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Jason over at Digital Media Thoughts sent me an email about his new article on The Powers and Perils of a Platform.  Jason talks about the trouble he had when a Media Center 'plugin' went bad and couldn't be uninstalled.  It's not clear if it was an HTML application or a managed code add-in, but based on the description I'm assuming it's the latter.  He ran into problems when trying to manually uninstall the application so I thought I should post something on what to do when an add-in goes bad...

In Media Center 2005 add-ins can do pretty much what they want to do without restriction, if one starts to misbehave the best thing you can do is to disable it:

1. Start Media Center
2. Click on Settings
3. Click on General
4. Click More Programs Options
5. Click Edit More Programs
6. Deslect the app to disable and click Save

This will disable the app from starting and hide anything entrypoint it's registered throughout Media Center.  It won't uninstall the app, but it will prevent it from running.

MSN Remote Record is live and out of beta.  In simplest terms it's a way of browsing the same TV guide as your Media Center PC uses and then remotely instructing your Media Center PC to record something.  Pretty clever stuff.  There's a small download for your Media Center PC and then it looks pretty easy to use.

Try it and let me know what you think.

All the keyboard shortcuts for Media Center for those times when you just don't want to use a remote control are documented here.

Update: If the page doesn't display, try again later, it's propagating around servers or something like that I'm told

Betanews reports that Gateway/eMachines will be offering a new Media Center PC for $599!  The specs are pretty impressive for such a cheap computer:

• AMD Athlon 64 3400+
• 1GB DDR SDRAM
• 200GB hard drive
• ATI Radeon Xpress 200
• 8 in 1 media reader
• Rewritable dual-layer DVD drive
• CD-ROM drive

Wow.  No mention of a TV Tuner, monitor or remote though... 

I've never bought an eMachines computer before, but that seems like a great deal for a pretty powerful system.

• Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights: 'Think DRM was bad already? Think I was joking when I said the plan was tostart with barely tolerable incursions on your rights, then turn thethumbscrews? Welcome to Windows Media Player 11, and the rights get chippedaway a lot more.'
• Microsoft DRM To Get Even Tighter: 'I think I'm going to wait for Windows Media Player 12 to come out, whichreportedly will include DRM that doesn't let you listen to your music atall. All the major recording labels are on board with this format, so we mayfinally get a realistic alternative to iTunes without the clumsy Mac-likeinterface. Plus, it won't cost much more per track than the average iTunessong now. There will also be more visualizations included to help youimagine what the music you're playing actualy sounds like.'

I've had a couple of questions by email that I should answer (note I've paraphrased some of these):

What fonts should I use for my HTML Media Center application and can I use Flash?  The SDK is where to go for design guidelines for HTML applications (the short answer is to use a sans serif font).  Yes, Flash can be used in HTML Media Center applications - Napster and MSN Music both use Flash.

How can I add an application to the Start Menu?  You can't.  Well OK, you can, but we recommend that only OEMs use this functionality as there is a limit to how many applications can appear on the start menu and adding a new app will stomp on existing applications.  If you intend to distribute your application you shouldn't do this, but if you really want to know, the details are in the SDK here.

I've seen the Media Center software for sale online is it OK to buy it?  I'm no lawyer so I'm not going to comment on this.  Media Center is an OEM product and only available with new PCs is the official answer though.

I've decided to take all the questions I get by email and answer them on Fridays in one post, so do please continue to email me any questions you have.  That said, here's this weeks questions:

How can I keep the Media Center window on top so I can work on other things?  In Media Center go to SettingsGeneralStartup and Window Behavior and select 'Media Center window always on top'.

How can I associate an HTML application with an add-in?  Register both the add-in and the HTML page together.  Instead of registering the HTML app and the add-in you need to register them both as a single application with multiple entrypoints - one entrypoint for the add-in and one for the HTML page.  This will make them both part of the same application and so from a background add-in a call to ApplicationInfo.IsForeground will return 'true' when the HTML page is currently being displayed.

MSN Video Download  apparently went live today with a choice of two membership types  Premium and Basic.  Premium is $19.95 a year and has more content than the free Basic membership.  Not wanting to commit myself to a membership yet I signed up for the Basic membership, thinking I could load some videos on to the miniSD card in my smartphone....

