Disney joins Hulu

Click here to read more

HTPC for Your Audio Visual Multimedia needs

For consumer who prefers HTPC, we carry custom made HTPC that supports all video and audio formats playback especially on Bluray medias and Audiophile grade audio. The good thing about HTPC is that you can play all types of format regardless of audio or video. Plus you get to play games, online games as well as web surfing on the same machine provided you are familiar with using keyboard and mouse.

Product Descriptions:

Silver Stone Home Theater PC LC17

Intel 5200 DuoCore Vista Ultimate

Support 1080P WMVHD/ TS, H.264

4GB RAM with 1TB WD HDD

Asus Xonar HDAV1.3

Hi-Fi class Audio Quality with SNR up to 118db quality audio for all 7.1 channels

TI Burr-Brown PCM1796 * 4(123dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit)

Cirrus-Logic CS5381* 1 (120dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit)

Dolby Home Theater Technologies & DTS Connect

High Quality Switching Mode Power Supply with Hi-End HTPC Casing

Wireless Mouse and Keyboard

Retail RM3,499

Dvico Media Player

A month ago since I last posted. Have been busy testing Dvico products and several hifi products.Dvico player is definately a good investment for those who are interested in storing BD medias in the hard drive. I've customers who have huge collections of BD who bought this product and converted all hardcopy to softcopy for easy access when travelling. Though the size is not as compact as the "cheapo" RMVB players that you got from the normal computer stall for less than RM200, but the quality is unbeatable by any market media players.

Video quality on a Full HD displays regardless it being LCD or Plasma is hard to see the resolution drop. Unless you are to project it on a 120" full HD projector, you will not be able to get any flaw from the output. Audio is flawless as far as I can comment. It supports DTS-MA, DD-TrueHD, LPCM, DTS, DD, DD-EX, DTS-ES.

Loading speed is fast within 30 seconds to load a 1TB Western Digital SATAII 32mbCache filled with movies. Took around 1 minute to load two 1.5TB Seagate HDD via USB 2.0. It supports subtitle and audio track during playback. With 3rd party firmware loaded, you will be able to read BD rip with all menus intact.

Warning: Beware of CLONE Dvico product in the market which sells a lot cheaper and has no product warranty. Please check with Dvico authorized dealers before geting yourself one.

Plex keeps getting better and better and better...

This is just so cool - I mean, the one program thing I was looking for next week was Charlie Rose. And here I was thinking I'll just watch on the computer when Plex says, why? you can watch on y our mac mini home theater - because, and if I may steal a line "There's an app for that!" Look at all the sweet goodness which has arrived!

Click here for the official Plex link:

We can’t help it, writing plug-ins is addictive. Here are a bunch of new ones to keep you happy and entertained in front of your TV. A step closer to killing cable?

Charlie Rose has thousands of hours of interviews with highly interesting people. Everyone from J.J. Abrams to Sean Penn to Yo-Yo Ma has been on his show. (HEY! Don't forget world famous film director and screenwriter Ramin Bahrani! (who was interviewed by Charlie Rose last week!)

The Comedy Central plug-in, written by Scott, provides lots of stand up comedy, roasts, and episodes from shows on that channel.

This next one was requested on the forums, and was quite simple to code. There is a ton of great news content on here for fans of the New York Times.

Written by Gordon Johnston, who’s been kicking some serious ass, the NBC plug-in offers hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of programming, from old-school shows like the A-Team to the latest season of ER.

This last one is my favorite, being that I’m a big fan of indie music. Recommended if you like the Pitchfork Media plug-in, the site has lots of great up and coming artists.

Plex 0.7.15 released: Improved Music Experience

Looks like a new version of Plex is out and touting all new features and improvements for your music listening pleasure.

Click here for the official link to the story or read more below:

April 23rd, 2009 | Category: Release | Author: elan

We’re coming to the end of the Plex/Seven series, so we’re primarily focused on bug-fixes, but we did find the time to add a few new things for your enjoyment. Many, many thanks to all the people who helped out with this release. In the next few days, we’re going to release a few new plug-ins (and updates to existing ones) that make use of new features/bugfixes in this release, so be sure to update as soon as you can! The release can be downloaded here.

• NEW: One of the complaints we’ve heard is that the visualizers available with Plex, while cool, sometimes cause seizures in kids and household pets. Others say that it leads them to look forward to 4:20 PM. In any case, James and Mike B (of MediaStream fame) teamed up to bring you a sexy new option: The Now Playing visualizer. Select it just as you would any other visualizer, and take it for a spin.

• NEW: We’ve added support for ratings in Plex Media Server content. So in the next revision of the Netflix plug-in, for example, you’ll now see star ratings, as you will in another new plug-in that will be released shortly.

• NEW: Do you ever find yourself struggling to shuffle a playlist, or play an album straight through, by displaying the playlist, toggling settings, and then switching back, having forgotten what you were doing in the first place? James added a convenient Shuffle item on the context menu to make that struggle a thing of the past. Together with the new Now Playing visualizer, we’re hoping you find music playing just a little bit easier this release.

