Media Streaming

Windows 7

I have played with one of the preview releases and I liked it just fine. I just read some good info on Engadget that leads me to believe that I will like Windows 7 just because of the media center upgrades that have been done.

I am excited to hear about media center starting to play nice with DLNA devices and not just Media Extenders. This means that I will be able to use my PS3 to stream music via windows media center and no longer have to use a third party app. Not that I mind using a third party app to do so but I think that everyone needs to get along and talk to each other when it comes to media sharing. I think that most media will be online soon and I think that the more devices that can talk nicely together the better off we will be.

Based on just that I can not wait to get my hands on Windows 7 and get the install complete.

TV Conversion Update

So I have been working on this for a few days and everything is going pretty well. I have two WINTV-HVR 950Q External USB 2.0 HD Tuners connected to my PC. These things are great. Highty recommend them if you are looking for a good easy Tuner for under $100 dollars. I got mine on sale for $70.00. The software provided is OK at best but it is functional. I am using the Vista Media Center with mine for things like recording.  The major downside to this, for me anyway, is that when the Media Center records it is in an .dvr-ms file format. PS3 does not like that format. Because of this I have another step after recording before I can stream the video to the PS3. I have to do a file conversion. I have found a tool that will scan input folders and as soon as it sees the dvr-ms file in the folder it goes to work. This is a great program. It works with the DVRMSToolbox as well. This means that as it does the file conversion it will also automatically remove comercials for you. it also has a wide variety of output file types that you can convert to. The program is MCEBuddy. Pretty lightweight except when doing the conversion, It will eat up some cycles. I think that I will have mine do all the conversions over night when I am asleep. I will always be a day behind on my DVR shows but that is OK by me. Alo with the two USB Video Tuners and the Vista Media Center I am able to record two shows at a time. Love that. The only down side is that the dvr-ms files are HUGE. You will need a big disk and I highly recommend having MCEBuddy remove the originals when done converting to conserve disk space.

Also another good media player for the PS3 is the PS3MediaServer. Very lightweight and will play some filetypes that PlayOn will not at this time. Like a DVD ISO. I am still not really happy with the ISO playing as it just selects the first audio track and the first sub track. No choices here. I am still playing with ISO files and hope to come up with or find another solution as I would love to have all my DVD library accesable at the touch of a button.

I will continue to play with this and let you know what I find and what My recommendations are to you. I think that this is going to be a great Entertainment Solution for me and it will save me money in no time at all since I am no longer shelling out $100.00 a month for service.

TV Conversion

Now that all TV Signals are digital and so much content is availaible online, I have decided to throw all my satallite stuff out and use OTA and the Internet for all my media needs. I have just started the process and have hit a few hurdles but overall I think that this is going to work out very nicely. I will be saving about $100 dollars a month so I do not mind investing a couple hundred into new equipment in order to make this work the way I want.

I purchased a Antenna and mounted where my Dish was, I used the dish mast as the satallite company does not want me to ruturn that hardware. Before purchasing the antenna go to www.antennaweb.org and find out what type you need for your area. Very helpful site. I am using the same coax that my dish was using to distribute the signal to my house and I am going to have to invest in a signal booster. I have a couple passive splitters and over 100 feet of cable running so this is expected.

I will be running lines to four rooms in my house. 3 TV’s in seperate rooms and one line into my computer. I will be using the computer as a DVR. It is hard to find a DVR for OTA recording if you do not want to pay a monthly fee for the guide. I will be using Vista Media Center for all my recording and then I will be converting the dvr-ms files to MPG in order to stream to my PS3 or other DLNA Device. I will use the computer to record and stream media to any of my TV’s. This is great since now I will not have to watch the DVR show on the TV that I recorded it from.

I will be supplementing the OTA with Internet media as well. By using Play On, found at http://www.themediamall.com/playon I will be able to stream and watch Hulu, Netflix, CBS, CNN, ESPN, and many others with the new plugins that are available for Play On.

Play On is a great product and supports multiple DLNA devices and even the Nintendo Wii now. The Wii support is still in Beta but I have read some good things about it. For the one time fee of $40.00 Play On is well worth it. I have two licenses and use them both all the time. They have good forums and great support. Always upgrading and releasing new features. These guys to a fantastic job.

So after a few months I will be saving about $100 a month and not really missing out on any of the programming that I was paying so much for. I really think that Cable and Satalite providers need to take a look at the business model and see that changes that they are going to have to make to stay alive. With all the good online content and free OTA digital HD Transmissions I do not see many advantages to paying so much. They still have the market for sports but I would not doubt if that changes as well.

I will keep you updated on this and let you know about the hurdles that I run into and how I overcome them.