Entries tagged with extenders - Channel 10

New Windows Media Center Extender: HP MediaSmart Connect

sarahintampa — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:18:00 GMT

This summer there’s going to be a new Windows Media Center Extender from HP called the HP MediaSmart Connect. With this new extender, you can wirelessly stream multimedia like TV, music, videos, and photos all around your house either over your wired network or over Wi-Fi. If you’re interested in learning more about this new extender, the Windows Vista Team blog recently pointed me to some webinars that are being put on by both Microsoft and HP to introduce and demonstrate the capabilities of this new extenders. HP’s Director of Marketing for their Connected Entertainment Group, Brian Burch, will be hosting, but it’s the guests that will be making these webinars worth the watch. Like Patrick Norton, for example. I’m a huge fan of Tekzilla myself, so I can’t wait to see what Patrick has to say about the MediaSmart Connect. Other guests include Ed Bott (ZDNet), Ian Dixon (The Digital Lifestyle), and Mike Garcen (Missing Remote).

Here’s the schedule for the webinars:

Tuesday, June 24th - 10:00 am PST with Ed Bott, http://www.zdnet.com/
Thursday, June 26th - 1:00 pm PST with Ian Dixon, http://www.thedigitallifestyle.com/
Tuesday, July 8th - 10:00 am PST with Patrick Norton, http://www.tekzilla.com/
Thursday, July 10th - 1:00 pm PST with Mike Garcen, http://www.missingremote.com/

Click here to register.

Show Us Your Home: Hakan Olsson Edition

Tina — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:01:00 GMT

In an attempt to rip off cribs we bring you an episode of "Show me your house". Instead of showing you what's in Akon's refrigerator we barge into (not really, we're invited) the homes of Microsoft employees and show you how we use technology every day at home. In this episode we are invited over to Hakan Olsson's home. Hakan's setup was recently featured in a Seattle PI article. Hakan works as a senior product planner here at Microsoft and he just happens to be a sound engineer and paraglider. What does paragliding have to do with anything? I'll show you as we incorporate all of these elements into today's episode. Oh, it's good to be back.

More info on Windows Home Server

Larry — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:52:00 GMT

Gizmodo has an interesting post that mentions a couple points often overlooked about Windows Home Server. Windows Home Server only backs up one instance of a file that appears across your system. So think of it this way, if you are using WHS to backup your 5 Dell XPS laptops (lucky you), each freshly formatted with Vista and holding all of your MP3s, the amount of storage required to back them up isn't going to be much bigger than the amount of space required to backup one of them. Read more about the disk system here (pdf). Another cool feature with Home Server is sharing the printers across your home network. Seems like I could run a small Kinko's out of my house and I was always at the wrong computer to print what I needed; text at the photo printer, pictures at the laser printer. Now all my printers are shared across the network - even available to visitors.

In the Gizmodo comments, DJ Anakin asks: "My plan for the near future has been to build a computer running Windows Media Center, then use it as a NAS/backup machine. I plan to be able to rip all my DVD's to the machine then just watch them on the TV. Essentially it would be an expanded HTPC. Will Windows Home Server be able to play media ala WMC?"

Media Center and Home Server are two distinct products with two different uses, but they work together. Your Media Center PC can play content from your Windows Home Server, and any extender can be used to play content from either (BTW: out of all the V2 extenders to date, the best value is the Xbox Arcade - with HDMI output.) Of course you could always plug a USB TV Tuner to the HP Home Server (but I wouldn't do it).

Remember, Windows Home Server is available as an OS so you can build whatever you want. You might want to use your Home Server for security with a 4/8/12/16 port DVR card to capture from cameras around your house. Just make sure the capture device works with Windows 2000, the supporting foundation under Home Server. While the HP Home Server doesn't have a monitor output jack on it, you might build one with this in mind. My main TV at home has a VGA input on it, I could hide my Home Server behind it, use a Media Center wireless keyboard, and basically create what DJ Anakin is talking about.