert to iPhone, MP4 and MWV).

For the most part the program did it’s job very well.  The default profile is mainly designed to rip DVD’s so you can watch them on smaller devices like iPhone and PocketPC devices, not on full screen 65″ big screen TV’s like what we have.  This is evident by the resolution of the resulting default .AVI file being only 640×360 (720×480 is standard DVD quality) and the sound is only 2 channel stereo.

Another profile option that MagicDVD Ripper provides is called Original MPEG2.  This profile produces the best video and sound quality, plus it rips the fastest too.  The video is full DVD quality at 720×640 and the sound is the full 6 channel Dolby Surround Sound just as you expect from a DVD.   This wasn’t much of a surprise to me since DVD’s are MPEG2 files to begin with so extracting the original MPEG2 movie from the DVD shouldn’t be that difficult.  It’s only major drawback using this profile is the resulting filesize, a woping 5.86gb in size compared to the AVI file at 1.08gb for Cars.  But with 1tb hard drives under $100 and 2tb hard drives in the $130 range, storage size is almost a non-issue these days.

There are some issues that I found with MagicDVD Ripper though.  One drawback that I found with MagicDVD Ripper is it’s ability to update the IDTag information on the file after ripping the movie.  This information is vital in order for Windows Media Center to know the name of the movie and to get important information like cover art, movie summary and other cool things.  Without this information, all you get on the screen is a colored box with the filename on there and that’s it.  No movie summary, no cover art, nada.  I tried to modify the properties of the file using Windows Explorer to enter in my own IDTag information but for some reason Windows 7 wouldn’t let me enter any information in at all.

Another drawback with MagicDVD Ripper is the Codexes.  Although they do a good job with the codexes installed, you can’t select different video or audio codexes.  This leaves you with no option to use a codex that allows for IDTag information or maybe a different MPG2 codex that results in a smaller file size.

So in the end, I give Magic DVD Ripper a B.  While the resulting file produced by the default AVI profile is acceptable, the Original MPEG2 profile produced the best image by far and the best sound.  In fact it’s hard to see any difference between playing the DVD directly then playing the MPEG2 file afterwards.  But without the IDTag information, it leave MCE looking very boring and out dated with just color boxes and filenames within them.

Below are the specs for both Cars and Spiderman ripped using the AVI Profile and the Original MPEG2 profile.

Cars by Pixar/Disney
Total Movie Time: 1:56:22
 

Spiderman by Marvel/Columbia Pictures
Total Movie Time: 2:01:05

To get started on this quest, I’ve decided the best place to start isn’t with the fancy hardware, but by covering some foundational basics needed in order to have a successful MCE system. 

Digital Content.

Yep, in order for this whole adventure to work, we must have digital content.  So what is Digital Content?  Basically it’s your stuff -  pictures, music, movies, home videos – turned into some type of digital format.  For the young folks out there, you’ve lived your life mostly in a digital world already.  Your songs all come in a digital format like MP3, your pictures are all probably JPG and you take video with your digital camcorder or your cell phone.  So the concept of  digital content is as normal as spreading butter on a piece of toast.

Now for those of you who are, let’s say, living in a mostly analog world, most of our music is still on CD’s, pictures are things that we hold in our hand or in a scrapbook, and your camcorder still uses HI-8 tapes.  However you do purchase songs here and there online and you’re just starting to get into this digital world with a cell phone that takes pictures and videos.  It’s you guys that I’m mostly going to talk to here.

The purpose of these next few articles will focus mainly on the task of converting your DVD movies into some type of digital format.  I will cover later how to convert your old VHS and Camcorder tapes into a digital format as well, but that will take some time (and money).  As for your CD collection, that’s already built into Windows Media Center via Windows Media Player so it’s easier than ripping DVD’s.  I will write an article after covering DVD’s on how to rip CD’s within Windows Media Center and some tips and tricks behind that.

So let’s start talking about ripping DVD’s.

Over the course of the next few months I will be testing several DVD ripping programs.  I will pick two packages that are available on the web, one or two packages that are available via retail, and if I can find them, packages that work within Media Center and will rip the DVD automatically.  Each article I write will be specific to each package and to make things fair, I will erase my laptop hard drive and reinstall Windows 7 each time.  This is so each package can be evaluated on its own without one package interfering with the other and to give each package a ‘level’ playing field.

