Archive for February, 2009

The Whisper fan for the Xbox 360 is not silent

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Not sure what Extremetech was thinking after they installed their Whisper fan for the Xbox 360 when they asked if the fan was even on? Who knows maybe they are deaf, all I can tell you is that for me it was a waste of time. The 360 might be a little quieter, but lets face it, for $25 I expected it to be silent from across the room. Luckily it was easy to install and kind of fun — the Extremetech instructions were good, but I’d add to use a hair dryer to heat up the tamper sticker so you don’t have to cut it. I hope that the new fan at least moves more air like it is supposed to so maybe it’ll run cooler, that way it’ll do something other than light up blue.

Either way because this didn’t fix the problem I’m going to have to move the 360 into my closet. This isn’t a big deal since I don’t change games much anyways and have a Blu-ray player for movies, but it is disappointing.

How I use Windows Media Center

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

After about 10 months of using Windows Media Center I decided to look back at how I use it. I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the feature I actually use is the very same feature that motivated me to start using it in the first place. That’s right, out of everything it’ll do, for the most part I just use it as a DVR. The problem is that although it has a nice enough interface for listening to music, watching misc vidoes and looking at pictures, these features aren’t useful to me.

Music and Photos
These Media Center components actually work pretty nice, the problem is that my content lives in an Apple ecosystem. Sure you can just copy over your pictures and music, but you lose all your playlists, metadata, etc. There are some 3rd party applications to help integrate iTunes with Media Center, but to someone who also ownes an Apple TV, it just doesn’t make sense. So whenever I want to look at pictures or listen to music I switch inputs to the Apple TV — to my wife this means hitting the blue button on the remote.

Videos
This is the most useless of all Media Center features. Luckily most of the reasons why it is useless are resolved in Windows 7, but just to cover the highlights. The fact that you can’t resume videos, and even worse you can’t fast forward or rewind — only skip — makes it completely unusalbe. And then there is the folder fiasco. I mean why is it so hard to limit the folders that show up here. Do people really what to see the sample folders etc? I know I don’t.

Add-ins
I really only have one add-in that I use on a regular basis and that is mControl. And even with it, I have like 20 things I don’t like about it. Overall the worst thing about add-ins is how difficult it is to add the shortcuts to the main menu. But even once you get in, most of the add-ins feel very tacked on, and I find that programmers don’t seem to like Media Center’s UI as they try their best to not look like it. The most popular add-in for most is My Movies and although I could see it being useful if I still watched DVDs, the cover-art is way too small. And where are the good (free) weather apps? I just don’t understand why there aren’t more great add-ins.

The DVR rocks!
I can’t say enough great things about the way the DVR works though. I have a few complaints, but overall it is very enjoyable and so much better than TiVo. One thing is for sure, the thing is rock solid — when I haven’t broken something. I don’t think I’ve missed one recording because of a malfunction in the past 10 months.

I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. In my household you don’t watch TV without watching it on Media Center. I have my home automation system setup so that when someone hits the power button on my Media Center remote the TV turns on to the correct input, the AVR turns on to the correct input and the Media Center goes to the Recorded TV screen. So it is a true one button, on one remote setup. I use the same remote in every room of the house and it functions the exact same way. From a user’s perspective the only difference is that Blu-ray and Apple TV re limited to the main room. Provided I don’t mess with it — a big if — it is very dependable. 

I look forward to the features in Windows 7 and hope to see other competitors give Media Center a run for its money, but as it stands now when it comes to the ultimate DVR experience for the home, it is Media Center and by a long shot.

How to reliably control the Xbox 360 with discrete IR codes

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Anyone who’s tried to control an Xbox 360 with a programmable remote or home automation system probably know how hard it is. I mean, I’ve been playing with this stuff for about six years and never in my life have I seen a device act so odd. The two main things I noticed was that sometimes it won’t respond to any codes at all until some obscure button is pressed. But the worst is that Microsoft doesn’t provide discrete IR codes and the ones that can be found online aren’t really discrete. What I mean to say is that the discrete ‘on’ works to turn the system on until you either turn the 360 off with the remote or the button on the front, and then from that point forward it is a discrete ‘off’ code. Which really defeats the entire point of having discrete IR codes. 

