If you are interested in setting up your own media centre this hopefully will be a great post to get you started.

This article is pretty big but i have split it up with heading to hopefully make reading it easier.

This is how the media centre turned out when it was almost complete.

My System Specifications

Base System: Dell GX270
Processor: P4 2.26
Memory: 2.00GB
Audio: SoundMax Intergrated Digital Audio
Graphics: Intel 82865G Graphics Controller
Hard Drive: Generic 40GB Hard Drive

The low system specifications were fine for my needs, i wanted to get something that would keep my budget to a minimum put give me something really good to watch my movies and tv shows on. I didn’t want or need HD at the moment and ripping movies was handled by a superior computer and then transferred so that was a factor i ruled out too, the media centre also didn’t need to record tv as we have freesat so i really only needed a movie machine, and this is what i built.

Operating System

I decided to use Windows XP Home for my base operating system, the machine i was using had all the drivers and i am not really knowledgeable enough with Linux to use it for something like this.

With some of the features turned off and settings changed to make the process faster i found that this was a good choice to build my media center onto.

The Television

These are all the inputs we have on the television, as you can see here the computer is connected through the VGA connection. There is plenty of free slots for me to use HDMI in the future if i choose to upgrade. We also have the use of component audio and also optical digital if and when i upgrade the sound card.

The speakers i am using are JBL Creatures, i wanted to use something separate to the tv as i didn’t want to loose the clarity that the films have, if i put the audio into the tv i might loose some of this like the bass etc. You can find these speakers here

This is the external hard drive i am using, the computer is in a enclosure that was built for the parts that are inside, this means there is no room for expansion, that is the only reason i am using an external hard drive, if and when i upgrade i will use internal disks.

Movie Folder Structure

Getting the right folder structure for movie scrapers such as IMDB is a step in the right direction before installing mediaportal, when i set my media centre up i setup Moving Pictures as the main handler of my movies and defined where my movies were stored, below is how my media is structure, i have used Iron Man as a example.

- Movies (External Hard Drive)

- – Iron.Man.(2008)

- – - Iron.Man.(2008.m4v

Notice the dots where spaces should be in the file names, these need to be in place for the scraper to pick up the file name correctly.

TV Show Structure

As with the movies getting the right tv folder structure is a really good way to help the scraper import the data into media portal, for my tv shows i am using TV Series plugin which you can find a link to below. Here i am using Dexter as an example.

- Tv Shows

– Dexter

—Dexter – 1×1 – Dexter.m4v

Notice here how the file name is different, The first section tell you what the series is called, the next section is the series and episode number (E.g Series 1 x Episode 1) then the last section is the episode name in this case Dexter

All of my tv shows are in the same folder, some people drill down deeper splitting series up into separate folders but i have found this not necessary.

Administering The Computer

Adding movies and other tasks including windows updates are done remotely, as the media centre does not have a keyboard and mouse and the resolution is so large doing any tasks on it can be really hard.

For this i have installed LogMeIn a free tool that allows me to access the media centre from anywhere in the world. Pretty neat.

Registry Edits, This Sped My Media Centre Up

How I Tuned My Install

Note: I take no responsibility is performing any of these edits breaks your computer, always do a registry backup first

Turned off the default XP Theme & Turned on the classic theme;

Click Start, Control Panel, Display, Click the Appearance tab, Choose Classic and Apply the settings

Turn on classic start menu;

Right the task bar, select properties, select the start menu tab, and select classic start menu

Change wallpaper to nothing;

Click Start, Control Panel, Display, Click the desktop tab, Choose None and Apply the settings

Change the screensaver to none – this can reduce cpu load during idle times thus saving power;

Click Start, Control Panel, Display, Click the screensaver tab, ChooseBlank and Apply the settings

Speed up xp shutdown;

Open REGEDIT and navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
Highlight the ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’ value.
Set it to ‘1000′.
Now highlight the ‘HungAppTimeout’ value

Open REGEDIT and navigate to ‘HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\ControlPanel\Desktop’

Highlight the ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’ value.
Set it to ‘1000′.
Now highlight the ‘HungAppTimeout’ value.
Set it to ‘1000′ also

Open REGEDIT and navigate to

‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\’

Highlight the value ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’

Change this value to ‘1000.’

Open REGEDIT and navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop’

Highlight the value ‘AutoEndTasks.’