I will be testing each software using the movies “Cars” by Pixar/Disney and “Spider-Man” by Columbia Pictures.  I’ll use Cars to see how the image quality looks at the beginning of the movie and to make sure the sound is fully synced from beginning to end.  I picked Cars because the beginning shows Lightning rolling out of the truck with several close up shots of the car.  This scene really helps to show the quality of the conversion with the curves and color differentials.  The better the conversion, the smoother the lines and cleaner the colors looks.  I’ll also use “Spider-Man” to help test quality but mostly to test the surround sound conversion as well.  What’s the purpose of ripping a DVD if you can’t get the best quality and sound out of it?

Now I do want to make something very clear here.  The purpose of ripping DVD’s is not to steal movies.  The purpose is to take the DVD’s THAT YOU OWN and convert them to a digital format.  Some newer movies are now coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray with the movie already in a digital format ready for playback.  I will find a recent movie that has this features,  purchase it for testing and report my findings.  If you know of such a movie, please let me know.  After all, why duplicate the work if it’s already done for you!

So let’s get ready to rip it, rip it good…..

A thoroughly scary and disappointing thing happened to me this weekend that made me reevaluate my cavalier way of doing IT work at home (you know, where the data is actually important).

I admit I was over-confident about certain things.  Heck, the thing we were doing worked before, so why shouldn’t it work again?

Here are some of the lessons and quirks that I uncovered:

You’ve got 720 minutes

Windows Home Server (WHS) does some really great things.  It mirrors your files so that in case of most hardware failures, your content is safe.  It backs up your other computers so that you’ve got peace of mind when your computers start making funny noises… but what’s backing up your WHS box (I would link in JungleDisk here, but they just pulled their WHS backup beta until further notice)? 

What if you make a mistake (or something else does), and you lose some files?

The good news is that you actually can recover files that are accidentally deleted from a WHS network share.  For 12 hours.  You may be able to right click on the folder in question and look through the “Previous Versions” of it and recover the lost content (review the link to see the steps – there’s also a client tool that could help there, but I’ve not used it).

Here are the key points to know about when it comes to previous versions in WHS:

• Depending on your disk space, you may only have 12 hours to figure out there is a problem AND recover the files (recovery isn’t instantaneous)
• If you only have 1 previous version available (due to disk space), it will disappear at noon or midnight.
• You must do the recovery from the network shares (log into the machine and open explorer, type in “\\<your machine name>”, right click on a folder and select Properties and work from there), not the “d:\shares\” folder in WHS.  You won’t see any previous versions from the “d:\shares\” folder.

So, if there is all this protection involved – even without a backup of WHS itself, why was this such a problem?  Enter the next set of factors…

Windows 7 and media libraries

A challenge for a friend and I has been figuring out how to seamlessly incorporate a vast collection of Apple Lossless (ALAC) .m4a music into his Media Center and Windows Media Player.  Zune seems to be a lost cause since it decides to use its own DirectShow filters and its own special media library. 

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, but have ALAC encoded files without DRM, I would suggest you:

• Install iTunes somewhere
• Open your vast ALAC library of music
• Change the default music encoding scheme in iTunes to WMA Lossless or something similar
• Go away for a while and let iTunes churn

Anyhow, let’s just say I’m thoroughly convinced that ALAC files are just not meant to live together with any Microsoft Media Center type product.  Go to some other media center type application for your HTPC, use iTunes, or convert your files.

We were able to get the files to play in Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player 12 (in Windows 7) by installing QuickTime and the RiverPast QuickTime DirectShow Filter.  The catch is that you can’t see the “tag” information in the files.  So song name, album etc. are all going to be empty unless you install some sort of Windows Media Player plugin.  It’s possible this could let you stream music over http on your WHS box if you install QuickTime and the DirectShow filters there too (untested).

I’m not going to suggest an AAC music information plugin for Windows 7 WMP 12.  Somewhere along the line of attempting to get these ALAC files merged into the Windows Media Center and WMP media library, something started deleting the music files silently.

This could have been any one of several moving parts in this setup (note, this did work in Vista).  However, we did not discover there was a problem until about 10AM when we noticed that all the music files in the artists beginning with “A” and most of the “B’s” were already gone.

By the time we figured out how to recover files from the shadow copies (we tried using the d:\shares folders at first instead of the actual \\<machine name> shares), it was 12:01 PM.  The previous versions disappeared, and all was lost.

Note, his WHS volumes were very full, so it could only keep one shadow copy around.

Other Windows Media Player 12 and Win 7 Media Center quirks

Independent from the above problem, we couldn’t even add any music to the WMP / MCE library.  We also could not view the library setup at all in Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player 12.  The symptoms of this problem are:

• In Windows Media Player 12, right click the Music entry on the left and select “Manage Library”, and nothing happens.  Or find another way to select “Manage Library” and again, nothing will happen.
• In Windows Media Center in Windows 7, if you select Tasks and Media Libraries, the option to “Remove a location” will be grayed out and unselectable.  You can attempt to add a new location, but you’ll never know for sure if it worked.

If you run into this situation, this may have happened to you:

• You mapped a network shared folder to a drive (say “M:” for your “\\homeserver\Music” shared folder)
• That drive mapping somehow disappeared

On a whim, I added his M: drive into the mix to see if that changed anything.  I didn’t realize he used to have drive M: in his setup. After doing this, I was suddenly able to manage his media libraries in both WMP and MCE.

Moral: Test test test

Yup.  It seems simple enough… we should have copied a bunch of his ALAC media to a temporary location and pointed all our efforts toward that.  The drawback there was the colossal amount of time it takes to rebuild the media library.  But then again, he wouldn’t have lost any media by my hand.

Oh, and maybe throw an extra drive into your WHS box if you get near 70% capacity.

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Holy Batman in a skirt, awesome news for people who enjoy MKV video acceleration without all the configuration. Well atleast if you don’t care about subtitles just yet. All you need is this new codec from DivX labs that hooks into Windows Media Foundation and BAM accelerated MKV h.264 uber movie playback in Windows Media Center and player. Enjoy this amazing post hack7mc.com made about this topic.

DivxLabs Previously, getting MKV to work properly inside Windows 7 Media Center has required quite a bit of effort on the part of the end user. It was necessary to install a number of third party codecs, make modifications to the registry and tweak codec settings to get everything to play nicely. By default Windows 7 Media Center uses a new method for playing back audio video content known as Windows Media Foundation which replaces the older method known as DirectShow. Unfortunately, every codec package available to this point is programmed for DirectShow and doesn’t take advantage of the new WMP format meaning playing non-supported formats was a substantial hassle.

Luckily for us there is a small light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Divx Lab’s MKV project. The Divx Lab’s project aims to utilize the Windows Media Foundation to enable playback of the popular MKV format on both the main Media Center machine as well as extenders. Not only does this mean support for extenders but it could also very well mean the end to playing with various codec package settings to tweak the audio/video settings to match the output of the default Media Center playback.

Beyond enabling playback through your Windows Media Center Extenders, the picture quality of the Windows Media Foundation solution is incredible and contains complete DVXA hardware acceleration support. So not only is the quality fantastic but hardware acceleration will keep frame rates right where they should be without the drops that can sometimes occur with CPU intensive codecs such as FFDShow.

Using Divx Lab’s MKV preview video quality is amazing in full 1080p without so much as a hint of latency in the playback. There are still a few downsides to using the preview though. For instance, you’ll still be required to install a third party codec for audio playback depending on the audio encoding used for your movies. The newest version of AC3Filter is all you’ll need though and provides ACM wrapper allowing the playback to be passed through Windows Media Foundation as well.

[via hack7mc.com]

WVGA GAMES

“Where’s the DVD!”

“Why are all the DVD cases empty”

“Honey, the eject button broke again!”

For the past few months, I’ve been coming home from work only to hear these and other similar statements from either my wife or kids.  I, too, have gotten very frustrated by finding a DVD to watch only to open the case and find the DVD missing.

Sound familiar?

Like most households, our home entertainment system has grown into a huge monster.  A 5.1 surround sound stereo system, a DVD/VHS player, a satellite DVR system, a 65″ widescreen projector TV and cables up the gazoo.  To make things worse, we have tons of DVD’s and VHS tapes all over the place, both in the entertainment system and in a tall bookshelf against the wall.  We have so many DVD’s that I saw two copies of “The Incredibles”™  in the bookshelf.  Yikes!!!

About 4 months ago the eject button on our DVD player broke, so I figured this would be a good time to upgrade to Blu-Ray.  Right about the same time our satellite company raised our rates.  Oh great, there goes our budget!

A week later I was playing with Windows 7™ Release Candidate on my laptop and just for fun I hit the Windows Media Center™ program.  Wow, was I shocked at what I saw!  It was a huge eye opener for me.  This wasn’t just another DVD player, this was a whole new media experience, one that had me captivated for hours.  Live Sports updates with video, a guide to internet TV, a single spot to see all of my music and pictures.  The options kept on coming and coming, and ideas were bouncing in my head.  Could I replace my DVD/VHS player and satellite DVR with just one box?  One problem, Windows 7 was still in Beta and our budget was in the dumps, so I put the idea aside, fixed our DVD player’s eject button and helped my wife rebuild our DVD shelf.  But the idea didn’t go away. 

Over the next few months I researched Microsoft Media Center Edition, also called MCE.  I read other blogs and listened to podcast after podcast only to find one thing in common – none of them talked about the beginning steps of setting up and using MCE.  Don’t get me wrong, they were all very helpful, but I kept asking the same question in my head – Where do I begin?

Then it hit me.  What needs to be done is design a Media Center system from scratch, using the latest technologies available.  But instead of starting with the hardware and equipment, I decided to start with something a bit basic, like how to rip our DVD’s into a usable media.  Once I get that all figured out, then I’ll start working on the hardware side, slowly replacing our old equipment with the single MCE box.  The goal is to have only three devices – TV, Stereo and the new MCE computer.  Once I get everything all setup and working, I’ll start expanding on it and digging into the system more.

And so it begins, our adventure into the new world of Home Entertainment for the 22nd Century, all based on Microsoft Windows v7 and Media Center Edition.  I’ll be updating this blog about once a week with updates on what I’ve researched, what I’ve put together and if possible, pictures of stuff as I go.

Care to join me in this adventure?

The last year harddisk prices have been dropping like there is no tomorrow. For the price of a mere 60 dollars you can get one terabyte of storage these days. Cosidering these cheap storage prices more and more people have started to rip/convert their DVD collection to their storage devices (HTPC or NAS). Cosidering most movies can be ripped to your disk and would take around 4-5 gigabyte of room even buying one of these harddrives can host more then 200 movies for you. So what are your options? Should you encode your dvd movies to another format? Or just rip them and keep quality high.

Ripping raw DVD movies

The two most used programs for ripping DVD movies to your harddrive are defintily DVD Shrink and DVD Fab. DVD Shrink sadly is not supported anymore and can’t handle all DVD’s anymore. This leaves DVD Fab as the number one program for ripping DVD movies to your harddrive. The best thing about this? It’s free. You can download DVD Fab here.

DVDFab - You can custimize how you want your backup

With DVD Fab you can choose to copy only the movie and the desired audio track/subtitle track to your harddrive. Often saving quite a little bit of space because you are ignoring the menu and extras. So what is the benefit of this method? Wel for starters; it’s really fast. Copying one DVD often takes only 5-7 minutes depending on the size and encryption method used. There is also no quality loss at all. The downside of this method would be that storage could be a limiting factor, but as said earlyer, 200 movies for around 60 dollars is not a huge investment.

WVGA Games

Il en fallait une. Le 1er octobre, les étudiants auront leur télévision. Ma chaîne étudiante (MCE) a “vocation à rassembler les 16/29 ans sur la thématique de la vie étudiante et de l’insertion professionnelle sous tous ses aspects”. L’initiative est bonne. Faire émerger de jeunes talents, ouvrir des portes, informer les jeunes et leurs parents sur leur avenir à travers des débats, reportages et autres.

En 2007, on comptait 2,28 millions d’étudiants en France. MCE vise également les lycéens, c’est donc 4 millions de jeunes qui sont visés. Inutile d’expliquer que la chaîne thématique pourra compter sur de nombreux annonceurs tel que les banques qui n’hésiteront pas à faire la promotion de leurs tout nouveaux prêts étudiants pour s’assurer d’une certaine pérennité. Ma chaîne étudiante fera émerger des jeunes talents et mettra à contribution les étudiants du CFJ pour “se faire la main”. Problème: Comment rassembler les étudiants autour d’une chaine?

Au-delà des luttes pour les conditions de vie, les étudiants ont-ils réellement une conscience collective. Peut-on parler d’une chaîne thématique quand on parle du monde étudiant. Celui-ci est à la fois vague vue la diversité des sujets pouvant être traités et à la fois drastique par le peu d’acteurs médiatisés qu’il englobe. Il est important que les seuls intervenants ne soient pas Valérie Pécresse (ministre de l’enseignement supérieur) et Jean-Baptiste Prévost (président de l’UNEF). Contrairement aux autres chaînes thématiques, MCE ne rassemblent pas autour d’une passion ou d’un sujet mais autour d’une certaine classe assez abstraite.