Sign up was easy, I used my passport account, agreed to the terms and installed the download software.  The download status page showed content was downloading from Fox Sports.  In order to sync content to my phone I needed a smart playlist so I followed the instructions to download one.  This was the first problem, the instructions used Windows Media Player 9 and I'm using Windows Media Player 10, a little strange, but not a huge problem.  With the smart playlist in place I thought I'd be good to go...

That wasn't going to be the case though.  I started by trying to play a video in Media Player directly and got prompted for a username and password which was being requested by 'admin.theplatform.com' not 'msnvideodownloads.com'.  I tried my Passport email address and password which might not have been a great idea, but it didn't work anyway.  Meanwhile I could see that Activesync had been trying to sync the content to my phone so I checked the Sync page in WMP.  Nothing had been synced, instead  there was an error message 'Windows Media Player can not synchronize the protected file.  Protected files can not be converted to the required quality level or format'.

Now I have almost half a gigabyte of content (and it's still getting downloaded) and I can't watch any of it.  If anyone gets this working I'd love to know how.

I've had lots of questions recently and no time to really get answers and post them up here.  If I haven't answered you question it's because I don't know the answer and haven't had enough time to get to the bottom of it yet.

First of all I had a couple of questions on MSAS which I don't know that much about.

Can I tell which tuner is being used when a recording takes place using MSAS? No, you can not.  What you can do, which may or may not help is use OnTVRecordStateChange from a background add-in which will give you a GUID and you could track which was in use - this won't help if a tuner is being used for live TV though.  Here's a code snippet on how to use OnTVRecordStateChange:

void IAddInEntryPoint.Launch(AddInHost host)
{

host.Television.OnTVRecordStateChange += new Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn.TVRecordStateChangeDelegate(TvRecordStateChangedHandler);

...

}

public void TvRecordStateChangedHandler(object obj, Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn.TVRecordStateChangeArgs TVArgs) {

if (TVArgs.Started)

mcHost.HostControl.Dialog('Recording started on tuner ' + TVArgs.Tuner, 'TV Recording',1,10,false);

else if (TVArgs.Stopped)

mcHost.HostControl.Dialog('Recording stopped on tuner ' + TVArgs.Tuner, 'TV Recording',1,10,false);

}

Can I use remote desktop to connect to a Media Center PC? Yes.  You can even use Media Center, but it won't play video over a RDP connection

Can I use animated backgrounds in an HTML page? Not really a media center question, but I don't see why not, use an animated gif.

Could I create an add-in that played a selection of WAV files with a gap between them? Yes, using Playmedia and Playrate you could contstruct an addin to do this - waiting until the playrate was stopped, then wating however long you want before playing the next file.  You could also use More With This  to make this work with any folder of audio files.

Can I use ASP.NET for development?  Yes.  You can use any web technology that outputs HTML.

Can I use WinForms for development?  Yes, but if you're running as a .exe you won't have access to Media Center APIs.  If you're running as a .NET applet in a webpage you'll have access to the Media Center APIs from the HTML page and will have to communicate between the page and the .NET applet to use the Media Center APIs - non-trivial to do, but not hard.

In yesterday's announcement of the new Zune media player and Zune Marketplace, Microsoft (and many press reports) glossed over a remarkable misfeature that should demonstrate once and for all how DRM and the DMCA harm legitimate customers.

Microsoft's Zune will not play protected Windows Media Audio and Video purchased or 'rented' from Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink, Cinemanow, or any other online media service. That's right -- the media that Microsoft promised would Play For Sure doesn't even play on Microsoft's own device. Buried in footnote 4 of its press release, Microsoft clearly states that 'Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264' -- protected WMA and WMV (not to mention iTunes DRMed AAC) are conspicuously absent.

This is a stark example of DRM under the DMCA giving customers a raw deal. Buying DRMed media means you're locked into the limited array of devices that vendors say you can use. You have to rebuy your preexisting DRMed media collection if you want to use it on the Zune. And you'll have to do that over and over again whenever a new, incompatible device with innovative features blows existing players out of the water. Access to MP3s and non-DRMed formats creates the only bridge between these isolated islands of limited devices.

The real culprit here is the DMCA -- but for that bad law, customers could legally convert DRMed files into whatever format they want, and tech creators would be free to reverse engineer the DRM to create compatible devices. Even though those acts have traditionally been and still are non-infringing, the DMCA makes them illegal and stifles fair use, innovation, and competition.

May this be a lesson to those who mistakenly laud certain DRM as 'open' and offering customers 'freedom of choice' simply because it is widely-licensed. With DRM under the DMCA, nothing truly plays for sure, regardless of whether you're purchasing from Apple, Microsoft, or anyone else.

Take action now to support DMCA reform and to stop the government from mandating more DRM.

[Postscript: In an interview with Engadget, Microsoft Zune architect J Allard pointed out that Zune has sufficient video format support, in part because there's 'Lots of DVD ripping software out there that encodes to those formats, so the most popular formats out there, whether it's MPEG-4 or H.264, we'll support those.' Gee, he isn't suggesting that his business model benefits from customers using tools like DeCSS or Handbrake to evade the DRM on DVDs, right? Especially since Microsoft is furiously trying to squash the FairUse4WM tool, that would seem rather hypocritical.]

(Cross-posted at DeepLinks)

Five for February 15^th

• Camper Van Beethoven - Discotheque: Live Chicago  I'm not really sure why I chose this disc to link. Most of their stuff is available for download via archive.org.
  
  
• Dread Leppelin - Chickens And Ribs  I know the joke should be old by now, but it still cracks me up. It features a guest appearance by Billy Zoom.
  
  
• Mahi Mahi - Remove Your Body  This came out a few weeks ago and I forgot to mention it. I always bitch about the music scene in Providence, but when someone releases an album, I forget to write about it on the site. Sorry about that.
  
  
• They Might Be Giants - Here Come The ABCs  Speaking of children's music, have you seen the Pancake Mountain site? I've probably already linked it, but the Fiery Furnaces "Mouse House, Moose Hoose" clip is too crazy to not mention several times.
  
  
• Wedding Present - Take Fountain  I wanted this album to be absolutely amazing, but I'm having trouble getting into it. I'm gonna give it a few more tries - I can sense that there's some great material hidden in there.

Ten for February 22^nd

1. Crooked Fingers - Dignity & Shame  I think Crooked Fingers is the only band with multiple releases where I own every single one of their albums. Well, except for this one - I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet. Mark preordered and got an autographed copy. They play KEXP today. Stream the disc on the Merge site.
   
   
2. Enon - Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence  Touch and Go's got a classy new website. They've got an MP3.
   
   
3. Jeff Hanson  Out on Kill Rock Stars. They've got an MP3.
   
   
4. Ida - Heart Like A River  Is Ida a Providence band? That's been confusing me lately. Their new disc is out on Polyvinyl. They've got an MP3.
   
   
5. Iron And Wine - Woman King  Check out Joe's review on 75 or Less. There's an MP3.
   
   
6. I ♥ Huckabees  
   
   
7. Karate - In The Fishtank  I had no idea this was being released. A nice suprise.
   
   
8. Mogwai - Government Commisions  Their live BBC material from the past few years.
   
   
9. Robbers On High Street - Tree City  
   
   
10. M. Ward - Transistor Radio  I've only heard a few tracks from the radio, but they were CRAZY good. Once again, you can stream the disc on Merge's site.

WSJ: Free, Legal and Ignored. The subhead says it all: Colleges Offer Music Downloads, But Their Students Just Say No; Too Many Strings Attached. The article is about the unsurprising-to-anyone-except-Napster miserable failure of subscription based music services to take hold in universities. Compared to the complicated barrage of restrictions on the music offered by Napster, the students come across as models of common sense:

• While Cornell's online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, the email introducing the service explained that students could keep their songs only until they graduated. "After I read that, I decided I didn't want to even try it," says Mr. Petrigh, who will be a senior in the fall...
• Purdue University officials say that lower-than-expected demand among its students stems in part from all the frustrating restrictions that accompany legal downloading. Students at the West Lafayette, Ind., school can play songs free on their laptops but have to pay to burn songs onto CDs or load them onto a digital music device.
• "People still want to have a music collection. Music listeners like owning their music, not renting," says Bill Goodwin, 21, who graduated in May from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. USC decided last year that it was finished with Napster after fewer than 500 students signed up...

There’s also a telling quotation from the director of the Campus Computing Project, who says, “The RIAA’s push to buy into these services strikes me as protection money. Buy in and we’ll protect you from our lawsuits,” which is one of the kinder descriptions of the unfriendliness of the industry that I’ve read lately.