Change the value to ‘1′

Speed up xp boot time;

Open REGEDIT and navigate HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher

Set this value to 2

Navigate to C:/Windows/Prefetch and delete all the files in that folder

Open the Registry Editor (select Start/Run, type regedit, and click OK).
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mcft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
Create a NoRecentDocsHistory D_WORD key. Double-click the value to open it once it is created.
Set the Data Value to 1 to enable the restriction.
Click OK and close the Registry Editor. You’ll need to restart the computer for the change to take effect.

Their are many more ways to speed up your windows boot time and shutdown times a google of these terms brings many results, these were taken from my original post here

Codecs I Had To Install To Play M4V Files

M4V files are encoded using the H.264 encoder which is not supported by default in Media Portal, i had to install a bunch of 3rd party codecs which allowed me to play the files i needed.

SAF (StandAlone Filter) 4.0 was the answer, the blog provides are good guide on how to install it, i have bought it here for archive purposes but full credit is given to the original creator.

Before you start the installation of SAF:

• You need to be logged in as an administrator for installation !
• Uninstall any players & codecs packs like DivX player, Nero, CCCP, any kind of codescpacks, players, etc… It could result in conflicts if they are still present.
• You need to have MediaPortal (1.1 or newer recomended) installed. If you have MePo 1.1.0, you will got warning message during SAF install,just ignore it and continue.

There are two versions of SAF available. A standard version and an unlocked version. The standard version works perfect for most users. The difference between the two versions are:
- Automatic download function of the correct and best decoders.
- For Live HDTV channels (MPEG2/h.264) added hardware acceleration decoding support.
- Full RealMedia support is available.
- VP7 video decoding support available.
If you do not watch HDTV and RealMedia files, you have no need for the unlocked version.

Q: How do I obtain the unlocked version of SAF?
Send a private message (PM) to me, Hoborg and I will sooner or later give you the instructions.

Installation of SAF

• Install SAF and follow the instructions.
• Configure MediaPortal correctly. See screenshots below.

In the “Codecs and Renderer” section.
Video

DVD

TV

Video Post processing
In the video / dvd section, do not add any post process which is meant to process the video. This will break the video hardware acceleration.

Choosing audio output method: Analogue or SPDIF
If you have an external device connected to your htpc, which is capable of decoding AC3 and DTS streams (like a dts-receiver), you should configure ffdshow to use SPDIF passthrough. To get SPDIF passthrough functioning in mediaportal, you need to add “ffdshow Audio decoder” to the post processing list. Double click on it in the list, and then tick it. You need to do this in the Video, DVD and Television section. Because this is an audio post process, it will not break the hardware acceleration of video. See the (good) example below.

To add support for RealMedia into MP:

• Install Real Media Alternative for Real Media files.

This is not necessary if you are using the unlocked SAF version.

To add support for QuickTime (MOV) format in to MP:
SAF already supports the modern MOV files with h.264 HD video. But if you want to play older MOV files from cameras, etc, you need to:

• install QuickTime Source DirectShow Filter -no need if SAF is *unlocked*
• install QuickTime alternative (can be “lite” version) Framework
• in MP configurations, Videos -> Video extensions add “.movsd”
• install at last SAF 4.00 beta04
• try to play your MOV file in MP. If you get codecs error or you do not hear audio, rename your file extension from *.MOV to *.MOVSD and hope…

TIP: To rename lot of files from MOV to MOVSD, move them to one folder (C:\video) run CMD, go in to c:\video folder and type

rename *.mov *.movsd

Controlling The Media Centre

With any computer a keyboard and mouse is usually required to do things like navigate the interface etc but this was not practical as the media centre was behind a tv unit and also in the lounge, i was going to get a harmony remote and use that to control every device including the media centre until i found AirMouse.

You can read about AirMouse in full on another post i did reviewing it, it really is a great application for anyone with a Iphone or Ipod Touch.

Read The Review Here

The Theme

Alot of themes i tried out for the MediaCentre were either not good enough for my needs or were over resource intensive, i settled for a theme call BlackGlass which is developed by a user called TGX from the Media Portal forums.

Download the theme here

Backing Up Movies (Ripping)

Getting the movies off their dvd’s and onto the media centre is really easy and even easier if you have a mac these days i use an application called RipIt which is really easy to use but previously i used Handbrake below is a screen cast i made on how handbrake works, this should be pretty similar on windows although the dvd decryption is slightly different, searching around youtube will yield lots of results.

RipIt Is really easy to use i don’t even think i need to go into detail but here is a small screencast about it.

Their are some more preferences to the application now, like the ability to compress the dvd to m4v automagically, this i have started using recently and got some really positive results from it.

The Setup

I thought it would be rather good to also show how everything is connected, below is a diagram of the wiring which makes the media centre what it is.

Click To View Larger

Cable Tidying

After installing the media centre, testing, taking it back out, installing it again the cables become mixed up and very tangled so i decided to tidy them up, this has not much to do with the running of the media centre but it is part of the story none the less.

Before

After

Settings

The settings that i have for Media Portal are below, this is almost every screen in the options.

Moving Pictures

Media Portal Config

Contact

If you would like to ask anything about my setup please feel free and i will do my best to answer any questions.

Links & Resources

• Media Portal
• Dell GX270 (This is the system i used for the base and upgraded to 2GB of ram)
• Bootscreens (View Screenshot)
• Moving Pictures Plugin
• TV Series Plugin
• RipIt
• Log Me In
• JBL Creatures
• Air Mouse Server
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Black Glass Media Portal Theme

Air mouse works with both windows and mac and is perfect if you are running any kind of MediaCenter application. I cam across AirMouse when i was building my MediaCenter i didnt want a keyboard and mouse cluttering up the lounge so i was looking for other ways to manage this AirMouse was the perfect soloution.

When you load AirMouse the appication will search for the server application which you will need to have installed on your mac or pc, it will detect that it is running and connect automatically, when the application has connected to the server the cogs in the top left will turn green. (see below)

Once connected you will get full use of the mouse, holding the phone in portrait will give you both a mouse and a keyboard running your finger through the black area of the screen will move the mouse and tapping the lower left/right sections will left or right click depending which one you press.

The keyboard works just like any normal keyboard, you can access the start menu using the windows key, execute a CTRL, ALT & DEL command and much more.

To the right of the screen you have 4 small buttons

These buttons take you to different areas of the application, you can see that the Aa button is already selected which is the keyboard screen so if we click the # button we are taken to the numerical number pad as you would get to the right of any normal keyboard

The buttons on this screen work just like the rest pressing them will execute them on the connected server.

We are now going to click the button that looks like a shaded ‘f’ This is the function screen and where all the function keys can be found including the arrows which is one of the screens i am on most of the time for navigating the menus in my media center.

Just like a keyboard pressing any one of these buttons will send that command to the server.

Lastly we have a arrow pointing downwards this is where the quick launch items can be found, on your windows machine if you have items in your quick launch this is where they will be shown clicking one of them will launch that application.

You can also access the media tools here  to for playing and stopping music highering the volume ejecting disks etc.

Their is so much this application can do it is really worth checking out even if you don’t go pro straight away.

This has made it to my home page and i am sure that if you use your computer for anything like i do this will be a welcomed tool into your workflow and digital life.

• Ad-Block – Some sites have ads that have no real meaning to the content and for that reason i want them out of my workflow, this helps me to achieve that i can also white list sites that do rely on ads so still helping the good guys.
• Spotify – I love spotify, ever since i signed up i have been using it everyday, now their is an extension for chrome, highlight some text hit the button and it will search spotify to see if that artist has an entry in their database.
• 1password – This is still very experimental and only works on mac so not really an extension i have installed accross my entire workflow but still an awesome addition to it’s big brother.
• Faster Chrome – This extension loads pages automatically, if you have run a search on google for example instead of having to click page 2 this little beauty will load the page at the bottom of the page you just finished reading.
• Extension.fm – I am all for free music and this is a really cool and i might even have to post about it seperate extension, it allows you to grab media files from music blogs and add them to a library where you can listen back to them at you leisure. Pretty neat.
• Ebay – The official ebay app, i have this because i like to be notified when stuff i am watching or bidding on is ending or ended etc.
• Gmail Checker – Basically allows me to check my gmail account and gives me a update right in chrome (this is only installed on windows)
• Tweetmeme – This allows me to instantly tweet any page i am reading and even tells me how many times it has already been tweeted. In the social world we live in, this is pretty neat.

What extensions do you use and why?

Image used under creative commons

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for my blog i really appreciate it;

Hello John, Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, what have you been up to recently?
My pleasure, thanks for having me! At the moment I’m working on quite a variety of things, I’m doing another piece of big work for Virgin Atlantic Airways, but I’m also focusing on a side project of mine which I’m trying to get off the ground and doing a lot of writing too.

What got you into web design?
Well I’ve always been fairly obsessed with the internet from a young age but I guess my first avenues into web design were at school in 2002 or so, using frames, tables, and animated gifs. Those were the days.
A few years later I started making sites for bands which I really liked and then one day I managed to get a job at an agency – everything else went from there really!

