Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with	System
4+ out of 5	Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

PROS: All-In-One Ripper and Converter. Converts Both DVD and BlueRay to any format needed. Very good Image Crop Functionality. Watermark and image adjustment features. CONS: Ripping seems a bit slow. Though it runs on 64bit platform, there’s no native 64bit support, which would be preferable. Added Subtitles are embedded into the movie instead of saved as a separate file. VERDICT: A truly great All in One Product, that deliver what it promise, and then some. PRICE: $45.49 VERSION REVIEWED: DOWNLOAD: Aimersoft Blue-Ray Ripper CONTEST: After reading the review, head on over to the Aimersoft Blu-Ray Roulette Game for the chance to win a free copy!

Aimersoft Blu-Ray Ripper

Usually when reviewing Backup Sofware, we talk about DVDs. This time I’ve reviewed a true Blue-Ray Ripper that promise to be “a powerful Blu-ray tool to crack AACS and BD+ protection from Blu-ray disc, CSS encryption from DVD. It allows to backup Blu-ray content to quality lossless MKV files and rip Blu-ray/DVD to almost all popular video and audio formats seamlessly and effortlessly.” Well, don’t they all ?

Interface

The interface is clean and tidy. It takes about 30+ seconds to know how it works. This is often where a truly great program stands out from the lesser ones. When the people behind a program take the end user into consideration they usually get a program that can be used straight out of the box and one that will be used over and over. In that manner, Aimersoft has scored jackpot. Except for one thing. At first glance Aimersoft Blu-Ray Ripper looks to be a movie copy and converter program. Studying the interface for a few more seconds, reveal a more “hidden” feature, the Disk Backup Feature (by “hidden” I mean, not as visible, it’s just a button). This feature let you take complete backups of your Blu-Ray (and DVD) disks, and should you be so lucky (or rich enough) to own a BluRay Burner, well …

Why Aimersoft has chosen to “hide” this feature in the interface is beyond me, because this is the feature that; to me is the most interesting. The Convert-to-Other-Formats is more of a plus. The ability to store a copy of the entire Blu-Ray Disk makes sense, because it protects your investment. When and if the disk gets scratched or damaged beyond repair.

Creating Backups

Creating a disk Backup is very easy. Insert the Disk, and Click “Backup”. Be aware that you need at least 20GB of free diskspace to be able to make a backup copy.

Converting Movies

Making a copy (and converting) it to another format is truly easy.  Insert the disk and let the program scan the disk for you. As with other competing programs,  Aimersoft Blu-Ray Ripper displays a list of the available movieclips on the disk and let you choose which ones to backup. The main movie is selected by default.

Once you have the movies selected, choose the target format by selecting a predefined Profile (Such as iPhone, HTC, Blackberry, iPad, PSP etc.) or you may define your own. At this stage you may press Convert and start the process but there are a few more options for you to choose from. Clicking the Settings-Button next to the Profile Selection Button, will give you a few more options.

Crop (available on the interface menu)

One of the biggest problems when it comes to converting a movie from one format (or gadget) to another is the different screen sizes. On a small screen like the PSP, wide black bars can be quite annoying, making the actual movie size too small for comfort. I hate it when it required a magnifier of sorts to see the movie. The embedded Crop function solves this perfectly by letting you manually adjust the movie image size to fit your preferences.

Image Adjust  (available on the Interface Menu)

Sometimes a movie can get quite dark (I’m not referring to the plot), which is fine in a movie theater, but not on your PSP, iPhone and whatnot.  Aimersoft let you adjust the image brightness and contrast to better suit your needs.

Watermark  (available in the Crop Menu)

A functionality that is great for any corporate (or home) movies is the ability to add a watermark (like a logo) to the converted movie. This is especially a great feature if you plan to distribute a movie on YouTube or any similar platform.

Audio settings  (available in Settings)

Different Profiles, gives you different Audio Settings. Some Profiles have different Audio Settings to choose from. The HD Movie Profile gives you AC3 sound with the option to use Surround or Stereo (depending on your Movie), the Xvid Profile will convert the sound to Mp3, PSP Profile use AAC Encoder using Mono as optional. If you prefer to have other settings than the Profile Defaults you have to create your own Profile.

FileSplitting   (available in Settings)

In the Settings Window, you may also choose to split files by time or filesize.

Subtitles  (available on the Interface Menu)

If you are converting a foreign movie, you may want to add subtitles. Be aware that, the subtitles are embedded into the movie, and not stored as separate files.

The Test

In my test I tried to backup (and convert) a store bought movie (from Disney). These disks are known to cause backup problems due to different copy protection features and is therefor a great test subject. I also Selected the HD Movie Platform, making the copy viewable on my BenQ Projector. I added subtitles and used standard Crop settings.

The conversion process is promised to be swift and powerful. On my system (64 bit AMD Athlon, Windows 7, 4GB RAM) it took about 2,5 hours to complete. On the upside,  Aimersoft Blu-Ray Ripper, used little CPU power, and very little RAM (about 120 000K). It did not render my computer useless, and I was able to go about my business as usual. And that, to me is very important. Too many good programs like this, use so much resources that you have to run them at night when you don’t use the computer for anything else.

The Result

The finished product was superb. A clean and sharp image, with crisp sound. The subtitles was not embedded into the movie, but was added as a separate file.  I’m not too fond about the embedded subtitles. One reason is that I cannot switch the subtitles off during playback, another is the font size, which I think is too large. Another thing I discovered was that the program didn’t warn med about the different Subtitles available for my language, so I ended up selecting the subtitles for the Directors Comment, which lets say made the entire movie unwatchable, seeing as I cannot turn them off.

The Wish List

• Native 64 bit support would  make my day ( Although 2,5 hours to complete may be acceptable speed, I would like to see it even faster).
• Better control with Subtitles (Font, size etc) and the option to save it as a separate file
• Option to use original Audio, no matter which profile I choose

Conclusion

The price is a bit steep (almost $50), but in the long run, it keeps your BluRays and DVDs safe. If this program saves you from having to re-buy your entire movie collection (should anything happen to it) then the price isn’t all that bad.

The program is easy to use and offers everything you need in one package (Except for a large enough Hard-Drive). It produce a truly lossless result. Images are clean and crisp and the audio is perfect (with no audio sync problems). You will never need another backup/ripping program for as long as there are BluRay disks.

You may read more about it here, Or..

Chance to win prizes and a free copy of the Blu-Ray Ripper

Aimersoft is currently hosting a Roulette Competition where you can win several prizes, amongst them a free copy of the program.
The contest is open to September 2nd, so there’s not much time left. So make sure you head on over to the:    Blu-ray roulette game

Buy or Download Trial

Buy BluRay Ripper

Download TRIAL BluRay Ripper

If your memory is as bad as mine and you can’t even remember what you ate for lunch, it’s very handy to be able to whip out your business card with a URL pointing to a list of your most recently watched.

 

Background:

Two developments have sparked the recent explosion of Media Center packages (in my view).

The first, of course, is Windows 7 and its Windows Media Center package included for free. The second is free public access to online media databases like The Open Movie Database (TMDb).

Everybody wants a great visual catalogue system. Nobody wants to spend half their waking life typing in the details of each title.

Too much of a good thing:

Forgive me for dropping into the first person for a bit. I’m pretty sure the progress of my interest in Media Center stuff is fairly similar to that of my colleagues, but I don’t want to make a bunch of unfounded assumptions about other people.

I love collections. I still have enough cover CDs from technical magazines to fill a couple of suitcases, but before long it became apparent to me that having a lot of stuff is useless, and in fact, counter-productive because you spend more time looking for stuff than you do actually using it. What’s required is a good way to lay your hands on the item you want quickly, and so the search for a good digital library system began.

Today there are many fine products available for finding, storing, and presenting your digital collections. In addition to Windows Media Center (and the Media Browser add-on) there is XBMC, Media Portal, Boxee and more that I haven’t even had a chance to look at yet.

Each of these fine programs provides a wealth of extended functions and dazzling visual front ends, but I still struggle with that simple question “Seen any good movies lately?” I’ve got too many titles to wade through and only a large, slow application to do it with.

