It’s always hard reviewing beta software.  I’ve probably said this before, but when an app works but has bugs, you want to point them out to people yet at the same time make sure they know that it’s beta software so bugs should be expected.

Such is the case with vmcPlayIt.  There are some bugs, but even so, the app is doing what none other has done so far:  Brought Hulu, Netflix, CBS, CNN, ESPN, Amazon VOD and Youtube into Media Center inside of an interface that never makes you think you’ve left the UI.

vmcPlayIt is a Media Center plugin that provides access to PlayOn, a Media Mall technology which operates as a server on one of your PCs and allows you to stream online content to your Xbox 360 or PS3 game console.  On the 360 this occurs through the dashboard so other than giving it a quick try (and not liking it) I hadn’t thought about PlayOn since.  The interface on the 360 dashboard just didn’t do it for me as it was strictly alphabetical.  Not PlayOn’s fault but more a lack of functionality on the 360 dashboard.

Recently, along came vmcPlayIt.  After seeing other attempts at getting streamed online content into Media Center I was skeptical.  Apps like SecondRun.tv work well and give us features that we didn’t have before but have a bit of a hacked feel to them.  Again, nothing against the developers, they’re up against a hard wall, but the MCE UI was broken and took me out of my environment.  vmcPlayIt fixes that.  Everything remains in the MCE UI, video starts in full screen, and I never feel as though I’ve left my home.

This being a beta, there are a few bugs there.  Occasionally the app crashes on me and kicks me back out to Media Center.  Annoying, but no big deal really.  This has only happened while choosing what to watch and never during a video.  That so far is the only issue I’ve found.  The content plays at full resolution and while you have to wait up to 30 seconds for your show to start, once it does, I have yet to see any buffering or stutter issues.

Whether you choose a solution like vmcPlayIt/PlayOn or SecondRun.TV really comes down to a few things:

1. SecondRun.TV is completely free but doesn’t give you Netflix or Amazon VOD.
2. vmcPlayIt is free but PlayOn will run you $40
3. vmcPlayIt will keep you 100% inside the Media Center UI and your remote performs as normal.  Secondrun.tv doesn’t use the same remote mapping to control the video and shows start outside of the Media Center UI.
4. You want your online content on your extender.  I have yet to see another app pull flash content onto an Xbox 360 or into an Extender UI.

If cost doesn’t matter to you, vmcPlayIt would be my recommendation.  The interface is just smoother.  You also get full access to your Netflix streaming queue and Amazon VOD if you’re a member.  Also, to the best of my knowledge it’s the only app that will get the online content onto your extender within the Media Center UI.  If you don’t want to drop the $40 for the PlayOn server, then SecondRun.tv will suffice and you’ll be happy!  For me, I’ll be paying for PlayOn when my 14 day trial is up. 

If you’d like to help the developer with vmcPlayIt, visit the site here and donate or head to the discussion thread on The Green Button and leave comments or bug reports.

Note:

The PlayOn customer service was able to help me when the server wouldn’t run on Windows 7 by sending me three new files.  A little drag and drop was all it took.  If you’re running Windows 7, don’t worry, they told me these would be part of an updated release by the end of the day.

As Ian Dixon reported earlier today, Media Browser has released a new beta update numbered 2.0.10.0.  Being dubbed (on Jas Manghera’s blog) Vanilla, beta 10 includes a new theme as well as some changes to the UI.  As well, various bugs have of course been fixed.

From Jas’s blog post:

Let’s jump right into it the second biggest news of the day first (no that’s not a typo). The Media Browser project going forward now requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. Those of you have been putting off the .Net 3.5 update can download the framework here.

Users who already have .Net 3.5 installed (standard on Windows 7) can leverage the beta updates to automatically update to the latest version.

As of this writing I haven’t had a chance to install the latest beta but it will be on my system before the end of the day.  I always look forward to new MB updates and I’m sure this one will just as good as the previous ones.  Hopefully Josh and I will be able to get these guys on the show soon!

Click here to go to Jas’s blog, read the rest of the post detailing the updates and download the latest version.