• NEW: New iLife art (thanks to the talented tassitassi). You see some of it peeking out from the screenshot above. (Note: you’ll have to whack your existing cached art at ~/Library/Application Support/Plex/userdata/Thumbnails/Programs/Fanart/)
• NEW: Our friend Kent has been hard at work on analyzing our user data. Among other things, he’s discovered that our Swedish users rock! There are more Plex users per capita in Sweden than any other country. He compiled this data by looking at the Sparkle update requests. To make his job a bit easier, we’ve added a token to each update request that’s unique for each computer. We’re sending a one-way hash of the computer’s MAC address, which when broken down into plain English means that (a) we’ll be able to figure how many total computers are running Plex and (b) we can’t use the data to obtain any information about your computer.

We’ve also fixed a number of bugs in this release:

• FIX: The context menu was broken for the Favorites section.
• FIX: We weren’t saving the ’show extensions’ setting correctly in advanced settings.
• FIX: James fixed a long-standing (since Plex/Five) scraper hang with tvshow.nfo.
• FIX: We got a patch from rgrove (thanks!) that ensures that LAN cache settings are used for SMB shares.
• FIX: Caching was disabled, which caused no end of trouble playing back Internet content.
• FIX: We added Lanczos back to the OSD upscaling menu.
• FIX: We increased the size of the default fonts. I have to personally apologize for that, apparently I ate too many carrots as a baby.
• FIX: Crash/hang when exiting after playing a video.
• FIX: Also a longstanding bug, the occasional lack of GUI sounds after playing videos (thanks to Kent for helping me track this down).
• FIX: The Plex Media Server is a Universal Binary again.
• FIX: Ryan helped me fix a DTS->AC3 transcoding channel mapping bug.
• FIX: A Plex Media Server crash (when stopping a WebKit video shortly after starting) was fixed.
• FIX: We’ve made the list view give more room to text. After all, scrolling text is hard to read.

• FIX: Stopping a video with 5.1 audio could be a bit slow.
• FIX: The clock could display letters (e.g. “kk:49″). Thanks to Daniel for helping me track this one down.
• FIX: James made the thumbnail searching code respect the dvdthumbs advanced setting (so you can add support for Front Row style preview.jpg files).
• FIX: Double speed playback of 22KHz audio in videos (e.g. some FLV video).
• FIX: Enhanced the caching of directories to work well with the Plex Media Server (much quicker backing up to parent directories).
• FIX: Isaac fixed a few confusing strings.
• FIX: Improved Russian strings (thanks to friendly).
• FIX: Blurry fanart. Thanks to tassitassi for bringing it to my attention and to jmarshall for the fix).

We also added a few new Media Server plug-in features and fixed some bugs:

• NEW: Support for typing a string in the site config (requested by Rick, useful for authenticating into Flash sites).
• NEW: We allow specifying a dead zone in the seek bar site config, which can help make a tooltip disappear after a seek.
• FIX: Preferences weren’t being correctly escaped, which could lead to problems logging into Netflix, for example

Harmony Remote - "Exit" goes to main menu issue resolved

I think I forgot to post this, but I was having an issue when watching a show that pressing the Exit on the Harmony 550 was taking me all the way back to the main menu screen and I couldn't access the other episodes of the show without a lot of hassle.

Turns out the solution is pretty simple. Just go into your Harmony remote software and remap the "Exit" button. You want to change it from "exit" to "esc". That solved the issue for me and I haven't had any issues since.

Display/TV update: issue resolved

So earlier I had made some posts about turning on the mini and TV and finding "snow" on the TV instead of the screen. Well, after a week now with the new Monoprice mini DisplayPort ->HDMI, I haven't had any display problems.

I haven't had a chance to try out the iphone remotes yet, which I hope to do sometime next week. Also, I have found myself still liking having a keyboard for some reason. Occasionally, if I reset the Mac Pro for an update or something, the shared folders get dropped from the mini, and I need it to reconnect, etc., so, I am thinking of getting a mini bluetooth keybaord. I'm not sure which, but, something pretty small, obviously...

All in all, after a couple of weeks, I love the setup. I think the only thing I thought I might miss was that my bother, an amzing movie director, is being interviewed by Charlie Rose this week sometime (well, it has already been filmed, but is being aired this week) and I thought oh how will I see it - turns out all the shows are online, so no big deal. His movie is Goodbye Solo, so check it out!

But back to the mini, the setup rules. I don't miss cable, I don't miss Tivo and everything works pretty much flawlessly. I have all my TV shows, no commercials, no missed shows which come on at the same time, DVD movies work great, Hulu on Plex is a dream, Netflix on Plex is just awesome (I watched 2 movies in the past week on watch it now).

That's it for now..

Hulu coming for iphone!

It just keeps getting better and better!
Read more here!

According to Silicon Alley Insider, Hulu, which is jointly owned by NBC and Fox, is in the process of bringing its streaming television catalog to iPhone. And, according to an industry executive that spoke with SAI, it’s going to be—and, no, we didn’t make this up—“badass.”

The People +1, Time Warner 0

Time Warner backs away from pricing change.

Amid widespread consumer outrage, the No. 2 U.S. cable provider is putting on hold plans to change the way it charges for Internet access.

Click the above link to read it all :)

Time Warner = pay for bandwidth ARGH

I've been meaning to post this, since it basically concerns what we're doing using our mac mini's as home theaters. I started following this late last week and now its hit on national news, so I will post it as I followed it.

First, I ran across this on Engadget (click here for the official link post)

In a move seemingly designed to further our frustrations with broadband providers, Time Warner Cable has soft-announced an "unlimited" package once its new data caps go into place... for an affordable $150 monthly charge. Responding to criticism over the company's plans to start capping usage and charging for overages, Landel Hobbs clarified the provider's stance, letting users know that the capping would be limited to a $75 ceiling, thus (when paired with its top tier plan) would provide "virtually unlimited" usage. Virtually unlimited. Here's a rundown of what the COO proposes:

• A limited package for "light users" at 1GB/month, 768KB down / 128KB up, with overage charges of $2/GB/month.
• Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard, and Turbo packages at 10GB / 20GB / 40GB / and 60GB caps, respectively, and overage charges at $1/GB/month.
• A big daddy, 100GB Turbo package at $75/month with overage fees of $1/GB, which, when coupled with that magic threshold of $75 in charges, becomes the "unlimited" plan.

We only have two questions, guys. First, how will you let end users know they're hitting caps? Right now there's no centralized solution for monitoring bandwidth. Even cell phones show minutes used, so will you give us the infrastructure for broadband monitoring? Secondly -- instead of giving users a "virtually" unlimited package, why not just sell an unlimited package at $150 a month? The impression we get is that you want to leave the door open for aggressive users, and that your capping of capping charges might be a moving target in the right situation.

That prompted me to email Time Warner about it:

Inquiry:I just read this news report and would like to know if this is true, or if it is being discussed, or if it is being rolled out or any other information you can provide.
I am a Time Warner Customer with Road Runner. Thank you
______________
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/10/time-warner-cable-lays-out-broadband-capping-plans-says-150-fo/



Here is the official Time Warner response back to me:

Response:
Thank you for contacting us. Time Warner Cable understands and embraces the current evolution in the way people are using the Internet for things like video, music, and more. We continue to manage our network to ensure that our all of our subscribers have a terrific user experience. We also recognize that the Internet was not designed to handle the mass amounts of video that are now being consumed, therefore there is a risk that service speeds could slow to a complete crawl unless proper investments are made. We are taking a multi-pronged approach that we feel will be to the benefit of our customers. As we are in the early stages of planning, we want to keep you informed of what we are doing to ensure our subscribers continue to enjoy all of the content available on the Internet today.

Our goal is to provide the best possible Internet experience for ALL of our customers, not to let the minority affect the majority. The vast majority of our customers will see no difference in their monthly bill. The challenge is to find an equitable way to charge customers so that we can pay for necessary infrastructure upgrades. We are looking to create a business model that will allow customers to choose the speed and consumption package that makes sense for their household Internet usage. With a consumption based billing plan, all customers will have access to a ''gas gauge'' that will enable them to track their consumption against their plan. A customer will have three months to get comfortable with the gauge before the bill hits. We don't want our customers to have any unpleasant surprises. Some of our customers may actually save money by ''right-sizing'' to a plan that meets their needs. We are happy to help them do that. Included in the extended trial is Greensboro, NC. Preliminary communications regarding specifics will begin in August 2009 in Greensboro, NC. Billing will follow these communications after a three month grace period. If you would like to speak with a live agent regarding this matter, please either visit your local Time Warner Cable office, or call your local Time Warner Cable Customer Care Center at 1-800-892-2253 or 1-866-874-2389.

Please let us know if we can be of any additional assistance.

Thank you for using Time Warner Cable.
Elena
Time Warner Cable Support
Raleigh, NC
919-595-4892
1-866-489-2669

Naturally, I sent them back an email:

To: TWCable@nc.rr.com
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 11:58:23 AM
Subject: Re: Time Warner Cable Response to inquiry 180330

RESPONSE:
Thank you for your response.

Especially given the current ongoing REASON for the economic situation, I find it unbelievable that Time Warner now wants to find another way to squeeze the customer for every last dime. Please forward to management that:

1. Pay for hours of internet during the dial up era of 1995-2000 is over and dead and people will leave Time Warner for other places like Verizon VIOS or AT&T IPTV if you start charging for bandwidth. You have basically stated you want the customers to pay for your infrastructure so you can make more money.

2. Cell phones have already started going to one price for unlimited minutes and bandwidth. Sprint has eliminated minute charges by going to $50/mo unlimited or $100 for unlimited internet bandwidth and cell phone. At&T is going to have 7MBPS later this year. My iphone , with 3.0 software this june is going to have tethering available. Don't be surprised when people start dropping Time Warner and using itunes to purchase TV shows over the internet connected by a tethered cellphone - all through AT&T and not Time Warner.