Parmi les nombreuses règles à respecter, ma chaîne étudiante devra être présent sur tous les supports utilisés par les étudiants. A quand le compte twitter @MCE?

“Un bon journal, c’est une nation qui se parle à elle-même” disait Arthur Miller. C’est peut-être là mon grand regret. Il s’agit d’une chaine étudiante faite par des personnalités non-issue du monde étudiant. Et ceci présente un danger. L’infantilisation, l’usage d’un langage vulgarisé, l’usage de clin d’oeil pour faire “djeun’s” et autres seront donc à prohiber. Pour l’instant la bande annonce ne me rassure pas trop.

La bande annonce ici

Ce que les étudiants veulent d’une chaîne ayant quelques moyens. C’est mettre en exergue les enjeux, les phénomènes émergents du monde estudiantin. Des reportages sur les conditions de vie, les problèmes de logements, la prostitution étudiante, MCE a là l’occasion de faire un vrai boulot de service public. De nombreux médias associatifs comme contrepoint proposent déjà cette vision de la vie étudiante. La nouvelle chaîne étudiante faite par des professionnels aura l’occasion d’aller plus loin. Si MCE se cantonne à nous refourguer, les sorties du week-end, le nouvel album du groupe à mèche longue du 5ème arrondissement, il n’y aura là aucune valeur ajouté. MCE à les moyens de faire bien, espérons…

Rendez-vous donc le 1er octobre pour une analyse de MCE plus poussée. Ne nous emportons pas dans de vaines analyses sans avoir réellement vu ce que ça va donner. A bientôt.

Hey guys, Staba here Today I would like to talk about a plugin I have been using recently. The plugin I speak of is called Media Browser. Since around a month now I’ve had it installed on my HTPC, and so far I’ve been very enthusiastic.

What is Media Browser?
So what exactly is Media Browser? Quoted from the Media Browser website:

“Media Browser is a free media aggregator plugin for Media Center that takes your recorded, digital, or ripped media and presents it in a simple, easy to use interface. Media Browser prides itself on delivering a fast, intuitive, media rich experience for the whole family.“

How does Media Browser work?
So what does this all mean, what exactly is a media aggregator? What they mean in this instance, is that this media center plugin automatically downloads information about the media on your HTPC. Media Browser downloads posters, backdrops, and metadata (summary, genre, rating, etc) of all your movies to it’s cache. After finalizing installation of Media Browser you have to run the ‘Configuration Wizard’ that the plugin comes with. When you run this shortcut you come into a little application that allows you to setup different aspects of the plugin. Things like themes, folders, perhaps streaming to xbox 360 (transcoding). Below you will find a example of how it will aggregate your media files into a nice looking interface within Windows 7 Media Center (7MC).

Media browser; file structure to pretty interface

The example above shows you how a folder structures will translate into a nice looking interface within 7MC. I will elaborate a little bit;

In the Media Browser configuration utility you set your folder to c:\divx\movies\ for example. Media Browser will now look in this folder and find the following movies:

\Terminator 2\movie.avi
\Rambo 3\movie.avi
\Predator\movie.avi

Media Browser uses the name of the folder to look up the title of the movie on an external website called tmdb.org. So what really matters is how you name your folders, the movie files itself do not matter for a successful movie lookup. Below a screenshot of how this looks in the movie detail view (keep in mind all I have is folders with names and a movie file in these folders):

Movie detail view of Media Browser

Later on this week I will write an article about installing Media Browser with some tips and tricks. For now, thanks for reading.

For additional information do check out the Media Browser website, and check a youtube movie I shot (with my telephone camera) on youtube.

What is “Road Legal Quad Bike Insurance?”

Whichever way you look at it, if you have a Quad Bike or ATV that you intend to use on the British roads you need some type of insurance. Within the UK you have three different types of insurance for most machines:

• Third Party Only
• Third Party, Fire and Theft
• Fully Comprehensive

To go through each one individually it might help you to select which insurance policy is right for you.

Depending on what Quad Bike you have and the engine size, the value and the desireability factor will dictate how expensive your insurance policy will be. Tied together with some basic facts of where you live (post code) and where the Quad Bike or ATV is stored will define how much extra you have to pay.