Ian Dixon is one busy man.  Not only is he managing and constantly growing The Digital Lifestyle into THE site for Media Center information, but he’s also pushed out an update for his Media Center Health Monitor.

If you’ve been using Media Center for any length of time you know that it can have issues recording programming from time to time.  These things happen when dealing with HTPCs.  Using the Media Center Health Monitor, not only will you know whether or not things are running the way they’re supposed to but you’ll be able to do so away from home.

Using the web interface you can check the status of your recordings as well as whether or not there have been any errors since you last checked.  But it doesn’t stop there.  If you take a look to your right you can see that MCHM provides an RSS feed which you can subscribe to or post like I have.  Oh and one other thing, you can have it tweet you your updates using a second twitter account.  (See mine here)  Every time a recording finishes correctly or if there’s an error, I receive a tweet letting me know.  This is great for someone like myself who spends a lot of time using the service.  Yeah, Ian has really put a lot of thought into this little app.

Even though MCHM is still in beta, everything works like a charm.  Ian has set up the download page so that the extra apps you need get install automatically and everything flows.  The only hiccup I’ve noticed is that when you first start the service, if there are a lot of status messages it’ll take a little time to start up.  Not a bug at all but something to be aware of.  The only other thing I became aware of after installation was that auto updates are off by default.  This means that your RSS and twitter feeds won’t update automatically.  A simple button click at the top of the window fixes this.

You have a lot of options as far as what messages you receive.  You can make it so you just receive warnings or so that the app will tell you every time there’s a successful recording as well.  I’ve configured mine to tell me everything.  It’s helped already as I’ve started getting messages that such and such a show couldn’t record because there was no TV signal yet it records anyway.  I’m not sure what this means and maybe someone can help me with that, but I never would have known about the issue without MCHM.

Overall, for a beta app, this is a must install for all Media Center users.  Never mind that it gives you a run down of what’s going on with your system, but add in the fact that you can monitor it from afar and you need to have this.  Even though it’s only a beta, Ian has done a great job updating it to make it work with Windows 7 as well as making it play well with x64 systems.

Also, I just had an exchange with Ian and he’ll be pushing out another update soon so be ready for that!

Head to The Digital Lifestyle Media Center Health Monitor site and sign up to download this app now!

(A note on this article:  I am using and testing Media Browser using Windows 7.  While it has been updated, I cannot state whether or not the developers support Windows 7 at this time.)

Media Browser, oh how I love thee, and loath thee.  You’ve made my video cataloging dreams come true and yet, at the same time, made the WAF drop slightly in my home.  How did you accomplish both of these things?  Let us count the ways…

Media Browser is a Media Center plugin that will catalog and organize all of your video files.  It has the ability to handle both TV and Movies which is great.  I love having one application that does all of my video for me.  It’s also the only app I know of that has a resume feature for video.  While 7MC now offers this from the video library, no other video app on the market right now is taking advantage of this.  While I’ve had trouble with it hitting the mark with TV shows, it’s been consistently dead on for movies.  I’m not sure what the difference is but such as it is, it’s better than what you’ll get from other applications.

While I love the features in the latest beta (2.0.8) including the cover flow option, it’s the customization options you have that really make it nice.  Whether you want cover flow, a list with screenshot and synopsis or a wall of movie posters to show off your collection you can have it with Media Browser.  Not only that but, during setup, you can make it so that your movies are arranged any way you’d like.  More on that in a second, because it’s that setup process that is part of the problem as well.

When it comes to using Media Browser I’m extremely happy.  The customization that is available is amazing and on the local machine, it runs much faster than My Movies or myTV with a collection as large as mine.  The issues I have with it have to do with setup and extenders. 

I currently use an Xbox 360 extender in my living room for viewing our media.  This is our main viewing area and although we’ll be changing things around soon, for now this is how it works.  The problem with Media Browser is this:  It only works on my extender about half the time.  Let me see if I can walk you through the setup process and you’ll see how it works.

