Media Center

Is the bright blue of Windows Media Center just too much of a shiny, happy color for you? If you’d rather have a darker, more minimalist look for WMC, you should check out the newly updated Black Theme for Media Center, available here on the Hacking Windows 7 Media Center blog. This theme looks…

Earlier this month, we reported on a way that you can get Twitter updates in Windows Media Center using the Media Center Status Application, but now there’s another option. Now you can tweet from TunerFree MCE, the Media Center plugin that delivers a variety of live TV shows and programs from Hulu,…

Sean Alexander recently posted a good tip for Windows 7 Media Center users which is something that some of you may have overlooked: turning on color-coded program categories in the on-screen guide. With this option, you can easily see at a glance which channels are Sports, which are News, which are…

If you’re a Media Center PC user with a large movie collection, you’ll want to go grab this small .bat file created by Jon from thehtpc.net. The file will organize your messy, unorganized movie collection for you automatically – all you have to do is click. To use the file, just place it into your…

Media Center MVP Mike Garcen recently pointed out a great feature in the new and improved Windows 7 Media Center application – video resume. According to Mike, in previous Media Center versions, you could stop the playback of Recorded TV and then later resume the shows where you left off, but…

Today the Windows SideShow Team Blog announced the long-anticipated Windows Media Center SideShow gadgets. In case you’re not familiar, Windows SideShow is the technology that delivers information from a PC to a secondary display. That display can be a small LCD screen on your desktop or laptop…

Recently, Microsoft announced a new platform that will permit the manufacturers of media center PCs the ability to support “premium” channels on their devices. These channels have been difficult to get access to in the past due the the TV industry’s requirements that they are covered by copy…

At this year's CEDIA EXPO, the show put on by the trade association of home theater companies, Lifeware launched a brand-new, all-in-one, Lifemedia Server (LMS). This new server combines Windows Media Center with a 5.1 surround-sound amplifier and ZigBee control technology all within a single box.…

In July, we told you about a new plugin for Windows Home Server called TV Manager. This plugin lets you copy your recordings from a Vista Media Center PC or XP Media Center 2005 over to your Home Server for storage and management. At the time we originally wrote about it, the plugin was still…

Ian Dixon reports that the Media Center Team recently received a visit from the well-known photographer Thomas Hawk. He took a tour of the offices and snapped some pictures which are now available on Flickr. He also had some nice things to say about the working environment: First, I was surprised…