PHIDONG.COM . 5.0

10th week is over, finals next week. I'll press the green button later.

Ok, I'll press the button.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, MCE remotes have a green button on them that launches the media center application in Windows XP MCE. While I said I wouldn't push the green button last week, I did it anyway.

Last quarter I spent 10th week watching 2 and a half seasons of Arrested Development. TV, TV, TV. Well, this quarter, I decided to indulge myself in a little, guess what! Yeah, TV. I purchased a Hauppauge PVR-150 (Read: tv tuner) for my computer and decided to give Windows Media Center Edition a whirl after trying a couple other media center programs.

The conclusion? MCE is absolutely badass. With the remote, I can control every part of the media center. I can record, pause, rewind television, access all my media (songs, movies, pictures) etc. from an easy to see and use interface. The animations are all really smooth and the interface looks a lot better than other PVRs (see for yourself)

I can finally listen to radio with my new tuner card (although, I'll admit I don't.)

The guide is very nice in my opinion. After using TitanTV for a little bit (having to login was a pain in the ass). When I tried BeyondTV I fell in love with the guide. A lot of programs will charge you to update the EPG, but MCE's EPG is absolutely free. It updates 14 days ahead of time and you can set recordings on shows, entire series (will record all new programs), or custom settings (e.g. channel/time)

The neatest part of it all is the fact that you can add media extenders to the system. A media extender allows you to access all your recorded shows, media, and even live tv without having to plug your computer directly into the TV. The best part is the XBOX360 can act as a media extender so I'm thinking about getting one. The irony of course is that I sold my XBOX360 in November to pay for my current PC and now I'm probably going to buy another XBOX360 because of my PC.

If you're looking to build your own HTPC (home theatre personal computer) with Windows Meida Center Edition here are a couple resources I've found in the week that might help:

The Green Button - a great community/forum with good resources/information and links to great programs
Ton of thread links - A ton of thread links of useful threads on TGB.
Orb - Orb allows you to connect remotely to your media, stream live/recorded tv, movies, music to your portable devices (very cool)
Web Guide 3 - This neat program/webpage lets you login to your computer remotely and set recording schedules!