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View Full Version : Missing Media Center 2005 Functionality

Jason Dunn
10-16-2006, 08:30 PM
As much as I love my Windows Media Center Edition 2005 machine, I wish it did more. Two things came to mind today as I was watching the Spike TV 2006 Scream Awards:

• I wish there was an easy to way to get screen captures. Yeah, I know I can press pause, press the PRINT SCREEN key, minimize the MCE interface, then paste the screen capture into another program, then save it as a JPEG from there. I'm talking about a one-button, save to JPEG, screen capture plug-in for MCE. Does one exist?

• I wish there was an easy to capture portions of TV shows and dump them down to a customized video file (bit rate, resolution, etc.) in a customized location. Yeah, I know there's dCut (http://www.inseattle.org/~dan/Dcut.htm), but the program is clunky and hasn't been updated in a long time - and it brutally destabilized my MCE machine the last time I installed it, so I'll pass thanks. I've seen a few tools that will work with DVR-MS files outside the MCE shell, but I want something that I can easily use from within the 10 foot interface. Anyone know of anything like that?
Mike Temporale
10-17-2006, 01:29 AM
• I wish there was an easy to way to get screen captures.

You know, if there was an easy way to do this I might actually do it. On occasion I'll think about how cool it would be to grab an image of this. But then I just brush it off without even thinking any more about it.

• I wish there was an easy to capture portions of TV shows and dump them down to a customized video file

I use dCut too, or at least I did, but it seems to have stopped working on me. I never had any crashes with it and was never overly impressed either. I would love some software that could to this from the remote, and I don't even care too much about the format. Just make it something with universal support so I can play it on my Smartphone, laptop, or whatever.

Now, to add to your thoughts, I would really like my MCE to be more intelligent. I want it to learn what shows I've watched and let me filter the guide based on my past viewing habits. Filtering on Sports, Kids, movies, is fine, but it doesn't help me find CSI on Spike, or Happy Days on TV CTS, etc... I would think this feature should really easy to add, and would be much more meaningful than the current filters and much more useful given todays 500+ channels.
allenalb
10-18-2006, 10:19 AM
• I wish there was an easy to way to get screen captures. Yeah, I know I can press pause, press the PRINT SCREEN key, minimize the MCE interface, then paste the screen capture into another program, then save it as a JPEG from there. I'm talking about a one-button, save to JPEG, screen capture plug-in for MCE. Does one exist?


Gadwin PrintScreen is the answer to your troubles. its highly configurable, you can have it send to clipboard, save as whatever file type, even automatically send to an email address, much like your beloved VoiceMinder :)

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

i am not affiliated with Gadwin, i am just glad to have a functional printscreen key again :)
Mike Temporale
10-18-2006, 12:42 PM
Gadwin PrintScreen is the answer to your troubles. its highly configurable, you can have it send to clipboard, save as whatever file type, even automatically send to an email address, much like your beloved VoiceMinder :)

It looks like a nice app, but it doesn't appear to have any integration with MCE. This is no different than SnagIt. Great program, but I want to do it from my remote while sitting on the couch.