3. Blockbuster filed this week with the SEC that they can't pay back their last $250 million loan. On top of the $750 million they had picked up last time, this is basically saying they're going to follow suit with Circuit City. Do you think it is coincidence that the peak of Blockbuster stock was the same time Netflix's IPO went out - Netflix has destroyed Blockbuster and Hollywood video with having NO LATE FEES and unlimited rentals and ever increasing watch it now capability. Netflix tried regulating watch it now 2 years ago to 10 hours or 20 hours per month depending on your membership - that lasted for about a year and they finally went unlimited. Smart move - now Blue Ray players are coming Netflix Ready, Philips has a Netflix ready TV, Tivo has Netflix, XboX has Netflix.

You are going to drive customers away when you start charging for internet. They will go to AT&T in this area. IPTV will be rolled out by the time you put this in place. They are going to offer 24MBPS with TV, Phone, Internet. If not AT&T, there will be something else. If someone wants internet, cable and regular HDTV, it is already about $130/month.That's just insane, and now you want to charge more...

Then yesterday this news item came out: (click here for link to post)

Public rejects Time Warner metered-bandwidth tests

Time Warner Cable is reportedly having trouble finding submissive test subjects for its proposed scheme of charging US customers by the gigabyte for their internet service.

Additional trials for the company's new "consumption based billing" regime were slated to begin in several markets this summer, but public outcry has made the cable giant retreat from some of its attempts to stuff the all-you-can-eat internet genie back in the bottle - for now.

The company originally intended to expand tests of metered billing on April 13 to Rochester, New York, Greensboro, South Carolina, and San Antonio and Austin, Texas. But all has not gone according to plan.

After facing a surge of complaints from customers, Time Warner has decided to delay the rollout in both Texas cities until October. Presumably, a few months will make bandwidth caps easier to swallow.

"What happened as we're continuing to listen was we worked in some of the comments and ideas that got sent to us," Time Warner's South Texas veep of communications told the San Antonio Express News.

Pricing would have started at 1GB per month for $15, and go up to 100GB per month for $75. Each gigabyte over the limit would cost $1, except for the $15/month plan, which charges $2 per GB.

Time Warner and other providers trying to push metered internet on customers argue that internet demand is rising at a rate that could outpace capacity within a few years. The companies say they need to raise money to fix the infrastructure problem, and the fairest approach is to move to a tiered model where customers who use more bandwidth foot the largest bill.

Opponents have claimed firms like Time Warner want tiered pricing to discourage usage of bandwidth-heavy internet video, which could threaten cable TV packages the companies also offer. Time Warner, of course, denies this claim.

Testing the markets in Rochester and Greensboro will apparently continue as planned. Interestingly enough, Rochester's leading DSL provider, Frontier Communications, has already abandoned its plans for metered billing because of - you guessed it - public outrage.

"We have gotten hundreds of calls from Time Warner customers into our call centers," Frontier's local honcho told the Associated Press. "I guess it's been a public relations crisis for Time Warner."

Frontier claims it's grabbing internet market share because of objections to Time Warner's metered pricing plans. ®

And now today it is on MSNBC which you can read about by clicking here.

I know its not specific to the general purpose of the blog, but, I think its important enough that people are aware.

UPDATE:
Macworld just posted this , click here to read.

Important part:

Except—and you may have noticed this in financial circles—this whole unfettered free-market thing hasn’t worked out so well. Riddle me this: How many cable operators do you have in your town? I’ll start.

One.

Go ahead, you count now.

Anyone? Two? Three?

Time Warner shrinks from the word “monopoly,” but let’s face it, it and other cable operators drove the little guys out of business over a decade ago. They own their respective spaces. And the fact that they control both cable TV and broadband and are willing to manipulate one to affect another in the vast markets they control should make someone start paying attention.

Thankfully, someone is paying attention—New York Congressman Eric Massa. Massa is drafting legislation to prevent tiered pricing structures such as those being tested by Time Warner Cable. Massa had this to say on his website:

“Time Warner’s decision has the potential to more than triple customers’ current rates and I think most families will find this to be too taxing to afford. Time Warner believes they can do this in Rochester NY, Greensboro NC, Austin TX and San Antonio TX, and it’s almost certainly just a matter of time before they attempt to overcharge all of their customers. And while I favor a business’s right to maximize their profit potential, I believe safeguards must be put in place when a business has a monopoly on a specific region.”

I’m an entire country away from this guy’s district, but I like the way he thinks. If you do too and would like to express the power of you, send him an encouraging e-mail message. The unfettered broadband you save may be your own.

UPDATE:

Time Warner Cable scraps broadband capping plan in Rochester, NY

It's already delayed its controversial broadband capping plan in a number of markets, and it looks like Time Warner Cable has now gone one big step further in Rochester, New York (one of the initial test markets), where it has reportedly scrapped the new tiered pricing plan altogether. As you no doubt recall, the plan was more or less modeled on cellphone pricing plans, and had intended to cap customers' data usage at a certain level and charge upwards of $1 per GB for any overages (eventually maxing out at $150 per month). That, naturally, didn't go over so well with folks, and even New York Senator Charles Schumer eventually got in on the act and complained directly to Time Warner Cable. Of course, this still doesn't officially mark the end of the pricing plan in other markets, but it certainly seems to be getting increasingly difficult for Time Warner Cable to move ahead with it.