“Just the facts, ma’m”

There is another class of digital movie collection packages that focusrs on the basics. Collecting, organizing, and presenting the titles. It was among this group that I found what I think will turn out to be the answer to my dilemma.

(Visit AllMyMovies at http://www.bolidesoft.com/allmymovies.html)

“All My Movies” came up in a google search one day last year when I was looking for media center applications. I had a play with it, but put it back on the shelf for not being up to the 7MC standard (“7MC” is geek-speak for Windows Media Center for Windows 7) but tried it again in my search for simplicity. There is quite a lot of functionality packed into the latest AMM (ibid). The one that grabbed my attention straight away is its ability to output a list of titles in HTML (web page) format, based on a selection of titles from it’s database.

My first answer to “The Question” was to print out a list of titles from Windows Explorer in date order so the newer titles would float to the top of the list. It kinda worked, but because I made changes to the information, titles like “The Big Store” (Marx Brothers comedy from 1941) would also show up just because I had changed the listing a bit in my file system.

My friend Sean (the one who asks me “The Question” ) would then ask “What’s this one about?”, so to complete the answer it was obvious that I needed a picture – preferably the movie poster or DVD cover to jog his memory, and a link to IMDb or TMDb to provide a comprehensive answer.

Pros and Cons:

AMM has loads of features that I hope to explore in the fullness of time but, right now, it looks like a good match for my immediate requirement for an HTML movie page generator. There is an excellent selection of formats to choose from, and you can even output the information to text.

On the down side, it does cost money, while most of the other programs I’ve looked for have been free. On the flip side of that are the many ways it’s possible to reduce the cost, or even get it for free – like the “guess the movie” competetion found on their website. If you’re strapped for cash I’d try those options first.

The second drawback I’ve found is that this version doesn’t talk to TMDb (The database of choice for “Media Browser” and my personal favourite).

I wrote AMM and asked about it and got a nice note back from Max Smirnoff to tell me that he would get on to that straight away, so I’m very hopeful that before long I can capture all the required movie details simply by getting AMM to scan my movie folder.

All Up:

I’m going to stick with All My Movies for a while. It will take a bit of time to make the changes required for my design, but right now it appears to be just the kind of package I need and my guess is that it would work for anyone with a set of requirements like mine. Plus, they’re nice people to deal with. When was the last time you got an email back from Bill Gates telling you he’d get right onto your suggestion?

So – “Have I seen any good movies lately?” You tell me:

http://movies.hazen.co.nz

The New and improved

Where the 2.0 beta promised more gadgets and functionality, this version delivers. The weather gadget now comes bundled with 4 free weather providers, and several skin options (about 30 skins to choose from). But HTC Home does more.

One of the cool features added is the option to let the Weather Widget change your desktop- or widget background (or both) to suit the weather outside. But if you don’t like that sort of thing it’s not on by default.

The interface

The interface is about the same as before, only improved. The settings can now be accessed from any widget running, and it’s much more intuitive. Even if you’ve never used the HTC Home Gadget before it shouldn’t take your more than a few minutes to familiarize.

Only thing annoying me is the taskbar icon. The taskbar icon shows you the weather directly in your taskbar. To me it’s just a feature which luckily may be switched off entirely. I’m not that depended on knowing the weather outside all the time. If they could put it in the tray instead of the taskbar I might be more willing to keep it on.

More widgets

In addition to the Weather’n'Clock widget, you also get a standalone analogue Clock (which is perfect to put on that secondary monitor), a RSS News widget (which can be download most RSS-feeds), and my new favourite; Image Rotator.

The Image Rotator is an improved version of the original one, that comes with the Windows Desktop Gadgets. The improved part means you can set it up to suit your images.

Aero Transparency

As before, every widget support transparency which can be set to almost 100% when out of focus. Then, when you hover over a widget, it fades in, smoothly.

So what are you waiting for ? Go download it

Download

Thanks to freewaregenius for pointing these out to us.

And the newcomers are…

WinX DVD Author

Our good old friends over at Digiarity has since last decided to release their DVD authoring software as Freeware. This suite does not only convert any movie to DVD, but also allow you to author or re-pack a DVD with themes, chapters and everything you’d expect from a payware program.

