Onlydarksets

In case you need to manually tweak the HDHR Setup, here is what the automated setup does does. First, it creates the ATSC mapping for Vista Media Center.  That is, it tells VMC what “4.1″ translates to, along with the call sign.  This is written to the atscprefs.xml file, located in the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\Prefs directory.  You [...]

You can get 15 episodes of Season 1 of In Treatment for free.  Not too shabby! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0015GF4FO/ Unbox videos playback in Vista Media Center and extenders, as well as on PFS devices (like Windows Mobile).

I’ve used a HTPC for about 6 years now, and I’ve run ‘em all – SageTV, Beyond, Myth, GB-PVR, and, of course, Vista Media Center (formerly known as Windows Media Center). I’ve settled on VMC, because it allows me to record ATSC and NTSC, stream live TV from either to an extender, and, thanks to [...]

NOTE: This post is in progress. If it doesn’t work, try this workaround instead. What’s the Problem? In certain scenarios, VMC will record a show and incorrectly set the duration to approximately 5-6 minutes.  VMC thinks the show is that long, so skipping through causes it to jump around erratically.  This does not affect Windows [...]

Found here. If you want square pixels, use “-vf scale=-1:-2″, or if you want to scale the height to 480 and have the width automatically selected to get square pixels, use “scale=-2:480″ If you want to add black bars to make the video fit a 4:3 aspect, just use “-vf expand=aspect=4/3″ (then scale to VCD/SVCD/DVD [...]

Required parameters: Input file (list first) Output file (-0) Audio codec (-oac) Lame [MP3] (mp3lame) Options (-lameopts a:b:c:d) Average, Constant, or Variable Bitrate (abr | cbr | vbr) Bitrate (br=) Video codec (-ovc) XviD [Mpeg4] (xvid) Quantizer value (fixed_quant=) [higher=more compression] libavcodec [Mpeg4, more] (lavc) Optional parameters: Video filters (-vf) Scale (scale=w:h) Audio filters (-af) [...]

I did both the Media Center PC and the office PC. Both went pretty smoothly, but here are the key apps I reinstalled on the Media Center PC (now the “Vista Ultimate PC”): Enable more than 2 tuners: http://mce.ramonvanbruggen.nl/ My Movies: http://www.mymovies.name/downloads.aspx DTb: http://babgvant.com/files/folders/dvrmstoolbox/entry380.aspx Webguide: http://asciiexpress.com/webguide/WebGuide4/

DVRMS Toolbox DVRMS Meta-data Editor Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility