Barb Bowman details what you need to do to get your MCE Recorded TV onto an Playstation Portable (PSP) in 4 steps. 

Part of the challenge with mainstream adoption of WMA Pro is the cabling required to install. 3 cables from your sound card into 6+ RCA jacks on your receiver if you support it.

Why can't you just plug in a single optical cable like you can for Dolby Digital? Now you can starting at ~$179.00US. Pioneer has started shipping their new line of receivers with WMA Pro support and all sorts of goodies. And you get a whole bunch of formats to boot.

What is WMA Pro? WMA Pro offers full 5.1-7.1 audio that's was the world's first for the Web, and is also distributed with HD movies on WMV HD discs, movies, trailers etc at a fraction the size of other surround sound audio formats.

If anyone gets one, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Anyone who remembers ABC's School House Rock will appreciate Hitachi's new "Get Perpendicular" video. Hitachi has a great new HD disk storage that has the promise of increasing HD capacity 10x. This video explains how in terms that even my mother would understand.  Kudos to Hitachi for trying something old, and adding a little bit new ;)

Courtesy of News.com:

Gateway, which on Monday will deliver a new line of desktops and notebooks, wants to lure multimedia enthusiasts with its $999 832GM desktop. The computer comes with Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system. I don't have detailed specs yet but they should be in soon.

I'm loving the new MSN Messenger 7. Now officially out of beta, you can show what music you're listening to, set a personal message, get better integration with MSN Spaces and more.

My family is encouraging me to do more personal blogging of our young son's life. There are so many little things he does that we are amazed or humored by on a daily basis and then promptly forget in the bustle of being adults. My wife set up an MSN Space for family and she's started blogging.  It's official- blogging is mainstream in the Alexander household.

The Windows Media Center freight train just keeps on rolling. Earlier this week, MTV announced plans to launch a Web-based video channel called, MTV Overdrive by April 25th. Content will include News, Music, On TV and Movies.  New movie trailers will be made available and broadcasts will be done in Windows Media Video. And here's the surprise announcement...

They will soon release a version of Overdrive optimized for Windows XP Media Center Edition!

I'll post more details as soon as I get them.  This is a big deal, even if you don't fall into the MTV demographic.

More proof that there is a market for music subscriptions-according to an article appearing in the Mac Observer, "Napster's subscriber service soared 53% during the company's fourth fiscal quarter. Napster announced Tuesday that its subscriber base grew to 410,000, up some 143,000 users. The company also raised its fourth quarter revenue estimate to between US$16.5 million and $17.5 million, though it did not release earnings estimates.

Maybe those ads are working after all :)

Ian Dixon's excellent "The Media Center Show" has been picked up by The Podcast Network. Congratulations Ian!  This is great to see. During last week's 'cast, he interviews Charlie Owen and the folks from ZeTools, an Emmy-award-winning firm that offers work-for-hire in creating robust Media Center applications and services for customers such as AOL and the ABC Television Network. Neat stuff- I'm even learning more.

I have a few presentations coming up in Europe next month and I'd like to showcase some of our smaller MCE PC Makers, ISVs and service providers doing amazing things in Europe, a decidedly non-US-centric presentation by-design on my part.  There's some great work coming out of Europe for MCE - here's

Of course I'm chatting with folks internally to get the latest lists but I wanted to continue the conversation more transparently because I know I don't have all the answers. If you have MCE application & service providers in Europe that you like, or PC makers creating some bold designs (OEM, ODM, or System Builder), please drop me a line and I'll add them to my list to consider for demos. If you are a European ISV, IHV, OEM, ODM, SB or another acronym, also feel free to touch base about current or upcoming product to consider for my presentation. 

Thanks in advance

A bunch of Windows Media Center Geek Dinners are coming up hosted by CharlieO and even myself:

Charlie Owen from the Media Center development blogs,

I'm in Los Angeles, Washington, DC this coming week and Charlotte, NC the following. Anybody want to get together and have a geek dinner (or its lighter weight cousin, after geek dinner drinks)?

