Windows Media Center

The TV Meta Data Finder now has its own website:
http://www.tvmetadatafinder.com

I have decieded to keep up on this application, and am currently working on version 2.0 that will consume a whole new gateway caching service.

To download the application please visit http://www.tvmetadatafinder.com

November 24th, 2008 | Category: Usage | Leave a comment

There is a new release to the Sams Video Browser [Click Here to Download].  As of 2 hours ago, Sam put the final build out for Media Center 1.3.1.0.  This includes some key features such as stopping and restarting the videos as well as some new screen layouts.

I have added some features and fixes that should be out in the next beta release, these are:

• In both ViewDetails.mcml and MovieDetailsPage.mcml under the different generas I have replaced the “●” with  “,  “, I just think that it looks much better
• I have rearranged MovieDetailsPage.mcml quite a bit, I put the pause, and play buttons side by side allowing the poser to be larger, and moved the details over to the right a bit more
• I added support for the MPAA Ratings I attached a sample XML that shows how the mpaarating is applied, this also includes the rating images
• If the MPAA rating does not exist, it will not display “Rated”
  XML file will contain:   <MPAARating>R</MPAARating>
• If the Director does not exist, it will not display “Directed By:”
• In addition, I replaced the title of the movie to the title that is in the LocalTitle of the XML file (if one is found)
  XML File will contain: <LocalTitle>28 Days Later (Widescreen Edition)</LocalTitle>

Here are some of the screen shots…

This is the movies screen

Here is the detail sabout the movie, I just checked in these changes before the last beta build, so these features should be updated soon

Here is the list of TV Shows

Finally, here is the information about each episode listed out.

November 9th, 2008 | Category: Usage | Comments (2)

http://www.helperclass.com/

Diffrent from wmediacenter.com, it is a general tool set that I use when developing applications.  They are mostly helper methods that parse strings, do things with XML, web, and more…  Check it out if your a developer.

October 29th, 2008 | Category: Usage | Leave a comment

I have created a document that shows how to build applications on the Windows Media Center.  This document is currently a live document, as I am working on building my own tool box.  Please feel free to add comments to it.

HTML Version: http://wmediacenter.com/pages/Microsoft%20Windows%20Vista%20Media%20Center%20Development%20Guide.htm

DOCX Version: http://wmediacenter.com/files/Microsoft%20Windows%20Vista%20Media%20Center%20Development%20Guide.docx

Let me know if you are able to put this to good use, and if you would like to add any key values to this document.

Bill.

October 19th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The all new RSS Speech Reader is a RSS to Speech (text to speech) application that requires the .NET Framework 3.5.

(I know it has nothing to do with the Media Center, but I wanted to add it on this high traffic site anyway)

It will listen for any new RSS feeds and read them out loud.  It will only play each RSS feed only once, even if you restart the application.

Let me know what you think, I only spent about 3 hours building it… Also let me know what features you would like to add, or change.

Version 1.0
Download Link: RSSSpeechReaderV1.0.zip

October 10th, 2008 | Category: RSS Utilities | Leave a comment

 The TV Meta Data Finder has its own blog and web site now: http://tvmetadatafinder.com/ More »

September 8th, 2008 | Tags: Script, TheTVDB, tvdb_scraper.rb | Category: TV MetaData Finder | Comments (19)

Check out the MyNeflix Video Player for your Media Center.

http://www.anpark.com/Software.aspx

September 3rd, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment