The wife and kids were gone to NY for the weekend, so I got a chance to do a few things that I had been forced to put off for a while.  The biggest was replacing my mother-in-law’s HTPC with ‘new’ parts and a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro x86.  She had been on an ancient HP system with MCE 2005 and not even MyMovies to help her manage my collection.  I had a TForce 6100-939, AMD X2 3800+, 3GB PC-3200 and an ATi x600 video card lying around, so I decided to cram it all into that HP case with a spare 350W PSU and slap Windows 7 Pro on it.  Long story short, she’s pretty  happy…she watches way more than we do, so she really appreciates what Media Browser adds to her experience.  The 7MC-included Internet TV and my Netflix account didn’t hurt either.

The second thing I did was get my previous ESXi server up and running, but I opted for another install of 2008 Server x64 to go on top of it instead of ESXi again.  Running WSUS on my WHS wasn’t fairing too well as it was eating up too much memory, so I decided to move it.  It’s not doing much else at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll find some additional uses for it.  I may make that my dedicated ImagesByName workstation so I’ll have a specific box to hold all those files.  We’ll see…

The last thing I did was take a closer look at the HTPC that resides in our kids’ playroom.  It works perfectly fine, except it would never power on with the remote.  I always had problems with those old 945G chipsets, so I assumed it was just to be accepted.  However, I found that I was actually overlooking one small BIOS setting – enabling wakeup for USB keyboard.  I don’t know why I never enabled that, but that fixed it.  I had looked at that BIOS screen on 3 similar motherboards probably a combined 100 times, but never enabled that.

For those who love the diNovo Mini, but maybe not so much the cost, it looks like there is an offering that is both smaller and cheaper.  Lenovo has come out with the wireless multimedia remote with keyboard at $59 (just missed a $30 off coupon, from what I hear).

It’s kind of cool, but still not for me.  Just seems more like a keyboard/mouse combo in a remote-sized package than an actual remote control.

So, my Logitech Harmony 880 has apparently changed its last channel.  My wife informed me Thursday morning that it was powerless after sitting in its cradle all night.  I put it there and know it worked when I put it away for the evening.  I’m not sure what happened, but I just finished ordering a new 520 to replace it with.

I didn’t see the point in spending $150 for another 880 when the 520 will do everything for $35 (I had a gift card).  Sure, it’s not as nice, but I saved $115.  I still plan on trying to find what the problem with the 880 is though.  Hopefully, it just wasn’t making good contact the previous few days and lost its charge.  Mine was experiencing the widely-known cradle contact issue that plagued the early 880 models (mine is nearly 3 years old).

The parity upgrade I performed on my unRAID server also went well.  I’ve actually noticed a slight write performance increase over the 7200RPM 1TB Seagate that was in there of about 1.5-2MB/s.  Hopefully that trend will continue as I upgrade the remaining 2 drives I have left to go.  If I don’t pass out tonight like I have the past couple of nights I meant to do it, I’ll upgrade one of the full 500GB drives.  We’ll see.

I also successfully got OpenVPN working on my IPCop firewall.  Talk about a pain, but it does work and seems to work very well.  Figuring out how to pass ALL Internet traffic through it from the client wasn’t too hard, but getting internal name resolution working with my private WINS took a while.  It’s definitely not as point-and-click  to get going as the built in VPN configuration that Windows offers, but it should be more reliable (and secure).  I just don’t care much for the client that has to be installed, but that was only an inconvenience while out of town this weekend.  It’s actually pretty handy having it at work.

I still haven’t gotten around to trying this Hauppauge HD-PVR out, but I think I might get to it this week as I’m contemplating moving my HTPC1 to Windows 7.  Since it’s technically out of service until that remote arrives, now would be a good time to go ahead and get it installed…I just need to do it instead of blowing it off every day until it arrives.  Once again, we’ll see.

Update:

It’s alive!  I decided to take a closer look and cleaned off the cradle contacts with a razor blade (a lot of black corrosion almost covered one of them) and sure enough…it powered up and starting testing when placed back in there.  I’m still going to keep the 520 I ordered, but I am glad that I don’t have to ditch my 880.

So I just stumbled across another streaming web application called Zinc, and it looks pretty good.  It’s designed for TV viewing and states that it is Media Center-compatible remote friendly.

Zinc is a free product from ZeeVee.com and basically organizes all the free TV content online in one place.  It even can tie into your Netflix account.

I decided to give this a try and see how I could integrate it into my own Media Center menu, so I downloaded the Windows version of the application and installed.  During the install, it runs a hardware compatiblility test to make sure it’s up to the task.