Well luckily, I was persistent and after lots of reading online I found the solution. I found this post on Remote Central and to my surprise it actually works. What you do is create two macros, one for on and another of off, using two separate commands each. Here are pronto hex codes. 

Power On Macro
(#a)
0000 0072 0000 0021 0062 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 0020 002F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 0020 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 0981
(Power On)
0000 0073 0000 0020 0060 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0010 0020 0031 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0020 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0020 0020 0020 0020 0020 0010 09C1

Here are the two commands to issue for off.

Power Off Macro
(#b)
0000 0072 0022 0022 0062 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 0020 002F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 0020 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 0981 0062 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 0020 002F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0012 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 0020 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 000F 0020 000F 000F 000F 0981
(Power Off)
0000 0073 0000 001F 0060 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0010 0020 0031 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0020 0020 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0010 0020 0020 0020 0020 0010 0010 0020 09D1

Now to my surprise these not only turn the 360 on and off reliably, but to top it off, it responds correctly to the other IR commands without any other funny business.

I don’t know how estech from the Remote Central forums figured this out, but I’d really like to thank him for saving me some hair — now if only my new fans from ConsoleShop.com would get here.

Who is there right mind would buy TV Shows from Apple?

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

I went cableless just over a month ago, so as you’d expect, I’m looking for new ways to get content. Now we all know there’s no way I’m going to watch SD, so besides OTA HD and Blu-ray Discs via Netflix, I’m looking to fill some gaps.

One of those gaps is a few shows on HD cable that I actually enjoy like Battlestar Galactica and Burn Notice. So like any Apple TV owner I figured I might as well check out the HD show selection. But man, what a rip! I mean $2.99 a show or like over $40 a season. That is a total ripoff. It’s not like I’m going to watch them more than once. No way I’m paying that much, even for one show. Seriously, how backwards is it that you can only rent HD movies and buy HD shows?

The unbelievable part to me is that not only do some actually buy ’em, but some of the same shows are available for free — and in better quality — via OTA HD. I just don’t get it.

You’ll have to excuse me now while I go load up my favorite torrent program. I figure it’s either that, or wait another 6 months until I can rent the Blu-ray versions on Netflix.

Xbox 360 arrived, got bit by the Seagate 1TB bug

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

I was very happy to finally get my Xbox 360 so I could move my Media Center PC into the office. My UPS guy comes really late so by the time I got it and had a chance to set everything up, it was after 8 o’clock. Tuesday is a big recording night for us — my wife mostly — so I had to put off moving the XPS until after 11 when all the recordings were done. So I shut it down and moved it to the already prepared location, hooked it up to my Apple Cinema display — which just seems wrong — and turned it on. And would’nt you know it, it wouldn’t boot. Long story short, I got bit by the Seagate 1TB 7200.11 bug. To make matters worse I couldn’t even detect the drive to do the firmware update. So who knows how long it will take to RMA it and there goes all my recordings. For now I can record on my other drive, but with only 200GB of free space, it isn’t going to get me very far. I should’ve known better than to mess with computers when it was time to bed because everything was all said and done I got to sleep after 1am.

As for using the 360 as an extender, so far so good. I was able to find some discrete IR codes for on and off. Unfortunately as I suspected the fans are too loud, even when in the furniture, so I went ahead and ordered these replacements. I’ll let you know how that swap goes when I get it in. I find it hilarious that the fans were only $25, but the tools to replace them were $12. Oh well, $50 is a small price to pay for some peace and quiet while I watch TV. I also hook the 360 up to my kill-a-watt and was surprised to see that it draws over 100 watts while watching TV, which just seems crazy.

Overall I’m happy, I can finally easily turn off the overscan, I get my closet back, I can now tweak my Media Center from the comfort of my office chair and there isn’t a keyboard or mouse anywhere near my living room.