Here's the scenario- a co-worker tells you that ABC's new TV show “Lost“ is great and you need to watch it (which you should, particularly in HD). But you always forget to set it to record when you get home. Solution: Set your MCE to record the series directly from your office with the MSN Remote Record Service. From Mark Salloway's MCE blog (ok, I'm on vacation!):
The MSN Remote Record Service allows you to remotely schedule programs to be recorded on your Media Center 2005 PC. A Public Beta is now available but only to users in the United States and Canada. To join the beta...
Go to http://beta.microsoft.com
Sign in with your Passport ID
At the top of the Beta Place page you should see:
"If you were issued a Guest ID by Microsoft, you can sign in by clicking
here."
Click on "clicking here"
Sign in with guest ID: myshows (all one word, all lower case)
Click on "MSN Remote Record Service Beta"
Click on "survey" on the left side of the MSN Remote Record Service Beta
Program page
Click on "MSN Remote Record Beta Nomination Form"
Fill out the form and submit.
All valid nominations will be approved. Once approved, it takes about 24
hours for the information to get through the Beta Place system and testers to have access to the Beta program
-----
Ok, I've used the service when it was in testing and this is incredibly cool. Using a unified EPG on MSN.com, you can set your Media Center PC to remotely record a TV program. Theoretically you could even do this “on the go“ with a Pocket PC and a wireless Inernet connection. We showed this at the Reviewer's Workshop for MCE in August and it's getting really close. Congrats to the team.
Update: Only available in US and Canada currently.