I’ve had my media center running for a while using standard Windows Media Center. I like it because it is simple, has few moving pieces, and basically “just works.” Unfortunately, what I’ve been finding is that, when you have some 900+ DVDs in the DVD Library then it’s a bit slow to open. When you select the “Movie Library” option in WMC, it’ll take upwards of 45 seconds to come up. Not only that, but when you scroll through the movies it’s a bit slow, too. There’s also some room for improvement when it comes to the UI...

I have, so far, mostly enjoyed the whole "digital copy" thing movies provide. It saves me time ripping DVDs and running them through Handbrake, plus it's "legal." Which isn't to say l have any moral qualms ripping discs I own and transforming them into formats I require for personal use. I don't condone piracy and own a lot of discs. I recently picked up Harry Potter and the  Deathly Hallows Part 2 and it came with this new "UltraViolet Digital Copy" which promises to be the latest and greatest thing to happen to digital copy. It is...

I spent far more time than I'd like to admit in troubleshooting this issue so I figured I'd at least blog it. Symptoms: When you run the "network connection test" on the Xbox it consistently succeeds. When you try to connect to Xbox Live, either to sign in with your profile or do a "Recover Gamertag," it fails and tells you to go run the network connection test. Let me tell you how frustrating this behavior is. The connection test says fine, but when you try to connect it says it can't - go run the test?! ...

I have a lot of DVDs and they get stored in binders, but I don't have so many Blu-ray discs and I like to keep them separate from the DVDs. I don't rip the Blu-rays to my movie server, so it's good to have them a little more accessible. I had previously been storing them on a shelf like books in a library, but the shelf is out of space and things are looking bad. Time to find something else. Trucking around The Container Store I found these DiscSox HiDef Pro Sleeves that are the perfect solution. ...

For a while I've been using MozyHome in a sort of weird, confusing fashion to back up the share content from my Windows Home Server. There were two problems with this setup: Lots of moving pieces. The way I had it, there was a scheduled copy task from the WHS to a remote machine, then that remote machine would do the MozyHome backup. That, of course, relied on the remote machine to always be on and running, the process to properly run, etc. A lot of indirection and moving pieces to get around the MozyHome shortcoming...

We recently switched from Frontier back to Comcast because we were having issues with Frontier's customer service and pricing. Plus, Frontier is really trying to get out of the TV game and we like our TV features, so Comcast got us back. (I was also pretty tired of Frontier remotely reprogramming my router and then denying it.) Anyway, Comcast gives you a cable modem but no router, so I ended up getting a Netgear WNDR3700v2 for a replacement. That freed up my D-Link DAP-1522 to move upstairs and become a wireless bridge. After moving everything around, my network...

In iTunes, if you have a track that is missing artwork you have the ability to right-click the track and opt to automatically download artwork for it. This works well if you play the track in iTunes or an iTunes-connected device (e.g., iPod)... but if you also use the same library in a UPnP server to stream your music on your network (like Asset UPnP) then you'll notice the artwork doesn't show up. That's because iTunes stores the downloaded artwork in a separate database outside the actual physical music track file, but other servers/devices expect artwork to be embedded in...

After doing that Hanselminutes on network attached storage, Synology, and Windows Home Server, I figured I'd also talk about how we store our original media, in case folks were wondering. As of this writing, we have somewhere close to 1000 individual DVD discs in various forms - single or multi-disc movies, multi-disc TV sets, etc. - and about as many CDs. Not all of the DVDs are on my Synology DS1010+ - I didn't rip the "special features" discs, and in some cases where I have multiple editions of the same movie, I only ripped the one we like the most....

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Scott Hanselman about our experiences with Synology DiskStation products and Windows Home Server. Looks like the podcast is up now so go check that out if you haven't already. If you're coming in here after having listened to the podcast, here are some links to related blog entries you may be interested in: Moving to a Synology DS1010+: This is where I talk about the various reasons I picked the DS1010+ and my experience getting data onto it. Overview of My Media Center Solution:...

While I'm on a recommendation kick, I figured I'd throw out five of my favorites that most people out there are probably not listening to right now, and may not have even heard of. Try something new! In no particular order... Pop Will Eat Itself - Cure For Sanity -  You may recognize the name Clint Mansell from his film score work, most recently for the movie Black Swan. Mansell was originally the lead singer for PWEI. I...

When I'm working (coding) I generally like some sort of music that either doesn't have any words or is otherwise reasonably peaceful so I'm not, like, compelled to sing along or something. I also like music that sort of flows, so stuff that's very dissonant or has an oddly syncopated rhythm, stuff that has a lot of high-pitched sirens, and so forth... that's not so much my thing. The list of what I listen to changes quite a bit - I have a lot of music - but right now, my top go-to albums for while I'm drumming out...

I bought an Amazon Kindle and it arrived yesterday. I got the 6" model with Wi-Fi and 3G on it. So far, I generally like it, but figured I would share my thoughts so far, having about a day with it. Pushing books from the Amazon web site to the Kindle is not super intuitive. I think this is partly my fault. I thought I'd be slick and try to "pre-load" a few things on there using the Kindle app on Android so when I got the Kindle, I'd have some stuff to get reading. After unboxing the thing...

In Christmas 2009 I got a Creative Vado HD camera. It's a nice, convenient little camera and we use it quite a bit. The only real issue I've found with it is in editing the video it takes. On Windows XP, if you install the software that comes with the camera, the files play just fine but you can only edit them using the editor that comes with the camera. On Windows 7, the files play just fine without installing any additional software, and you can edit the files... in Windows Live Movie Maker and that's about it. There's something...

Being the Family Tech Support Guy, I got a question from my cousin about sharing music in iTunes and rather than answer it in email (since it’s not a short answer), I figured I’d blog it since it is probably helpful to other folks out there. First, you need to determine your requirements. The phrase “sharing music in iTunes” is actually pretty vague. Let’s walk through figuring out what you want to do. Do you have multiple computers? This is important because you’ll need to make some choices about what you want to do on...

A couple years back when I was researching storage solutions for my media center, I landed on Windows Home Server because of a feature called "Drive Extender" that basically lets you put a bunch of disks of different sizes into the server and have them create One Big Volume. No need to deal with RAID or any super technical stuff the average user doesn't understand. Plug and play. It's one of my favorite features and it's one of the primary reasons I settled on Windows Home Server. From a features-I-use standpoint, there are really three key use cases for...