Application Spotlight: MediaPortal

February 10, 2009 Mike Hudson Leave a comment

As some of you may already know, I have been slowly building a MediaCenter PC which is connected to my HI-FI, Network and Plasma TV. The main use of the machine to date has been a dockingcharging station for our iPod Shulle’s, Kat’s iPhone and my HTC Diamond. Boasting a massive ammount of MP3’s and Movies.

As it get’s little use I couldn’t bring myself to spend £80+ on Vista Home Premium so I could use the media center aspect. So it’s still running Windows XP Service Pack 3.

All though all of the music and movies are indexed in iTunes (for obvious reasons) I have been constantly on the hunt for something to turn the machine from a PC to a proper media center.

During my daily trawls on the net I managed to stumble accross MediaPortal. Which seems to be serving my needs perfectly.

What is MediaPortal?

MediaPortal is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC in a very advanced Multi-Media Center / HTPC. MediaPortal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch your video’s and DVD’s, view, schedule and record live TV and much more.

As Open Source software licensed under the GNU/GPL agreement, you get MediaPortal for free. This means anyone can contribute to MediaPortal or customize for their own needs!

MediaPortal is built on the Microsoft .NET framework using C# and currently has a growing international community of over 60,000 users.

MediaPortal Features

General

Create your own skins, or choose one of the available skins!
MediaPortal can easily be extended with extra plugins
You decide which keys you want to use for which actions
Internal support for several remote control (streamzap, MCE, redeye, winlirc, hauppauge, FireDTV)
Windowed and fullscreen support

My TV

Supports analog TV, DVB-C, DVB-T, DVB-S and ATSC
HDTV and AC3 support
Support for multiple tuners
Record, watch, and timeshift Live TV
Advanced recording scheduler:
– Record once
– Record now
– Daily o Weekly
– Weekdays (Mon-Fri)
– Every time a program appears on this TV channel
Timeshifting,Watch, Pause, Rewind, FF, RW Live TV
Advanced recording management:
– Handle conflicts
– Set recording priorities
– Quality settings / recording
– Transcode to WMD, XVID or MPG
– Diskmanagement auto deletes old and/or watched recordings
TVGuide:
– Grab DVB-EPG & MHW-EPG directly for DVB
– Supports XMLTV
– Colors for genres
TV Guide search
TV Channel grouping
Supports over > 10000 channels
Auto channel tuning
Normal OSD (On Screen Display during movies/tv)
Special ZAP OSD (Shows description of what is playing currently on TV)
Support for Teletext
Standby control to put your HTPC sleeping. It will awake when there a recording needs to start

My Video / MyDVD

Play any movie your PC has a codec for (divx, mpeg, matroska,…)
All your movies will be stored in MediaPortal’s video database
View your movies by actors, genres, year, title
Sort your movies by actors, genres, year, rating
Automatically retrieves video art & info from IMDB
Stacking/unstacking if your movie consists of multiple files
Internal DVD player with menu’s (you can also use an external DVD player)
On Screen Display (OSD) for: Pause, Rewind, FastForward, Stop, Mute, Bookmarks, Switching Audio Streams/Subtitle languages…
Resume from playback on next play

My Pictures

Watch your pictures/photos
Slideshow support with nice transitions
Zoom in/out, rotate pictures (rotation is remembered next time)
Pause, previous/next picture
Delete picture(s)
Background music, either songs from my music, or radio from my radio
Auto thumbnail generation
Sort in Name, Date, Size
View in List, Icon or Big Icon display
Ken Burns effect slideshow
Filmstrip view

My Music

View your music by artists, albums, genres, top100 or plain songs
Sort your music in many ways like tracks, genre, filesize, artists, album,…
Use visualisations from Windows ?Media Player 10
Load, create & save playlists (.m3u, .pls, .b4u)
Automaticlly gets album art & info for all your albums
Automaticlly gets artist art & info for all your artists
View by list, icons, and big icons
Shuffle, repeat, FF, RW, pause,…
Music ratings
Favorites
Party shuffle mode
Search music for specific songs
Display all your favorite songs in one screen
Utilize Winamp, Foobar or iTunes plugins for music playback

My Radio

Listen to your favorite radio stations (FM, DVB or internet stream)
Auto tuning (FM)
Logo’s for each radio station (manual process)
Supply a friendly name for each radio station
Internet radio station streaming (ASX or Shoutcast)
Support for external radio tuner applications
Auto start listening to your selected radio station when MediaPortal starts

My weather

Show the latest weather information
Support for multiple cities
Current temperature, 3 Day Forecast
Temperature (in degrees C/F)
UV Index, Humity (%), Wind (mph/kph), etc
Support for live images from internet, like:
– Satellite images
– Temperature images
– UV Index images
– Winds images
– Humidity images
– Precipitation images

More features!

Launching external programs like:
– Games
– Emulators
– Email application
– Internet Browser
– IRC client
Burner let’s you burn all type of files and folders directly to CD-DVD from within the MediaPortal interface
Showing RSS news feeds
Read and send mail within MediaPortal
Monitor computer hardware:
– CPU temperature
– Motherboard Temperature
– Hard disk Temperature
– Used Memory
– Used Virtual Memory
Allow the PC automatically go to standby/hibernation and wakes it when there is a scheduled recording! Just like a real VCR!
Has different alarm features
You can even play included games like Tetris or Sudoku!

This only a small list of plugins & features that MediaPortal offers.
You can also view a complete list of plugins.

You can download MediaPortal for free over at the MediaPortal site, or use this link: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mediaportal/MediaPortal_1.0_Setup.exe

Write an event in the local event log VBScript

December 26, 2008May 18, 2014 Mike Hudson Leave a comment

Use this simple VBScript to write an event in the local event log.

' Write Events to the Local Event Log

Const EVENT_SUCCESS = 0

Set objShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

objShell.LogEvent EVENT_SUCCESS, _
"Payroll application successfully installed."

' Write Events to the Local Event Log

Const EVENT_SUCCESS = 0

Set objShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

objShell.LogEvent EVENT_SUCCESS, _

"Payroll application successfully installed."

Create a system restore point VBScript

December 26, 2008May 18, 2014 Mike Hudson Leave a comment

Use this simple VBScript in order to create a Windows System Restore Point.

' Create a System Restore Point

CONST DEVICE_DRIVER_INSTALL = 10
CONST BEGIN_SYSTEM_CHANGE = 100
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
&amp; "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}" &amp; strComputer &amp; "rootdefault")
Set objItem = objWMIService.Get("SystemRestore")
errResults = objItem.CreateRestorePoint _
("Scripted restore", DEVICE_DRIVER_INSTALL, BEGIN_SYSTEM_CHANGE)

' Create a System Restore Point

CONST DEVICE_DRIVER_INSTALL = 10

CONST BEGIN_SYSTEM_CHANGE = 100

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _

& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}" & strComputer & "rootdefault")

Set objItem = objWMIService.Get("SystemRestore")

errResults = objItem.CreateRestorePoint _

("Scripted restore", DEVICE_DRIVER_INSTALL, BEGIN_SYSTEM_CHANGE)

List operating system properties VBScript

December 26, 2008May 18, 2014 Mike Hudson Leave a comment

Use this fairly simple VBScript to list general opearating system properties.

' List Operating System Properties
Set dtmConvertedDate = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemDateTime")
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
&amp; "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}" &amp; strComputer &amp; "rootcimv2")
Set colOperatingSystems = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem")

For Each objOperatingSystem in colOperatingSystems
Wscript.Echo "Boot Device: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.BootDevice
Wscript.Echo "Build Number: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.BuildNumber
Wscript.Echo "Build Type: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.BuildType
Wscript.Echo "Caption: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.Caption
Wscript.Echo "Code Set: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.CodeSet
Wscript.Echo "Country Code: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.CountryCode
Wscript.Echo "Debug: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.Debug
Wscript.Echo "Encryption Level: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.EncryptionLevel
dtmConvertedDate.Value = objOperatingSystem.InstallDate
dtmInstallDate = dtmConvertedDate.GetVarDate
Wscript.Echo "Install Date: " &amp; dtmInstallDate
Wscript.Echo "Licensed Users: " &amp; _
objOperatingSystem.NumberOfLicensedUsers
Wscript.Echo "Organization: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.Organization
Wscript.Echo "OS Language: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.OSLanguage
Wscript.Echo "OS Product Suite: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.OSProductSuite
Wscript.Echo "OS Type: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.OSType
Wscript.Echo "Primary: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.Primary
Wscript.Echo "Registered User: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.RegisteredUser
Wscript.Echo "Serial Number: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.SerialNumber
Wscript.Echo "Version: " &amp; objOperatingSystem.Version
Next

' List Operating System Properties

Set dtmConvertedDate = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemDateTime")

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _

& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}" & strComputer & "rootcimv2")

Set colOperatingSystems = objWMIService.ExecQuery _

("Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem")

For Each objOperatingSystem in colOperatingSystems

Wscript.Echo "Boot Device: " & objOperatingSystem.BootDevice

Wscript.Echo "Build Number: " & objOperatingSystem.BuildNumber

Wscript.Echo "Build Type: " & objOperatingSystem.BuildType

Wscript.Echo "Caption: " & objOperatingSystem.Caption

Wscript.Echo "Code Set: " & objOperatingSystem.CodeSet

Wscript.Echo "Country Code: " & objOperatingSystem.CountryCode

Wscript.Echo "Debug: " & objOperatingSystem.Debug

Wscript.Echo "Encryption Level: " & objOperatingSystem.EncryptionLevel

dtmConvertedDate.Value = objOperatingSystem.InstallDate

dtmInstallDate = dtmConvertedDate.GetVarDate

Wscript.Echo "Install Date: " & dtmInstallDate

Wscript.Echo "Licensed Users: " & _

objOperatingSystem.NumberOfLicensedUsers

Wscript.Echo "Organization: " & objOperatingSystem.Organization

Wscript.Echo "OS Language: " & objOperatingSystem.OSLanguage

Wscript.Echo "OS Product Suite: " & objOperatingSystem.OSProductSuite

Wscript.Echo "OS Type: " & objOperatingSystem.OSType

Wscript.Echo "Primary: " & objOperatingSystem.Primary

Wscript.Echo "Registered User: " & objOperatingSystem.RegisteredUser

Wscript.Echo "Serial Number: " & objOperatingSystem.SerialNumber

Wscript.Echo "Version: " & objOperatingSystem.Version

FIX: Blank search window & System Restore in Win XP

December 24, 2008May 22, 2014 Mike Hudson Leave a comment

Recently I was faced with a windows XP service pack 2 PC running internet explorer 7, with microsoft office 2000 on. All service packs were up to date.

Microsoft Outlook was unable to display HTML e-mails, and both system restore and windows search open blank, apart from the toolbar on the left hand side which includes the ‘dog’ desktop helper.

I had tried removing internet explorer version 7, all the way back to internet exlporer 5. This made no difference. I then tried reinstalling XP Service Pack 3, but to no avail.

We had 2 seperate devices with the same issue on the network, one a laptop the other was a desktop.

After many hours of head scratching and googling.. I managed to find a solution!!

You can download IEFix from here

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Windows XP

Application Spotlight: MediaPortal

Write an event in the local event log VBScript

Create a system restore point VBScript

List operating system properties VBScript

FIX: Blank search window & System Restore in Win XP