An update to Video TS folders studdering over the network

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had some issues with the Video TS folders studdering / skipping just a bit over the network, but the .avi TV shows were playing fine. At the time, there was talk of moving it off the external USB to an internal based drive, which I did.

I ended up having the problem again the other night, and figured it out. It is either one of two things, and really , probably a combination of both. To solve the problem:

1. In the Plex settings, max out the cache in the local network video and audio. This will cause the DVD video ts to take about 10 seconds to "load", but, well worth it.

2. I unplugged my netgear wall plugs for the Cat 5/6 cables and replugged them in. It seems you have to do this from time to time with these guys.

Anyway, my guess is, you can use USB external drives and be fine - all you need to do is max out cache and reset any wall plugs you have, or reset the wireless router (N router, naturally :) ).

MacCast Podcast on the new Mac Mini / Home Theater

Adam at the MacCast site has posted up a great interview with Ara Derderian of HTguys.com on the new mac mini. Its a great podcast in general, and of course this one especially as it deals with the mac mini as a home theater set up.

On the software side, they more focus on Boxee and Front Row, and get to talking about how there really isn't one good solution and that Boxee is good for online content where as Front Row is better for local. I don't use Boxee, but using Plex, I have found it really pretty easy to setup and that Plex does easily access online content like Hulu, Apple Trailers, CNN, etc.. as well as bring in all my DVDs, all my TV shows, all my iTunes music (which I'll do a post on soon), and pictures (if I wanted - I don't do it, but if you wanted to you could). I have my GF's macbook setup with Plex and it also can play the same content no problem. Never the less, its a very good episdode, and both MacCast and HTGuys are top notch, so give it a listen, well worth it!

Here is the description of the show, and click here to go directly to the podcast or search it on itunes.

A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Special edition. A special episode of the Maccast with Ara Derderian from the HDTV & Home Theater Podcast (htguys.com). We see how the latest version of the Mac Mini stacks up against the prior generation for use as a home theater Mac. We also talk about Mac remote control options and a few other odds and ends including our hopes for future generation media based Macs.

Iphone / Ipod Touch - A Remote Alternative

Ok, so, you either don't have a Harmony, but you do have a iPhone or iPod Touch and want to use it to control Plex and/or the mini? You're in luck, and have quite a few choices.

I haven't started trying these out yet, but do plan on it, just to play around. But, I figured I'd post and compile the major players here so you could see the options and try them out. Feel free to post your thoughts and results in the comments sections for others to see as well. Thanks!

1. Snatch: Click here of the homepage. Click here for the Wiki. Click here for the video.

2. Xmote: Click here for the homepage. Click here for for the video.

3. AirMouse: Click here for the homepage. Click here for the video.

update:

4. Remote Buddy Ajax: Click here for the homepage. Click here for the video

5. XBMC iPhone Remote: Click here for the homepage and video

Downloading HD TV shows in 720P

A little while back a reader brought up a good point that simply specifying HDTV in the TVRSS.net search was not really getting HD. A standard hour long show like this gives you about a 350MB .avi file. Keep in mind, in my opinion at least, the 350MB download is still very very good quality.

A little searching around on TVRSS and I have found that it seems you can get great quality HD at 720P. If under quality you search "720P|HDTV", you can find subscriptions to shows like 24, Lost, House, Heroes, Desperate Housewives, etc.. in 720 and file sizes are just over 1GB.

If you find more search options that work, or any other good information, please post them in the comments section. Thanks!

Samples of the Aeon Stark

Just a quick post - I have been playing around with the Aeon Stark and thought I would post screen shots of how nice the Stark looks. What I like - the ability to regulate which menu items are visible. Makes it much easier / quicker to scroll through the main menu items. I also like the clean look, and the ability to see the full artwork in the background. On the main menu of the Mainstream, the left half of the screen is taken up by the menu bar. Kind of annoying.

What I'm not to keen on - in the TV section, you don't and can't (as of now) get the episode information. Also, in the Netflix, you can't get the movie information on the watch it now. Also, the weather doesn't work yet in Stark. Also, in the Movies section, you have to click on "I" or info on the remote to pull up the movie information.

I guess at the end of the day one of these will fit your style, so that's cool.

That being said, here are some screenshots.

Its complete!! NETFLIX has arrived for Plex!!!!

The one gnawing thorn in my side is finally gone! Watch it now for Netflix has arrived for Plex and it looks AWESOME! Posted today in the app store , easy install and wow, looks SOOO good on Mediastream and on Aeon Stark and to be honest, is even better than watch it now on Netflix's web site!

There are so many new options for how to find watch it now movies - Top movies in the past week, past 3 months, movies in your queue, new watch it now releases - its awesome!

It does require a installation of Silverlight by Microsoft, but that is easy and painless. Here is the post release and also screen shots of it on Mainstream and on Aeon Stark. Have fun!!

From Plex:

Netflix has never looked this good

from Plex by elan

A lot of people have been asking for this, and now your wish has been granted: Netflix on Plex. Tens of thousands of instantly playable movies, and a gorgeous interface with fanart, high resolution posters and rich metadata.

Major props to Scott for doing a brilliant job with this plug-in. He’s already hard at work at the next version.

The Netflix plug-in requires the latest version of Plex.

You also need the Silverlight plug-in installed.

These first two pics are from the stock Mediastream skin on Plex. You'll notice the one big important difference is Mediastream gives the movie description information right there. Stark does not, and as of now even pressing "I" or "info" on Harmony remote doesn't pull up the info - a pretty big drawback, I think - but, graphically, they both look great. I've been playing around with Stark for the past couple of days, since they released a new version a few days ago.

But, here are two pics from Mediastream and Netflix:

(all these are screen shots off my system)

And here are some shots from Netflix on Aeon Stark:

Boxee App Store coming

Although I am a Plex guy, there have been some comments and interest from people who are Boxee fans. And they're both definitely great front ends - its like a Coke v Pepsi thing I guess lol.

So for those Boxee Players, I offer this news post of news from Engadget/ArsTechnica - and for those Plex lovers, you'll love the next post after this one :)

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/09/boxees-app-box-and-api-goes-live-could-come-to-other-hardware/


Not that there should be any shock surrounding the formal introduction of Boxee's App Box and API -- after all, both were teased sufficiently during last month's bleeding edge alpha release -- but we're still thrilled to see things moving along nicely. This week, the open source media platform launched both an API and an application portal, both of which will act to bring all manners of third-party gems to the media browsing world. boxee doesn't plan on being any sort of gatekeeper (at least for now), which hopefully will spur innovation and get more developers interested. In related news, ArsTechnica has also found that boxee is currently in talks with a few big players in the hardware space, essentially hoping to get its 1s and 0s onto game consoles, Blu-ray players and other set-top-boxes. There's no clue as to the whens and wheres, but we suspect this means there will be no dedicated STB in the near future -- for better or worse.
Slashgear also added news of Pandora to Boxee:
[

To demonstrate the new API, Boxee has released two initial plugins: Pandora and RadioTime. The former allows users to sign in with their standard Pandora account, set up stations and listen to existing Quick Mixes, while the latter offers over 100,000 streaming radio stations.

Eventually developers will be able to charge for their Boxee plugins, but for now all extensions will be free. Boxee have also answered the call for Hulu support by embedding a Mozilla-based browser into the media center.

New Apps for Plex are released

Looks like this is just the start of it! I'm definitely going to check out Vimeo.
Click here for to see the new apps posted.

Plex 0.7.14 released

This just in, the guys at Plex have release a new version. And they say new apps are on the way within the week!

Download, upgrade, and I'll post some thoughts too after I do it..

Click here for all the information.

Mac Mini Home Theater setup summary

I was scanning back through the blog and it seems a summary would be helpful - kinda put everything in one place. If you feel something isn't clear, or needs to be changed, just post a comment...

Hardware you'll need:
1. Mac mini - prefer 2009 version, 2.0 GHz with 2GB Ram ($650)
2. Harmony Remote - 550 ($50) or better
3. DVI->HDMI or the new mini Display Port to HDMI adapter
4. Toslink adapter if you're going to hook up to a digital 5.1 surround
5. A good network - either an N router and N wireless cards or a Netgear wall jack extenion

Software you'll need:
1. Torrent Client (I use Vuze, but you can do Transmission, XTorrent)
2. MacTheRipper
3. Plex
4. Aeon skin if you don't want the standard Plex Mainstream skin

Setup:
1. Connect the mini to the TV and audio system
2. Setup sharing with your main computer, or, if you're going to do everything on the mini there is no need.
3. On the computer that will store the Torrent files, download and install your torrent client (Vuze, etc.)
4. Go to TVRSS.net and get RSS subscriptions for the shows you want.
5. Add the rss feeds from tvrss.net to your torrent client.
6. Install MacTheRipper for DVDs
7. Make 2 directories in your shared folders - one called "Movies" and one "TV Shows"
8. All DVD rips should be saved to "Movies" and TV shows should be put in the TV Shows folder. TV shows need sub folders for the actual show name, then episodes go in those sub folders.
9. Install Plex
10. Follow the Plex wiki for setup -it is VERY good and solves many problems if you just follow the wiki and do it right the first time.
11. Install the Aeon skin if you like it better.
12. Set up the Harmony Remote

That's it.

This is all based on 2 computers with the mini sharing off of a main desktop/laptop. If you want to keep it all on the mini, then you don't need to any of the networking equipment, but you will need some external drives since the mini for $650 only has 120GB.

Of course, if you're not sure about it, or want to play around, just download and install everything on your current computer. Its all free and you can have plex running and playing in about 45 minutes. A DVD rip takes about 15 minutes, and a torrent download however long it takes.

The setup for me was actually very easy. I just like playing around and tweaking things to be just right, so that's where all my time goes into the project. Hopefully, I've covered most of the issues the average person might run into.

I'm loving the setup, a networking issue solved, and a display issue still ongoing

Here's where I'm at now - close to a week after cutting the cable and basically being set up. Very happy! Ok, well, to be honest, I haven't really had much time to watch TV or movies, but, my GF has watched a little bit, and we started catching up on Hero's last night.

I'll start with the remote. Its great, really nice to finally have one remote. So nice, actually, my GF was motivated to email this:

I went into the living room and realized I forgot to shut the TV/Mac system down, so I picked up the remote and hit the off button. And I look and I'm like, damn, everything shut down except the TV - now what button do I press?

So I'm sitting there thinking what to do and I look down at the remote and amazingly it apparently read my mind and says, "Did everything shut off?"

So I said, "No, dammit". Then 2 seconds later it says to me, "So now is everything off?" And I said, no, there's still one thing on, which is the TV, but since these are yes and no questions I can't tell you that ...

Then without missing a beat it asks if it's the TV that's still on. "Yes, actually; it's the TV that didn't shut down." So next thing I know the TV shuts down. Wow.

"So did that work? Is it off now?" it smugly responds.

Yeah, it worked. Thanks. That was actually easy, pain-free and fast. Three adjectives that usually don't describe a remote ...

I can't wait until the next time I have to pick it up!

When was the last time someone got excited about a remote! Considering now 4 remotes have been replaced with one, everyone is happy!

With the Harmony and the Plex, its all right there, and the viewing experience is really nice. With TV shows, you select, and the theme music starts playing. All the artwork is in place, formatted properly, looks great, the show descriptions are all there, the shows are in order, full episode description and oh, I am really loving pressing play and putting the remote down. By that I mean, all the commercials are gone. With Tivo, it was always picking up the Tivo, pressing the 30 sec adv. button 4 or 5 times, oh damn, went too far, rewind, etc... Now, you can see, a show is 42 or 43 minutes, and just plays. SO nice.

Movies - Again, so nice - all the artwork for the DVDs is there, most have fan art in the background, "I" is mapped on the Harmony so you can press info and get more info on the movie, change the artwork, and best of all, watch the trailer! This is so nice, something I always wanted with the Apple TV setup. The quality of the trailer for this section isn't HD, but its definitely good.

An issue I ran into last night which drove me crazy. After watching Hero's, we tried to watch a different show but it didn't work. Played around a bit and found the mini wasn't connected to the Mac Pro and wouldn't connect. Going to the Pro, I couldn't connect to the mini. But, both computers could connect/share with the macbook laptop. SOOO strange. Was driving me crazy. I ran Maintenance 3.8 on both (repaired permissions, etc..) reset both computers, reset the router, etc... Long story short, the last thing I tried, which turned out to be it, was unplug the Netgear Cat 5/6 extension wall plugs and plug them back in - bam - everything was back up and running. So, if you run into these kind of things, like with most problems, unplug EVERYTHING electrical and plug back in lol.

Ok, so now the one thing which is kinda a thorn in my side - the display.

If the mini is off, and I manually turn it on, then it goes through the start up, the shared folders mount, and the plex starts in full screen and I'm good to go.

Shut down with the harmony is to turn off the onkyo and samsung, and the plex gets a sleep command, which also sleeps the mini. This all works great. I don't want the mini on 24/7 using power for no reason obviously.

The problem is the wake - everything turns on fine with the harmony - onkyo turns on, samsung comes on, and the Play command is sent to the mini/plex which wakes it from sleep.

Now this doesn't happen all the time, but I would say 75% of the time - where the screen flickers, I can see the desktop of the mini, but not the plex yet, and then the screen goes either all blue, black, or to snow. If its snow, I can either unplug the display connection from the mini, and plug back it and everything works good. Or if you wait about 5-10 minutes, it comes back up on its own sometimes.

If its black or blue, that sometimes works, but usually not. If you get the mouse out, you can see the cursor moving around and sometimes you can get expose to move windows and such, but either way, its a PIA.

I'm not sure if this is because the samsung TV is kinda old (4 years, I think) and now, the LCD TVs are better at accepting different HDMI inputs or what. I do know my samsung DOES have problems as a TV where I can lose picture and it goes to black (it will actually say HDMI connection lost) for like 5 seconds, then flicker and come back on - very annoying. TV repairman said it would be like $600 to fix - forget that - but never the less, this is my current biggest problem.

I think its the TV itself and not the setup. Of course, I'm hoping to upgrade the TV to a nice 1080 LCD in the summer or fall, hopefully a 2008 samsung which will have prices cut to make way for the new badass 09 samsungs.

I don't really want to spend the money, the current TV, when working, works and looks great - BUT, I mean, if the TV is fracked up (yes, a nod to BSG :) ) then hey, its not my fault, right?

Video Playback issue resolved

So my good friend John, from the first post, who motivated me to do all this, saw the post on video playback issues and immediately sent this advice:

Read the latest blog. So sounds like you are using USB drive to store the movies. The USB could be a bottleneck- data transfer is ~1/10th of an integrated hard drive. Also, it is probably a slower drive with less cache since external drives are usually for backup, not performance. I used an external drive b4 getting the server, but it was connected directly. I would try copying a movie to the main HD to see if it works. Also, in general, I would store the movies on an internal drive for playback, and back them up to external if you need to. BTW, here is an interesting overview of data speeds that I have held onto: what your computer does while you wait

i just did a search and saw this:
1). one major difference between a standard desktop drive and a dedicated Audio/Video (AV) drive is Error Correction (EC). the desktop drives run several EC routines on the data to ensure integrity, unfortunately this can chop up the data stream as it is being sent to the platters. the AV drives are designed to use minimal EC, and not interfere with the stream as it is sent in. the AV drives are DESIGNED to write multiple streams from different sources at the same time.

