The Power and Perils of a Platform

[Jason Dunn]

I have a Windows Media Center Edition 2005 computer, and I've been experimenting with some of the plugins that the MCE community has made available. That's the power of the platform: extensibility by third party developers. This is something that Tivo can't touch. There are all sorts of great plugins available, including <a href="http://www.cbuenger.com/mceauction/">eBay plugins</a>, <a href="http://www.inseattle.org/~dan/Dcut.htm">video compression plugins</a>, <a href="http://www.unmitigatedrisk.com/mce/">Netflicks plugins</a>, <a href="http://www.cbuenger.com/tapirex/mceaddon.php">call display plugins</a>, and many others. You can take your MCE computer, and by installing several plugins, get drastically enhanced functionality from it. That's what Microsoft does best: build platforms, and they have an army of developers behind them who are eagerly waiting to developer the next "big thing" for the platform. My MCE can do 10x more than my ReplayTV could...but my ReplayTV never got so unstable it was unusable, and my MCE has.<br /><br />The perils of a platform? Instability and problems, often caused by those same third party developers (though sometimes <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/mce2005-video-error.jpg">it's Microsoft's fault</a>). They mean well - no developer purposefully creates code to wreak havoc on a computer (except for the virus writers of course), but sometimes it can happen anyway.<!><br /><br />A couple of months ago I installed a plugin that shall remain nameless (the point here isn't to blame the developer). This plugin was still in beta, so I knew I was taking a risk installing it - but I wanted the features so badly! The plugin installed, and it worked great. A new beta was released, but when I tried to install it I was informed I needed to uninstall the old one. I tried to do so, but at some midway point the process gave me an error and failed. I rebooted and tried again, but it wouldn't budge. Worse yet, the plugin stopped working, which was frustrating because I found it very useful. I emailed the developer, got a response, replied back with some log file information, and then didn't hear back from him again. But hey, it's a free plugin, so I wasn't expecting stellar support.<br /><br />After about a month of having a broken MCE, I decided to get ugly: I started manually hacking it out of my system by deleting the program folder, associated DLLs, and removing any references to it from the registry. For a while there it was touch and go, because the MCE interface <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/mediacentercrash.gif">would crash at every load</a>. After some more hacking it seemed to stabilize, but I was dismayed that there wasn't some sort of self-healing routine if the MCE interface realized that it was broken. Windows Media Player 10 will disable plugins that cause it to crash, so why can't MCE 2005?<br /><br />After some swearing and rebooting, I got it cleaned out. Then I installed the latest version, because I just had to have it. Am I a junkie geek or what? :roll: The plugin is mostly working again - it runs in the background when it's supposed to run, but I no longer have access to it from within MCE, which defeats half the purpose of it. I'm wary of touching it because I don't want to have my MCE go into a spiral of death again. Recently I managed to do a repair of the MSI install, and things seem to be back to normal...but I'm wary about touching future plugins again unless I know they're stable. I almost need a second MCE just for testing purposes. I supposed I could always install <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx">Virtual PC</a> for testing purposes. I don't think I should have to do that though - in order for Microsoft to make inroads in the TV room, stability needs to be the number one priority.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE:</b> Well, silly me, I should have done a bit more research on Tivo before writing this. James has pointed out that Tivo has a Java-based architecture and <a href="http://www.tivo.com/4.3.hme.asp">an SDK for developers to look at</a>. I wonder if a Tivo loaded up with 3rd party plugins has the potential for the same stability problems I've seen with my MCE? I'd guess so - that's the price of extensibility.

[James Fee]

I think you've hit on something here. People expect their computers to crash (seems weird to say it but I think the assumption is you'll have a crash unexpectedly) and that programs get finicky, but not with their appliances. If your DVR misses recordings it can make your whole week unhappy waiting until the next time the show or event appears (unless you are unlucky enough to miss a one time show). Its that fear that I think will keep people from getting on the Microsoft platform. It took TiVo years to get into the mainstream, but most of that was due to cost or misunderstanding of how DVRs work (ReplayTV dealt with the same issues). Microsoft doesn't have to convince people that they need a DVR, they need to convince people that MCE won't crash like the Windows ME eMachines computer. Its a tough hill to climb, but if people keep churning out great hardware and software for use with MCE, that might change as long as the next version of MCE address some of the common issues that you outlined above.
This is something that TiVo can't touch. There are all sorts of great plugins available, including eBay plugins (http://www.cbuenger.com/mceauction/), video compression plugins (http://www.inseattle.org/~dan/Dcut.htm), Netflicks plugins (http://www.unmitigatedrisk.com/mce/), call display plugins (http://www.cbuenger.com/tapirex/mceaddon.php), and many others. You can take your MCE computer, and by installing several plugins, get drastically enhanced functionality from it.Of course you'll remember that TiVo also has many and more of these plugins now.