As always, Digiarity promises high-quality and High-Speed – and in my opinion, they do deliver.

With step-by-step wizard built-in, even novice can easily convert and burn MKV, M2TS, M4V, MP4, FLV, MPEG, MOV, RM, RMVB, H.264, AVI to DVD, etc. Equipped with fast and powerful decode encoder engine, this free DVD burner software takes less than one hour to create a full 4.3 G high quality DVD, while delivering 100% excellent audio and video effects.

Download WinX DVD Author

Chasys Draw IES

This program is soon to be one of my favourite programs. On a daily basis, when working with high-quality graphics, I turn to the master of all; Photoshop. The problem is that Photoshop is much too heavy for my netbook, which I carry with me all over. Chasys Draw IES is a suite of image editing tools featuring a powerful bitmap editor that supports Photoshop style layers and plugins, giving me a lightweight program with the powerful functionality of which I have come to expect and need.

The whole suite is UAC aware and is designed to take advantage of multi-core processors, touch-screens and pen-input devices.

Expect to see a full review on this later

Download Chasys Draw IES

BufferZone PRO

I’ve earlier told you about Sandbox programs like Sandboxie and TimeFreeze. The BufferZone Pro is the ’PRO’ version of Trustware’s virtualization/sandboxing program. As with any Sandboxing program, it works by isolating running processes from the rest of the system, making it virtually impossible for the running programs to make changes to your system.

BufferZone Pro does NOT support 64-bit architecture, but they claim to introduce this feature sometime in 2011.

Download BufferZone Pro

Download BufferZone Pro

Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with	System
5 out of 5	Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Whether or not you like playing games on your cellphone, you may have noticed people so hung up on a certain game that they hardly recognize anything around them. Which game is it? It’s called “Angry Birds”. The game first appeared on iPhone and has since then moved on to other platforms. Having a Windows Mobile, I know It will never reach my phone, as the developers have claimed NEVER to transfer the game to that platform. But in a small way (or should I say big) they have yielded – the game is now available for Windows PC. And it works on all window platforms. If you wonder about the HALF star up there, the game’s only flaw is that it’s so addictive… PRICE: $4,99 DOWNLOAD: Angry Birds

Curious about the game ?

[EDIT] There was a free edition available when it was first published. Seeing as I was a bit late telling you about this, the free edition is no longer available. Angry Birds is now only available in paid version at Intel App Up Store.

I must warn you – it’s very ADDICTIVE, and the hours will pass as you over and over again scream out loud in agony over the ONE, lousy pig that just won’t die, die .. d.. Oh well you get the idea.

The aim of the game is that a pack of green hogs have stolen the birds eggs. The birds of course are very upset about this and decide to attack the hogs claiming their eggs back. Using a large slingshot they use themselves as ammo trying to destroy the hogs fortresses. Some of the birds can drop bombs in the shape of, you guessed it… eggs. Others will explode on impact and others… well you will just wait and see for yourself now won’t you ?

It’s a rather simple game, and rather stupid – but the fact of the manner is – you will get addicted – so maybe you should just stay away from this one? Well, don’t come back and say I didn’t warn you. Now where was I.. oh yes… back to the game…

Angry Birds is available at the Intels App Up store.

Download Angry Birds at the Intel AppUp Store

Get Angry Birds

Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with	System
4.5 out of 5	Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Screenpresso Features

If you are dealing with some tasks that require you to take a lot of screenshots (for example: a software application engineer who is responsible to look for bugs and test software), a simple but full-featured screen capture tool is necessary.

By the term simple, I mean the entire screen capture experience has to be natural so that the user can start using it right away without much exploring. Of course, if a really simple screen capture is needed, we can just opt for the Print Screen button on the keyboard. However, for advanced tasks with screenshots, like annotation and sharing, a full-featured application is needed. There are already plenty of screen capture tools for Windows that have the criteria mentioned, but most of them doesn’t come with a friendly price tag. If you are looking for a cheap (or should I say free?) alternative, there is only one program that is simple but full featured: introducing LearnPulse’s Screenpresso.

It has the best screen capture user experience

I have been using Screenpresso for screen capturing tasks ever since it was first released in 2009, and it keeps improving. I’ve tried numerous screen capture tools, and I must say Screenpresso provides the best screen capture user experience – and all my colleagues will definitely agree on this. If you have already used to press Print Screen button for screen capturing, Screenpresso will change your user experience in no time.

Screenpresso in action.

After you have installed Screenpresso, press the Print Screen button, and you will see how Screenpresso magically assists you in screen capture. As you can see in the screenshot above (OK, I admit that I didn’t capture this screen using Screenpresso), the mouse cursor will turn into a crosshair, and moving it around the screen will automatically highlight the area that can be captured in red. It does some pretty cool edge snapping to the screen, so you can choose to capture part of a window, or the entire window, or even the whole screen. Notice the zoom lens at the right bottom of the screen? It is really useful if you require a pixel-perfect screen capture, and it tells you the pixel size that’s highlighted. Besides that, Screenpresso does a very good job of capturing the window with clean Aero glass, but of course you can easily disable this feature in the settings. Want to capture a long webpage into a single image? No problem, thanks to the smart stitching mechanism in Screenpresso.

Which is better? The left or the right?

All of these features seem pretty simple, but a combination of them create an unrivaled user experience, in a free product. But there’s more …

It has a Powerful Built-in Editor

Applying annotation to the screenshots is both fun and efficient in Screenpresso. It has a very simple but powerful editor which allows you to do tons of editing, such as commenting, adding arrows etc. and you can even blur a region easily. One of the best features in the Screenpresso editor is their Add Image function. The developers have done a great job by providing users useful and ready-to-use images (check both the screenshots above for examples.) All are done in Screenpresso’s  built-in editor, without charging a single cent. Impressive?

Capture Sharing is Easier than Ever

Tons of sharing option. Screen captured with branding.

Besides providing great user experience and powerful editor, LearnPulse has also attempted to make sharing of screenshots easier. They have included numerous options for you to share screenshots easily; as you can see in the screenshot above. If you are not keen on using any services provided, you can just simply drag-and-drop the screenshots from the history to email or file-explorer for more sharing options. If you notice the screenshot above, there is some branding done on the screenshot, but this will only apply when you are using certain sharing options provided in Screenpresso, though I don’t find it intrusive at all in the screenshot. For the features that has the branding enabled, check their features list of Screenpresso.

It is a Portable Application

This great tool is not only available for your personal computer; it can be used as a portable application on a public computer as well. On the first run of the Screenpresso installer which can be found here, it will allow you to run it directly without installation, or install on the computer if you wish. This can provide high flexibility and the user is able to run it virtually in any Windows-based computers – another great user experience.

Screenpresso allows you to run as portable app, or install on your computer.

And … it has good customer support

I believe a good program without good support from the developer will not be success–most of the time. Learnpulse is always ready to listen to the users’ comments, complaints and suggestions, and they can be reached easily via their official Twitter account. I once suggested them to add a curvy line/arrow tools in their editor (after my colleague asked me about it) and they responded that they will add my suggestion to their ‘to do’ list – it’s pretty sweet if you ask me.

With the latest release in 2011 (version 1.2.1.4 at the time of writing), LearnPulse has looked into video capturing in Screenpresso. Although the free version can only capture a tiny 15 seconds video with branding. There is a Screenpresso Pro version which costs $28 (at time of writing) that removes all the brandings and has full length video capture. However, since it is a new feature, there aren’t any extra functions for the captured video besides sharing; however, I believe LearnPulse is working hard to improve Screenpresso to become the best screen and video capture tool for Windows.

If you looking for a great screen capture tool at no cost, look no further, try Screenpresso and you will be amazed!

Download Screenpresso

Download Screenpresso

I’ve stopped buying music

Now hold on, before you jump to any wrong conclusions – I don’t illegally download it either. I rent it … sort of.

These day it seems, the music industry are doing what they can to make it harder for honest people to get the music they want (and according to some, encouraging them to “steal”). Some smart people have come up with a great solution: Legal Streaming. Almost with the industry’s blessing.

There are several online solutions for streaming music legally – but in my book there are only two worth checking out: Spotify and Grooveshark. Both of which give you all the music you can ever listen too, free (ad-supported) and legal. Both also provides a paid service without ads and commercial breaks.

Mini Review.

The following list show you some of the features you can expect to find in the two programs:

.

.

Grooveshark is browser dependent and cannot function without an Internet Connection. Aside from that, if you require a simple solution to get access to all the music you can ever imagine. Then Grooveshark is for you. Grooveshark is all about the music. Search for an artist or a song, and a few seconds later… you’re playing it.

Grooveshark can give you music based on category or you can create a playlist (and genre) of your own and share it with the Grooveshark community or your friends.

Grooveshark is for every one, get it free or pay for it (6 or 9USD depending on subscription). If you can stand ads – then there’s no reason to pay.  There is also a mobile phone application allowing you to play music wherever you are (as long as you have internet connection that is).

Why the “five” ?

Well, I removed one star for a couple of reasons:

• It’s not standalone
• There is no, Search for Similar or Related music/artist
• No OFFLINE mode, which means that you must have internet to use it.

My cousin told me the other day: “Spotify is the greatest thing, happening to my music collection, EVER!”. And I must agree. Before when I had company or friends over – they would always go through my music collection, looking for music which I didn’t have. Now, that problem is gone.

Spotify is a very lightweight standalone application with all the abilities you would expect from your WinAmp, Media Player etc. Searching for music is fast, and the sound quality is as good as any store-bought CD.

As in Grooveshark you can create your own playlists and share it with whatever community you like. But you may also search for similar music or artists. If you like to read about artists and their music, Spotify provides this information through its Biography function.

The paid subscription options comes with several extra features like Mobile Phone Apps, OFFLINE mode (for both computer and phone) and better sound quality.

Spotify Availability Issue and workaround

Because the music industry are backwards-thinkers (when it comes to new legal solutions), they require special contracts and agreements for each country to which Spotify is to be available. For this reason Spotify is not yet available all over the world. But there are workarounds, should you want to try it.

Spotify is available all over the world for Premium Account holders. To get the membership outside Europe, you have to log into the website using a UK-based Proxy, and register as if you live in the UK. From there on, it’s easy. You still have to pay for it to use it but it works. Spotify costs between 4 and 9 euros a month (6-12USD) depending on your subscription.

In Conclusion

For those of us living in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands, Spotify is the greatest choice, especially as you (with a premium account) don’t need an Internet connection to play your music, even on the mobile phone apps.

Seeing as most of the readers here don’t live in the above mentioned countries, then go for Grooveshark – it’s almost as good.

Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with
4 out of 5	Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

PROS: Quick installation and great features added with ease. One of the best features for me is the option to continue where you left off in a song when you close and re open WMP12. CONS: No cons really. It would be nice to see more features that could bump this up to a five-star program. If you can think of any features, let us know in the comments so we can pass them on to the developers. VERDICT: If you insist on using WMP12 (and, to be fair, it’s worthy of use), then this may make your experience even better. PRICE: Free VERSION REVIEWED: 1.1 DOWNLOAD: Windows Media Player Plus!

Windows Media Player Plus! Features

Windows Media Player Plus! integrates seamlessly with Windows Media Player 12 (WMP12) and adds the following functionality:

Let’s take a look at some of those features in action:

Find as You Type

Set the ‘find as you type’ feature on the Libarary panel of the Windows Media Player Plus! Settings.

Now, as you type song names, artists etc. in the search box, they appear, in real time, in the results pane:

Show Song Details in Title Bar

On the User Interface panel, check Show currently playing media in Windows Media Plater’s title bar.

The result:

File Context Menus in WMP

If you want quick access to the file context menu (so you can, for example, change the file from Read-only, find when the file was created etc.): click the Context Menus tab and check the File Menu options.

The result:

Tag Editor Plus

The Advanced Tag Editor has been removed in WMP12 so this replacement may come in handy for those who like to keep everything tidy, tag wise.

To get quick access to the Tag Editor Plus, click the Context Menus tab and check the Tag Editor Plus options.