I’m still waiting for someone in the industry to wake up and understand that their path to profitability lies in supporting good music and making their rich back catalogs available, not in fighting the fans of music tooth and nail. Today, three years after the birth of the iTunes Music Store, there are still many albums and tracks that can’t be found anywhere online—some by major artists (just try tracking down any non-album Sting tracks from before the late 90s), some by minor artists on major labels (Annabouboula, anyone?), and some by great cultural figures (I’d gladly pay through the nose for access to e.e. cummings’s Six Nonlectures as digital files, or even on CD). Instead we get American Idol and Rock Star. What, no one ever told these guys that a steady diet of candy can kill you?

BTW, for a good counterexample, check out Verve’s deep catalog—including a bunch of rare Impulse! recordings—though they don’t quite get it right; they support both iTunes and Windows Media, but no DRM-free offerings. But at least they’re opening up their catalog.

Uninnovate.com hasan interestingarticle on Apple's new support of 'Reverse syncing' of content with the iTunes7 release yesterday:

Today, Apple released iTunes 7.0,among otherthings. In earlier versions of iTunes, Apple didits best to prevent users from being able to copy music from an iPod back to adesktop computer. Now, Apple has changed course and is marketing “ReverseSyncing” as a new feature of iTunes 7.

But there is one giant catch:

1. Music and media not purchased from the iTunes store only syncs one way, fromyour computer to your iPod.

This is uninnovation in its most frustrating form. It’s easy to spot and avoid drm-saturatedjunk, but these kinds of subtle limitations in an otherwise great product frustrateusers and drive them to alternative applications.How about trusting the user enough to let them get at their own files without thesechildish restrictions?

WMP11 added reverse filetransfer support back in March which works with purchased, and clear content.(It’s also had album art matching in WMP9, dramatically improved in WMP11). I thinkthe author is being a bit overzealous however in his claim of “uninnovation”- it'salways been easy to transfer music off your iPod, it's just a little hidden. Here it’s a little less hidden.

I’ve seen lots of chatter on iTV - Apple's Media Center Extender-esque device forstreaming video to the living room.  It feels like we’ve been here before. LongZheng at istartedsomething.com hasa good recap of the relative strengths and weaknesses of products in this space.  It seems a bit odd that Apple would break from long-time tradition and givea 'sneak preview' of a product that won't be available for at least Q1 '07, particularlywhen they could have held the announce to availability around MacWorld in January.It's clear they had to do this to try and spur purchase of movies from theirnew store- with no rental model, people just don't want to buy movies towatch on their portable players. Tell them they'll be able to play it in other placesas well around the home and their likelihood of purchase is higher.  It’s the battleof cognitive dissonance - buyer's remorse. After all, you're already dealing withthe psychological barrier in that the user is buying an intangible good, somethingwithout physical form that perceptually has less value than physical media such asDVDs. But... you're going to charge about the same as a physical DVD. Without theBonus DVD content.  Oh and the 640x480 video quality people are downloading isgoing to be between VHS and DVD quality (which offers 720x480p).  Never mindthat it will be potentially less for letterboxed content since the new iPod doesn'tsupport 16:9 (widescreen) display.  In the time it will take most customersto download one of these movies, I could have gone to the store, bought the DVD, popcorn,a 6-pack of Coke, dinner, come home, cooked dinner, and be ready to watch. Ina rental model, all of these issues can be forgiven for immediate gratification anda lower price, as witnessed by the popularity of Video On Demand and InDemand services.

The challenges in streaming TV from the PC aren't just the hypothesized need for higherspeed wireless (802.11n) which should be provisionally approved in early 2007. This might be delaying their launch, but streaming 640x480 video across the home hasbeen possible with Media Center Extender for just about two years now.  A challengeis going to be convincing consumers to buy and set up yet another single-purpose devicein the living room, another remote, another input on the TV for this thing.

Today, you can get an Xbox 360 that includesMedia Center Extender at no additional cost. Over 16 million Media Centercustomers can use this today, no additional charge. Even if you don’t have a TV tunerin your PC, you can connect a USB tuner and record TV or HDTV (OTA today, DigitalCable with equipped PCs with Vista). No additional fees.  As announced at CESlast year, multiple HDTV manufacturers are putting Media Center extender into theirdesigns, something that costs less than a night at the movies to implement.

As for another box in the living room, the Xbox 360 does HD gaming, DVD/HD-DVD Playback,Music, Photos, Video, TV/HDTV playback, runs rich media apps from a multitude of providers,and delivers an increasing amount of media content via Xbox Live, including HD.  And it's going to get significantly better with WindowsVista Premium's Media Center features – automatically updating your Xbox 360 tosupport in the family room with the same level of animation and experience. 