2). If you are using a single drive in your system with multiple folders or partitions shared (OS, misc data, video, pics, etc)then use a desktop drive. cheap and fast. if you are using multiple drives and can dedicate a drive for video then use an AV designed drive.

since I am adding a drive to my existing "home server" I purchased the following drive from Newegg. currently selling at $150

Seagate SV35.3 ST31000340SV 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
=======================

still seems overkill. i am sure my HP server has a pretty cheap OEM drive. works fine.

another question- what transfer speed are you getting on your powerline ethernet? not claimed, actual. you need like 25-30Mbps for bluray streaming, more like 10 for DVD. that should be no problem, but worth checking.

So I took his advice, and transferred everything from the external USB to an internal on the Mac Pro desktop. One other thing I did - I ran Maintenance 3.8 on both the mini and the pro. For those who don't know, Apple has combined the common maintenance items OS X has into one little automator file and you can download it from that link. Verify/Repair permissions, clean up cache, reindex things, etc... To be fair, both computers had a lot of clean up specifically with Plex (not surprising given all the install and uninstalls and library changes and fiddling about). Oh also, my external drive was connected to the Mac Pro via a firewire 400 and not a USB 2.0.

Bottom line, I have smooth Video TS DVD playback. Was it the internal drive move or the general clean up? Probably a bit of both. I was playing .mv4 files from the USB to the Apple TV no problem, for what that's worth. Either way, being on the internal can only help and I recommend some good clean up of your systems after you've installed and tweaked.

Mounting issue resolved

Here's the solution - you must right click on the folder/drive you want to share and "enable folder actions". Then, you can add it to the login like you see here.Notice in the picture below the word "volume" next to the folders. That's what you want. Before folder actions was enabled, it was listed as "unknown".

Progress Update: Cable Cut, Issues and tweaks

Its been busy lately, but I have been working on the project. The good news is that, generally speaking, everything works. I actually turned in cable cards today and canceled Tivo last week. Nice! The Harmony 550 remote also came in works well too. That all being said, I am working though some issues which will require tweaking.

Current Issues and tweaks:

1. Video playback: As you know, I am having the Mac Pro sharing folders to the mini over the network (wired with Netgear wall plugs). The .avi files generated from the torrent downloads are great. Full screen, sharp, looks very good and no playback issues. The Video TS DVDs though are another story. It seems to take a longer than hoped time to actually start playback once you select a DVD. I would say about 15 seconds or so. And once it starts playing it pauses for a second or two every 15 seconds or so of playback as if it needs to buffer. This seems to happen regardless of skin. I have played with the cache size in the settings but that doesn't seem to have any effect on it. So I'm working on this issue. I would rather not have to plug it in direct to the mini, but we'll see what happens.

2. Mounting Shared Volumes/Disks: This leads to the related problem of mounting the disks. I'm not sure why, but if I sleep or reset the mini, I have to CMND+K to remount both the shared folder and the movies USB drive in the shared folder. I have both mountings in the login sequence, but the mounting fails. Of course, this is annoying because I want to sleep the mini when not in use, and hence, this affects the Harmony remote login macro sequence.

Keep in mind, I am working on making this system as easy and seemless as possible. I want anyone to come in, pick up the remote, and without any instruction (or very very little) be able to start watching TV or movies and be like "wow cool! wait, this is a computer?"

I want the login sequence on start up input from the Harmony to be: Turn on TV, Turn on Onkyo receiver, Wake mini, mount the shared drives and folders, open plex, go full screen on plex. From there, user uses the Harmony to select what they want to watch. I basically have this setup, with the mounting error being the one snag for now.

3. Aeon Stark vs. Plex Mediastream skin: Stark looks fantastic. No doubt about it. That being said, I have been playing with the standard mediastream skin. And while the homepage interface isn't quite as nice and visually wowing as Stark, I think, at least for now, mediastream might be more to my liking. Once you select the TV shows or Movies, and get in there, there is just much more information readily available on screen to see. Like with Stark (or Aeon in general), you do get fan art in the background, but unlike Stark/Aeon, you get a lot more information right there immediately. All the TV episode info is there, including episode number, description, ratings, etc... I just know that myself and my GF, and really other people that might be over, I think will prefer the information all being there easy to see and get to than the skin which is a little more visually appealing. And the mediastream skin does look good too! One other thing is that the Stark is currently not officially supported with Plex. It still is an Xbox deal, although there is talk the Plex version will be released in the future. I think I'll end up staying with the Mediastream and wait to see what the Plex version of Stark does. I'll just do some screen shots later and repost them so you can see.

I think that covers my current issues. really not that much. Playback studdering and mounting of drives and folders. As soon as I get it worked out, I'll post the solutions. And I'll post some screenshots of the Stark v. Mediastream soon. Ok, here are the pics of the MediaStream in action. Keep in mind, the main screen shots, of the TV in the field and the movie seats, you can change to whatever you want, just like in Aeon / Stark