Now you can access Tag Editor Plus big right clicking a song and clicking Tag Editor Plus…

…and you can edit the tags from here:

Restore Playing Media at Startup

Don’t you wish you could open WMP12 and have it continue where you left off? This is by far the best feature, for me, of Windows Media Player Plus!  In the Restore Media at Startup pane, select your preferences and enjoy continued playback even after closing WMP12.

There are a bunch of other options and, if any of these features sound good to you, I highly recommend you give this program a try.

Download Windows Media Player Plus!

Download Windows Media Player Plus!

But, What if, you are not at home?

The good news is that you can stream the music and videos from your home computer to your laptop over the Internet.

Here are the steps to do so on each of the computers:

1. Open Windows Media Player, click the Stream tab, and select Allow Internet Access to Home Media …
   
   
2. First, if you haven’t already, you need to link an online ID to your PC.

   

3. In the dialog box, click: “Link an Online ID”.

   
   Select the ID provider (Most common ID provider is Windows Live).

4. Enter your user name and password.
5. Click OK when the dialog box shows the ID association.
6. Back in the Allow Internet Access dialogue window, click “Allow Internet Access to Home Media”
7. WMP will now ask for UAC approval. After this, In the left pane of the WMP on your laptop, you’ll see the library for the home computer and you can select items from it.

Remember that you have to repeat the steps on the laptop after setting it up on the home computer. Also note that if a computer is connected to a domain, it can’t stream media over the Internet.

Background

We’ve had SKY in our house for a few years and to be honest, I’ll only look at the guide toward the end of the show I’m watching at the moment. I tried “My Sky” for a while (DVR combined with enhanced EPG for those who speak jargon)- being able to record all of the episodes of a given show was great – but a bit too expensive for me, and I could really justify that AND the new DVR, so I gave it back.

With the release of Big Screen EPG from mobilewares another check-box on our list of components required for the perfect media center can finally be ticked. The program can be downloaded from the Big Screen site . You get a 30-day free trial of the full product after which the product reverts to the free version, with all the basics (according to Niall Ginsbourg of Big Screen).

Niall took some time to chat with me recently about BigScreen EPG, and Big Screen Remote which is like the EPG product but lets you control your program guide from a modern mobile phone located pretty much anywhere. Big Screen have a number of products that deserve our attention, so watch this space.

Down to business:

We had a look at the basics of setting up a TV Tuner card in your PC which provides a live TV signal that can be played through Windows Media Center (TV Setup). We had a quick look at the TV guide that comes free of charge with the basic TV signal and today we will examine the features in Big Screen EPG that make your program guide sing.

We won’t go through setup processes any more – there’s nothing tricky about them. For the very new folks who may be in attendance, please remember you have nothing to fear from a standard setup process. The trick is in knowing which ones aren’t standard.

So you’ve signed up, given all your details, downloaded and un-zipped the software and executed the setup or install program.

For your effort you’re rewarded with an icon:

and you now face the first screen.

I won’t bore you with how much harder this was in the old days, but believe me, this is much nicer. Quite simply you start with the “Actions” in the upper left corner. For your first attempt it would be wise to run the test option, “Test MXF Generation” just to see if you can get the data.

The test initiation screen appears and invites us to begin.

One little gripe I have with this window is that once you press the “Begin” button, the process begins, but the button remains unchanged – if you shoot off to make a cuppa while the process is going and come back having forgotten what you’ve been doing for the last half hour (don’t laugh!), you might be tempted to click the “Begin” button again. In my view, once the process has started the “Begin” button should either “grey out” (become inactive) or just go away and the lines about “Waiting for Input” and”(Press Begin to Start the Processing)” should go likewise.

The program closes and the stats are impressive – the 18 channels captured by the Windows Media Center guide pale by comparison –Big Screen came up with 104 channels, 22,062 programs and 3120 series.

Once your first test is run successfully you can then advance to the real deal by clicking on “Generate Data and Import into Media Cente”r. The same process ensues, but when you open up the WMC Guide — whamo – what a difference:

Pretty much everything that can be populated has been populated. And this is just the start – there’s a lot more in store for us, so jump to Big Screen EPG Puts the “E” in Electronic Program Guide [Part 2 of 3].

Download Big Screen EPG

Download Big Screen EPG