http://www.tivo.com/4.3.hme.asp

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks for pointing out that SDK for the Tivo James - I had no idea it was capable of running 3rd part apps.

[Neil Enns]

Jason, what are your favourite MCE plug-ins? My first MCE is on the way and I'm wondering what more it'll be able to do besides play music. Recording TV is sadly pretty much out of the question (I have a DirecTivo for that).

Neil

[Jason Dunn]

Well, I've downloaded a few, but I don't use them much other than dCut, which helps me compress video from MS-DVR to WMV format.

[Steven Hughes]

Jason:

I totally agree with you. I have had to use System Restore(this even locked up on me) a few times to rid of a few "quirky plugins" and even then had to delve into the registry, still problems persisted and I just backed up my new media and refreshed with an image prior to the plugin installation, waste of time and plenty of aggrevation... Funny I actually still run DVArchive on my Media Center and port it to my PPC or PMC also becasue the quality appears better and is easily viewable everywhere in my house also it streams better than the dvr-ms video which is pretty limited. It also seems to take quite a while to queue up using the Tablet Experience Pack. Also my wife and kids prefer the Replay interface over XPCME for video, but likes XPMCE for photos and music.

This system also can dual boot to use BeyondTV/Media...very similar experience.

Neil:

Also use dCut, but I hate how it doesn't startup cleanly(open DOS window) and I only run it when necessary.

Mediasync is pretty cool currently in private beta, allows you to transfer several media types to your mobile device, supports older Pocket PCs without WMP10 Mobile, or whatever it is called these days :D

If you are into buying or searching for stuff on eBay mceAuction is pretty cool: ( http://www.cbuenger.com/mceauction )

MCE Customizer 2005 like tweaksUI for media center also in beta...
http://www.mcecustomizer.com/ . Don't forget there is also Tweak MCE from MS

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9c02f0a8-8525-4110-aaa8-36aa8aebf2af&amp;DisplayLang=en

CoverArt Fixer for all those mysterious albums in your collection that have no album art, this program searches your HD and internet for images from Google or CoverTarget.com and place it in your Audio library. A really great plugin the A.R.

http://www.avsoft.nl/artfixer/

MyTV ToGo is a plug-in for your Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition that will let you transfer your recorded television shows (dvr-ms files) easily to your Pocket PC. It is a paid program. Granted you can do alot on your own, but worth checking out:

http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&amp;jid=E9B6XXF26144ADB76CB81E12C4ADA5DX&amp;platformId=2&amp;productType=2&amp;catalog=0&amp;sectionId=0&amp;productId=157006

mceWeather The Weather Channel plugin for your MediaCenter.
http://www.cbuenger.com/mceweather/demo.php

My Movies allows to browse your DVD collection with links to IMDB and cover art. Allows you to import lists from other popular programs really cool and free!!

http://www.binnerup.dk/mce/mymovies.htm

mceTapiRex Caller-ID is a plugin that shows incoming calls with number, name and picture of the caller.No more "who can it be now..."

http://www.cbuenger.com/tapirex/mceaddon.php

HAI’s new Home Control for Windows Media Center If you got X10 stuff (up to 16) this a real cool GUI...
http://www.homeauto.com/

GameEx if you have some old ROMS and like MAME, this may be worth checking out...
http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/

A good list of plugins here:
http://www.mcesoft.nl/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=category&amp;sectionid=24&amp;id=80&amp;Itemid=100

and free ones here:

http://www.mcesoft.nl/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=category&amp;sectionid=23&amp;id=79&amp;Itemid=82


A few to get ya started... :D

Also cheap HPz45 XPMCE at eCost $895 for an HP Dual Tuner, 200GB internal drive, 160GB removable drive, Dual layer DVD burner(non-lightscribe)512MB,3GHz P4HT :

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail~dpno~545020~Action~Detail.asp