I then decided not to take the first run and instead fired up MC Menu Mender so that I could incorporate Zinc into my Media Center menu.  I took a look at the properties for the created shortcut for Zinc on my desktop and just copied it into the path for the new entry point in MC Menu Mender, added the necessary arguments and copied the logo for Zinc off of the website.  Since Zinc states complete Media Center remote compatibility, I decided to not enable “Use wrapper” for now.  We’ll see how it goes!

Upon starting up Media Center, I was presented by my newly created Zinc entry point in the Pictures+Videos strip…right where I put it.

I gave it a click and voila!  Success!

The first thing I did was link my Netflix account, which prompts you for confirmation.

After that, I’m met with a poster view of available titles.  Take note of all the sorting options available in various parts of the screen.  It’s very nice.  I also noticed that navigation was very smooth and not clunky like most other web interfaces.

Upon logging out of Neflix, I’m met with the initial screen again.  So, I decided to take a look at some of the available channels (FOX, in this example).

All the available shows are presented with the number of episodes.  You can also add your favorite shows here.

Drilling down further gives you the episode views where they are sorted by latest release (newest to oldest).

After selecting an episode, I was prompted to install the Zinc player.  Why this wasn’t installed with the application I’ll never know.  But, for the sake of review, I do so.  Also notice the remote support at the bottom right.

Upon installing and presenting me with a sample for playback, I was ready to roll.

Nice.  The picture is pretty good and I encountered no stuttering or other artifacts during playback.

Next, I decided to take a look at the available settings.  Here you can set Zinc up with local media folders, add other applications for launch, set a few Zinc system settings (enable fullscreen, watched video status, clear cache, etc.), and grab updates.

I decided to add a media folder so that I could check out the local media option.

This began a scan for all available media and it began showing up under the Local Content menu (notice the available thumbnail at the top right – this is generated by Zinc).  I did notice that only AVI files had been detected during the scan.  It’s going to be a disappointment if it does not allow playback of MP4, MKV, etc.  AVI is actually a small percentage of my collection.  On the other hand, I don’t plan on using Zinc for local media.

There are other views available also.

Thumb view:

Thumb detail:

Finally, selecting Zv HDTV presents you with loads of videos related to Zinc and other ZeeVee products,  in case you’re interested.

Upon exiting I was returned to the desktop and all I had to do was hit the Green Button to bring Media Center back to the foreground again.

All in all, I’d say Zinc is one of, if not the, best web apps out there for centralizing streaming media.  I found it much easier to use than Hulu (which it includes also).  The biggest knocks against it for me were the lack of metadata for local media and the overall lack of content.  When I say lack of content, I mean it in comparison to some of the other options like SecondRun.tv.  There’s still plenty to keep you busy though.  Not being integrated within Media Center may also be a turnoff for many of you, but it’s really not all that bad.  Especially if you’ve tried the Hulu desktop application and tried using it with a remote.  First indications also lead me to believe it does not have local support for MP4 and MKV…at least. Other formats may also not be supported.

Check it out…it’s free!

Integrating within Media Center:

I just wanted to make a point on adding the Zinc application with MC Menu Mender.  Your path will be the exact installation path to the Zv.exe .  In the arguments box, you must enter -zviewer or it will not work.  The logo I used is this one:

Just download and use!

I didn’t get to review the SecondRun.tv plugin for hulu.  It’s not that I didn’t have time, it’s that there is a new version to be released today that includes some features that I felt were worth waiting for (primarily the addition of missing artwork and automatic full screen video).  If it gets released early enough, I’ll have something up later today.

There’s also a new application out for iPhones/iPods called vmcMote.  It’s basically a music browser/playlist creator/remote control for Media Center using your iPhone/iPod.  I don’t have either, so I can’t give any more information on it.  You can see a few screenshots here or join in the discussion about it (and see more screens) here.

Also, I wanted to mention a pretty good scare flick if you’re in the market for one.  It’s not exactly unique and it didn’t have much of a budget, but I still thought it was pretty good and it really creeped my wife out.  Check out Quarantine.  It’s about a group of people that get quarantined inside an apartment complex by the CDC due to an outbreak of some crazy rabies infection.  The movie is shot from the perspective of a TV reporter’s cameraman, so the movie can make you a little dizzy at times, but if you stick with it, you’ll get used to it.  It stars Jennifer Carpenter and a few other people you may or may not recognize from some other TV series.  It’s not groundbreaking filmmaking, but I thought it was good for a few cheap thrills.

We also watched Transporter 3 last night.  If you’re a Transporter die hard fan, I guess you should see it.  We definitely thought it came in third in the trilogy.  A distant third.