After installing Media Browser, if you have multiple video locations you have to create what are called .vf files and place them in your “My Videos” folder.  These files tell Media Browser where to look for your content.  They’re easy to create and all, but I wonder if there’s something even easier to implement such as just pointing to the folders in the settings.  This is how things are accomplished in myTV.  The one good thing about the .vf files is that you can customize how your files are arranged.  To give you an example, because I have my movie files arranged by genre (D:\Action\Movie Title) I was able to split my 330 files into something more manageable.  When I access Media Browser, I can select from each genre or go to TV.  This makes it a lot easier to browse the titles I have and I don’t think it would be possible without the .vf files.

The problem with doing it this way is that you have to copy these files into each of the “My Video” folders for each extender user.  (I have two extenders so I had to do this for both.)  Many people may not even know these “users” exist on their machines.  They’ve simply set up their extender and that’s it.  Not only that but you have to give each extender user profile “modify” access to the ProgramData/mediabrowser folder.  Again, this isn’t something the standard user is going to understand nor want to undertake.

After reading the forums and taking the above listed steps, there are still times that Media Browser won’t show up on my Xbox 360.  All I get is the Media Center background and I end up having to exit out to the 360 dashboard and reload Media Center.  This has yet to happen on my Linksys extender, main Media Center or on my kitchen PC.

With all that being said, Media Browser is still a beta.  I sincerely hope that extender issues can be looked at as well as making the setup for multiple media locations a bit easier.  For a beta app and an app in general I love it.  Even with my extender issues, it’s taken the place of My Movies and myTV on my network.  It will continue to do so for a long time.  I continue to check for updates and I’ve turned on the beta updates so they happen automatically.  I can’t wait to see what direction the development takes!

If you want more info you can click here to go to the forums and find answers or ask questions.  You can go here to download the latest beta and give it a try.

It’s much too early to review SecondRun.TV.  It was just released yesterday and it would be unfair to review it.  I did however want to show everyone that it’s not a pipe dream.  You can actually view online content within Media Center.  So far, only Hulu content is running full screen.  This isn’t apparent in the video because I was running 7MC in window mode, but last night while in full screen it worked perfectly.

Hopefully we’ll see more updates soon as development continues!

This is great news for people like myself who have been looking for a way to get sites like Hulu, Fox, Comedy Central and others into Media Center.  So far, the closest we’ve come is with Missing Remote’s post on getting a Boxee shortcut and app changing commands into Media Center.

SecondRun.tv is about to change that.  @Richard_MCE_MVP found a short video demonstration of what I can only call a great looking early build of an application which will almost completely integrate these online services into Media Center.

I have yet to find out who’s writing this app but I’d very much like to speak with him.  This is something I’ve been waiting for for a long time.  If it works with the remote control then I’m set!  If you’re the one writing this, let me know when you’re ready for beta testers!

Click here to watch the demo video of what SecondRun.TV will hopefully soon provide!

Thanks to @Richard_MCE_MVP for pointing this out yesterday.  A user at The Green Button has written a small app that will let you import channel logos into your guide in 7MC.

From the post at TGB:

The package includes 250 American channel logos total. I tried to find as many good quality images as possible. They have been white-washed to fit in the Media Center style, and have been optimized to fit a 1080p screen. You also have the option of manually adding logos, if we cannot find a proper match. Just choose an image from your computer, and it will add it to the guide. If you find a good image that you would like me to convert to the 7MC style, please post a link. I can’t promise I’ll do it right away, as I am very busy right now, but I’ll try to get to it.

Please feel free to post feedback. If something is not functioning correctly, please tell me. If you notice an image in the logos folder that should have been added but did not, post the logo file name, as well as the channel name, call sign and affiliate. This was tested using a limited number of TV services, regions and channels, so please give me your feedback!

You can find the link for the application at the bottom of the first forum post.  A few people have reported some issues with the installation but many have gotten it working perfectly.  Read through the whole thread for more information.

I haven’t had a chance to test this yet as I have to reinstall my main Media Center system today.  Once I do, I’ll run the app and report my findings here.  If you’ve run it, comment here and let us know how it works!

I recently started working on testing a few 3rd party applications for Windows 7 Media Center.  Today I was able to install both HeatWave and Open Media Library.  I’ve been wanting to use HeatWave for awhile since I like having access to, basically, instant weather.  The data is pulled from weather.com so it’s as accurate as you’re probably going to find for your area.  The reason behind installing OML is another story.  I’ve been happy with My Movies for a long time now, but today it decided that it was going to stop showing cover art as well as some other hiccups.  I can’t figure out a reason for this but when I try to rebuild the missing data in the Collection Manager, it locks up.  I wanted another solution quickly (didn’t want to reinstall today) so I went to Open Media Library.

Let’s talk about Heatwave first.  I had heard of this app awhile back but was reminded of it again over on Josh Pollard’s blog.  While it doesn’t provide all of the info some other weather apps have provided in the past, you do get the current, full day and 5 day forecast on one easy to read screen.  This can of course be brought up while listening to music or viewing any other media.  Like I said, it doesn’t give you access to a ton of weather info, but no one ever said that an app had to have every feature to be great!

Click here to download the same HeatWave version that I’m using.  The original post on TGB now has a dead link so I’ve decided to host it myself.  If anyone has an issue with this, let me know and I’ll remove it.  I don’t want to steal someone else’s work.  I just want to help people out.

Next up is Open Media Library.  I really enjoyed this app while it was young and now that it’s developed a bit more, just wow.  Put together by some Media Center enthusiasts, this is one app that I think has found a home on my main Media Center.  Great metadata (partially loaded from my My Movies DB), great fanart and great use of the screen.  In the video below I’m running the build from 2/4/2009 so if you read this later, some things may have changed considering these guys are able to get a new build out every other day for the most part.

I’ll let the video below show you the “in Media Center” part of the app.  It’s hard to describe the setup after you install it but suffice to say, you have several importation options including My Movies, Movie Collectorz, and others.  Once your files are in the database, it’s really just a matter of checking your metadata and you’re ready to go.  With built in transcoding, about the only things I can see that are missing are:

1. A way to “mass update” metadata—Mine is all there but I’d like to get the fanart in the back.  I have yet to find a way to do a mass update.  Only one at a time.
2. Wow, that’s it!

Yes, that’s the only thing I can find so far (a day of use) that I don’t like.  It would be great if it did TV series as well but for movies, the UI is fast, looks good, blends with Media Center and goes right on the start menu.  Another app that’s easy to set up as well.  Since this is an ongoing project, I’ll try and update my install often and let you know how it’s going here.

If you want to see how these two apps work, watch the videocast below.

I recently noticed a post on EngadgetHD regarding PlayOn coming out of beta.  PlayOn acts as a server on the PC it’s installed and will server various web content to your Xbox 360 dashboard, PS3 or other DNLA compliant devices.  I decided to give it a shot since there’s a 14 day trial before you have to drop $29.95 on it.

Installation was a breeze.  Unless you have some sort of crazy router setup it shouldn’t be a problem.  After installation the service will start and you can walk through the configuration.  In this screen you can setup some simple configuration stuff such as video performance, video processing as well as starting and stopping the server and parental controls.  There are also tabs to input your Netflix username and password as well as the same info for Hulu.  This will gain you access to your queue for each service.  There’s another tab for system check where you can make sure that your system is able to handle the PlayOn software and video conversion.  Since it’s streaming the content to your console or other device, the software knows what it needs to do and to run the conversion needs a PC that can handle it.  Just to give you an idea, I currently have it running on my laptop which is an Intel Celeron 1.86GHz with 2GB of ram and I’m in the green so it’s not that intensive.

I don’t want to tear into this software too hard since it’s just come out of beta, but I do have a few issues.  The first is the fact that the PlayOn website states that the server can stream to any DLNA device.  This isn’t true.  While it can certainly stream to my Xbox 360 (I’ll talk about that in a minute), a PS3 and some other DLNA devices, (SageTV HD-200 for one) it can’t stream to other Windows 7 PCs in my home.  Since we all know that Windows 7 is DLNA compliant, I wonder why this won’t work.  While the PlayOn server shows up in Windows Media Player under “Other Libraries”  When you go in and drill down to video, it says there’s no content.  I’ve emailed their support and hopefully they’ll get back to me soon.

As far as streaming to the Xbox 360, it works.  I didn’t get access to my Netflix queue for quite awhile but if you have Netflix and a 360 and you use PlayOn to access it, well, you have bigger problems than the software taking awhile to load your queue.  The interface just isn’t slick enough to replace the built in Netflix system on the 360 dashboard.  The same goes for the other services.  While it’s nice to have Hulu, CBS, ESPN and other content there, the “drill down through folders until you get to actual content” gets old pretty quick.  I can’t really blame this on PlayOn.  They’ve done the best they could with what the 360 dashboard can do.  The PlayOn server is found under “Video Library” and is just another PC on your network as far as the 360 is concerned.  With Hulu for example, everything is broken down in categories.  In each category things are in alphabetical folders, and you’ll find show folders under that.  Again, you’re getting Hulu, but by the time you’re done navigating, you may be ready to do something else.  The easiest way would be to set up a queue on Hulu.com and the put your info into the PlayOn.  This will let you access the queue directly and find exactly what you’re looking for.  Too bad queues aren’t available for every service.

Overall, PlayOn is nice.  It lets you get content to an extender that you’re not going to get there any other way.  If they can get it working on Windows 7 PCs it might be worth it for me but only having access to these services in one location just isn’t worth the $29.95 for me right now.  Maybe it is for you.  Truth is that if I need access to these services on the PC, there’s always Boxee which is free.  Then again, that’s in alpha and not a real good solution yet.  It really comes down to whether or not you think 30 bucks is worth online content on your game console.  The good part is that with easy setup and long but easy navigation on the 360, this could work for a lot of people.

The other day I posted about Missing Remote’s article and download to get Boxee playing nice with Windows Media Center.  I finally had a chance to put this into practice yesterday and I have to say that I’m impressed!

While this hack won’t get Boxee playing on your extenders, it does bring the functionality into Media Center, kinda.  That’s not to say that it doesn’t work, it’s just that you’re not really playing Boxee inside of Media Center.  What Missing Remote’s hack does is add the shortcut to Media Center which will minimize MCE, open Boxee and when you’re done, close Boxee and maximize MCE.  It works really well so kudos to them on that!

On to Boxee itself.  Ok, yeah, it’s an alpha and I get that.  That being the case I can’t say that it’s terrible but there’s a lot of work to do until it’s ready to actually be usable in a 10 foot environment.  The first (and biggest issue for WAF) is that my remote doesn’t control it very well.  I don’t know if it’s just my remote or all MCE remotes in general since I don’t have a bunch just laying around.  You can navigate ok I guess but other than volume control there isn’t a whole lot you can do without the mouse.  Also, the back button doesn’t work which means I have to go back to the main menu and then drill back down to go back just one step.

Adding your local media is a chore.  Why I can’t check off several locations and have all of my local video show up alphabetically is beyond me.  Instead I have to list each drive, give them each a different name and then search each one to find what I want.  Since I’m using Boxee in conjunction with Media Center, I don’t really need to worry about it but it’d be nice to get it going.  Just know that depending on how you save your media, you could be in for a lot of hassle.

It was my understanding that Boxee included access to ABCs programming but it has yet to show up for me.  Also, even though I authorized Boxee to access my Netflix queue, that hasn’t shown up yet either.  If anyone has this working please let me know.  Having Netflix in Boxee will actually be really nice once my HTPC is in the living room.  That way, you wouldn’t have to change inputs and whatnot to get to it on the Xbox 360.

Overall, the guys at Missing Remote have done a great job getting Boxee to play nice with MCE.  Boxee, again, is in alpha so it’s hard to fault it too much.  If they can work out the bugs this will find a lot of use in my living room.  Too bad it won’t work on extenders…

If you’re using Boxee, post or DM me your username on Twitter and I’ll add you!  Always interested in what people are watching.  I won’t be using it much until I move the HTPC downstairs and can figure out the remote thing (or get a DiNovo Mini) but I’m sure there are some good recommendations out there.