The one thing to remember is this – what ever the cost, make sure you insure your machine.

Third Party Only

1) Third party only is a policy that will cover you whilst riding on the road – so calling it “road risk only” would probably be better. This will then cover you in the event of an accident – so if you cause the accident and damage another vehicle, person or property – they can then claim off your insurance company.

If you have been involved in an accident, then if someone else caused it then your insurance company will collect what ever is due from the third party, which is where the expression “Third Party Only” came from.

Should you have your Quad Bike, ATV or Buggy stolen whilst in storage, then the policy will not cover you for this.

Third Party, Fire and Theft

2) Third party fire and theft is the next level of insurance. This will cover you for the eventuality of your Quad Bike or ATV being stolen and or being set on fire. Sometimes the insurance company will have clauses written into the policy – so it is wise to inspect the policy coverage before you pay for it. Each insurance underwriter should be able to make this available upon request.

As like third party only, you have that same basic road risk cover in the event of an accident.

Fully Comprehensive Cover

Comprehensive Cover or “Fully Comp” as we know it today is the top end of the league. This will or should cover you for any eventuality regarding theft and accident cover. In some cases the underwriter will also supply recovery insurance and legal cover. This is something that you will have to decide on yourself.

Whilst some “extra’s” are FREE of charge, there are others that can cost you money. This is something that would have to be taken into account at the time when deciding what you feel comfortable with.

The Quad Insurance UK market is highly competitive with as many as 25+ companies who will cover most Quad Bikes, ATVs and Buggies for use on the UK Highways. Insurance for Quads will vary from household to household depending on the risk to postcode, age of the person and also “No Claims Discount!”

If your Quads Insurance is due and you have intention on using it on a public highway, then make sure that the right Road Legal Quad Bike Insurance is selected. Insurance for Quads is a must, don’t use a Quad Bike or ATV on the UK Highways without it.

As a Quad Bike retail site we are always approached by companies offering services like Quad Bike Insurance. On our site we have a dedicated area for it and, would recommend either company who advertise on our site.. For more information regarding Road Legal Quad Bike Insurance – ATV insurance UK or Quad Insurance UK, make sure you look at the following pages.

What is Cheap Buggy Insurance?

The one main issue that everybody goes through when purchasing a Road Legal Buggy is finding the right insurance quote and at the right price. Whilst we all like to compare prices, you should be looking at the policy in more detail before you look at the cheap buggy insurance option.

As dealers we always recommended one broker for all policies because they made sure that the content of the policy was suited to the item being insured. I would always say to any customer that they were not always the cheapest, but they certainly gave the best coverage within the policy.

Just think about this for a minute!

What you have to consider is that things like Buggies, Quad Bikes and ATVs are targeted by certain people and whilst I know that some policies are between £50-100 different, you will see that it’s better paying slightly more and having a comprehensive cover than cutting back, saving the money up front and then suddenly something happens and you can not make a claim.

What would you prefer, pay a little more up front and know that your covered or end up wasting your initial investment (anything up to £6000) just for the sake of £50?

This has happened so please don’t think it will not happen to you – make sure your Buggy, Quad Bike or ATV is completely covered for any eventuality – it makes sense – honestly!

But here is the surprise…

Using the link from us you will find that you can get both worlds, Cheap Buggy Insurance and the best cover that money can buy – probably for less than you already pay. What is more, if you find a quote within 48 hours of taking out the policy cheaper than the one you have, they will give you your money back!

Like a double guarantee !

What are you waiting for, get yourself to the quote pages and find out what it is that everyone is shouting about by clicking the Cheap Buggy Insurance!link.

Or Call 0800-019-0159 Quoting Ref 1280

Windows Media Center is a software package that is included in Windows Vista/7. With this program you can enjoy your media on the television.  Under Windows XP there was a seperate release for Media Center, this release was named ‘Windows MC 2005′.  Some fo the features that are included in Windows Media Center 7 are:

- Watching DVD’s (Now also VIDEO_TS folders since Windows 7!)

- DivX/WMV etc. playback

- Internet Radio

- Some games (solitaire you can play with your remote)

- Radio/TV (Cable digital)

- Music collection management and playback

And there are alot of third party developers making plugins for different versions of Media Center. You configure it how you want, and as much as you want.  There are just a couple of reason I prefer a HTPC/Media Center PC over using standalone media players.

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