Either way, a saying comes to mind: “A rising tide raises all boats” and for thatI welcome Apple's foray.  But if Apple's iTV costs the same as an Xbox, offers nothing more than a 'simplified remote' and fewer mainstream features whichreally makes more sense when competing for  consumer dollars outside the Job'sfaithful?  With Sony and Nintendo's Wii also vying for that same space, it'sabout to get a bit more crowded. Or perhaps just noisy.  So begins the 'Great FamilyRoom Battle of 2007'.

(Disclaimer: I used to work on Media Center, but haven't for over a year, andspeak only for myself.)

I like my Xbox 360. Don't get me wrong. And I'm sure later I will love it But I'm not loving it yet. I play the games some, but they don't compell me. No slam dunk glad I spent nearly a grand on the system games at this point. Perfect Dark blows chunks. Kameo is Ok if you are in to that kind of game. Call of duty is such a camper's game that it doesn't fill my blood lust, and there are no button mashers as DOA4 is not out yet. Sure there are racing games, but come on, how many car games do I need? Forza makes me happy, and PGR is well not Forze.

I got the Media Center Extender stuff working and like that a good deal. I'm working on making that more useful, but as my MCE and my Xbox are literally stacked on each other their is no extending happening.

The Trailer downloads are neat. I liked the X-men 3 trailer, but most the trailers look like they were encoded by... Um... yeah even my grandmother would have done better. No one I know could have done such a poor job. I think maybe they used a Tarrarri card. That is the only likely answer.

In any event. It has helped me meet girls. More than one girl has come over to play Xbox 360. Not the chick magnet my Toshiba Libretto is, but still.

Sorry I haven't had much (anything) to say for a while.  I've been terribly busy on a number of things that it won't take a genius to guess about.

So what's been going on?  Well, I'm very excited about the XBox 360 and it's built in Media Center Extender.  There will definitely be one of those next to my TV later this year.  With the XBox 360 there I might just move the Media Center PC away from the TV and hide it out of the way somewhere.  That will simplify the connections around the TV and reduce my ambient nosie level a bit.  Although I only actually notice that PC when it's on and I'm not watching TV which isn't that often as it's normally asleep.  Ideally I'd like to place an XBox 360 in bedroom along with a nice big thin flat display but a bunch of money is going to have to appear from somewhere for that to happen, I've already blown most of my disposable income on a new PC and display (I got one of the new Dell 24' displays and it's a beautiful thing) and that's ignoring my expensive hobbies of photography and world travel.

I spent almost a month away from work travelling the world which was great fun.  I first went to Amsterdam for a day where I got to spend the day with my Mum (with me living in Seattle and her in England we don't see eachother that often).  Then I flew to Delhi where I joined Intrepid Travel's Delhi to Kathmandu trip.  I've traveled with Intrepid before and I continue to recommend them to anyway looking for a trip that's a bit different.  I like that when I travel with them there's a set itinerary but there's plenty of time to do what I want to.  I could talk about my travel philosophy for hours so I won't get started here, but it's something I'm very passionate about.  This trip was really great.  I got to see the Taj Mahal for a start and to really experience India.  It wasn't without it's low points though, I did at one point end up in a hospital in Nepal suffering from food poisoning and dehydration.  That wasn't a lot of fun and wasn't made any better by being in a bus crash the next day.  Thankfully nobody was injured and it didn't really cause us any problems.  That's what makes travelling fun though.  The experiences and the unexpected.  The trip came to and end in Kathmandu and I stayed on in the city for a few days before flying to Bangkok and Taipei alone.  I could write pages (and perhaps I will one day) on the whole trip, but for now I'll leave you with the photos.

Just after getting back from that trip I flew to Chicago for the weekend.  Chicago is too close for an overnight flight to be good.  I don't function that well on three hours of sleep.  I did have a great time in the city though, it was the first time I'd gone there and left the airport.  My dad flew in from England for the weekend as well and showed me around as he's been there before.  I went to the U2 concert while I was there which was incredible.  They put on an awesome show.  My dad didn't come to the show with me so I made it up to him by taking him to see a Cubs game at Wrigley field.  He knew we were going but thought we had terrible seats, that was something I'd lead him to believe as in reality our seats were in the third row behind home plate and I wanted to surprise him - there a stitch of the view from our seats here.

OK, back to work...

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