Here are the evenings I will *probably* be available...

Los Angeles: Tuesday, April 5

Washington, DC: Thursday, April 7 or Friday April 8

Charlotte, NC: Monday, April 11

Charlie's got the Geek Dinner bug which is a good thing. 

We're now also getting closer to our May 5th Geek Dinner in London- more details coming soon.

AOL is offering high-res trailers for upcoming movies in downloadable Windows Media Video.  Using Kontiki (a P2P distribution engine), they're offering, "MoviefoneHRD" with fast downloads of 1+  Megabit WM Videos.  The compresses are ok, but the content is even cooler.  Check out the trailers for Will Farrell in, "Bewitched" (ok, I thought this was going to be super-cheesy but looks funny), War of the Worlds, and Stealth.

I hope AOL/TW does a WMV and PMC version of this.

If you own a Tablet PC, run don't walk to download the free Tablet PC Experience Pack.  This is what happens when a development team really gets behind developing powertoys and powertools and listens to its customers along the way. Robert has a good demo video up on Channel 9.  The features include:

Ink Desktop
Take notes directly on your desktop for quick and easy access later. Jot down a phone number, directions, or top priorities for the day.

Snipping Tool
Use your tablet pen to select a portion of a website, document, or other content on your screen. You can add handwritten comments and then paste it into an e-mail message or other program.

Ink Art
Paint with your tablet pen using Ink Art, which simulates an artist’s toolset. Choose from different textured canvases, paint brushes, chalks, crayons, and more.

Media Transfer
Copy or stream media files from your home computer to your Tablet PC, so that you can enjoy your favorite music, home videos, or digital photo albums wherever you go.

Ink Crossword
Solve crosswords on your Tablet PC with your tablet pen. Twelve puzzles come with the game. You can also download a free daily puzzle and purchase more puzzle packs online.

Energy Blue Theme Pack
Brighten the look of your Tablet PC desktop, Start menu, windows, and toolbars. Also get a new Windows Media Player skin that’s customized for the Tablet PC.

If you have a Windows Media Center PC or any XP PC for that matter, you're going to love the Media Transfer Wizard.  It uses Windows Media Connect technology to discover and download TV, Videos, Music and more.

I'm back from my blogging vacation with a quick roundup of news on Media Center

- HP adds an iPod dock to its new Media Center PC.  Lots of opinions on this one, I think it further validates MCE and demonstrates HP's commit to the OS. I hear it's just a little plastic place to set your iPod. Peter hopes for a PMC Dock- Hello, Creative?

- Michael Gartenberg finds a conflict between MSN Remote Record and Extenders. I'm using both on my MCE but that doesn't mean there's not a problem.  Sent mail to the team to investigate. Yes, my MCE is "locked down" as well.

- Thomas Hawk says Microsoft should offer a direct support line or take back support from outsourcing PC OEMs. "I paid $99 for an extended warranty with HP that included lifetime telephone support. I'd much have preferred to give this money directly to Microsoft and had you guys fixing my wagon instead." MSFT does offer paid support. MCE is officially offered as a complete PC. This would have to assume that Microsoft is familiar with the OEM's every HW and SW configuration. Then you have thousands of system builders. I'm not sure that scales.

Adjusting for this and making Thomas' point, would you be willing to pay for a premier support program for software, even if you still had to call your PC manufacturer to support the hardware?  How does this differ from Geek Squad?

- New Expert Zone article on how to Burn, Archive, and Share Digital Videos using MCE 2005

- Cool new MCE designs from Beblu and Shuttle's MCE-01 and one more "tower of silver" to mix things up from Velocity Micro (via engadget)

- Keyboard shortcuts for MCE 2005 (Michael Creasy's Blog)

- Sony offering upgrade to MCE 2005 for existing customers.

- I'm not sure "Quietens" is a word, but Alienware gets it: people want quiet PCs! (via Media Center PC World)

- 10FootGames has launched their first MCE game. Looking forward to more