What fuels your creativity? Do you have something you look to for inspiration?
This varies from day to day (sometimes even hour to hour). Generally I try to stay well clear from things like blogs and css galleries when I want real inspiration, because the only place you’ll end up by looking at those is with a badly done imitation. I like to take inspiration from print design and product design where I can, particular with a focus on function over form.

What project best shows your design skills?
Probably the blog which I completed for Virgin Atlantic earlier this year: http://blog.vtravelled.com

Are you a mac user or windows and what are you favorite applications?
I love my Mac despite it’s ridiculous price tag. Outside the obvious apps my most used ones are probably CloudApp, Tweetdeck, LittleSnapper and Woopra.

What made you choose your operating system of choice to do your design work?
I’m a designer, and Apple products are very focused on design. I think there’s a very natural draw for designers towards Apple computers purely because they appreciate using something that’s had so much care and attention put into its design and manufacturing process.

What does your dock/desktop look like currently?
Well that the answer is that it depends really!

Most often it looks like this: http://twitpic.com/uc1tv

However if it’s sunny then it sometimes looks like this: http://twitpic.com/1e0ouv

And if it’s been a really long day then it can frequently end up like this: http://twitpic.com/xf5on

How does your computer help you get the job done?
Err, it’s fairly essential to… everything really.

Would you ever turn a design project down or do you enjoy the challenge?
I turn design work down all the time. If you’re going to design for someone else and enjoy the challenge even slightly then the right relationship and the right expectations need to be there. Frequently with clients, this isn’t the case – so it’s more advisable to let them pass.

What projects are you working on now that you can talk to us about?
Not many I’m afraid, the nature of most of the work I do is such that it’s generally covered by strict NDAs or other agreements. I can tell you that I’m working on my side project called BioThemes though, and you sign up for more information on that over at http://www.biothemes.com

What do you like most about webdesign and being a webdesigner?
I like that everything is constantly changing most of all. It’s very hard to get bored in this industry with new technologies and innovations emerging on an almost daily basis. It makes it hard to keep up sometimes, but it certainly does keep me on my toes.

What advice would you give to webdesigners?
Practice, a lot, don’t keep doing the same sorts of sites over and over again. Find other web designers who you look up to and learn their techniques, then apply them in your own work. Never be satisfied with just “average” – always push for something more.

What was the best project you have ever done?
I got to do a big bit of work last year for Ubisoft on one of their major titles, unfortunately however I’m not allowed to talk about that one either!

Lastly do you have a picture of your workspace?
Yeah, several different ones above!

Part 1 – Veronica Demonier

Part 2 – Grace Smith

Part 3 – Kyee

Part 4 – Chris Spooner

Part 5  - Chris Moses

Part 6 – Nick Reffitt

The next book in my review series is Chew, written by John Layman illustrations and ink by Rob Guillory.

Chew is very different to The Walking Dead which was the last book i reviewed firstly you get colour artwork and the artwork is really crisp and clean a kind of beautiful in fact the story is also really gripping but at the same time strange.

Chew holds a very different and interesting story, in the future a bird flu pandemic breaks out and as a result chicken is banned but as a result of the ban chicken becomes available on the black market also a government agency label’d the F.D.A which is the most feared in the land and also led by Mason Savoy.

The main character in Chew is Tony Chu who is a police detective with a massive secret that he would rather nobody else knew but this soon changes, Tony is a cibopath which basically means what ever he eats he gets to see it’s history (but not beet) – if he eats a chicken he can see how it was slaughtered or if he knors on a dead corpse he could see how they were murdered, this makes him a fantastic detective as long as he doesn’t mind having a nibble on what ever he might be investigating – pretty gross eh.

Mason Savoy and The government find out about Tony’s ability and have plans for him weather he likes it or not and what is more Mason is also a Cibopath.

Chew brings a new dimension to the table giving twists and turns about cops, crooks, cannibals and clairvoyants

As with most comic books in The Comic Book Guy library these days Chew has been deliverd in the Trade Paper Back form and we have issue 1 currently which holds issues 1-5 but Chew is currently on issue 11 so this will only be a brief look at the story.

The books starts with a couple of panels showing a character named Mr Cobb cutting up vegetables which he has plans to use in his soup while he does this he cuts his finger which drips all over the veg which he then places into the boiling soup. Tony Chu and his partner John Colby are both vice cops on a job outside a black market chicken operation run by D-Bear upon gearing up to make there move and bust D-Bear for a string of felony’s including murder Mason arrives informing the pair that D-Bear works for them now and is providing them with information and in return the government is letting him continue his operation un-touched, Mason then tells the boys they can go into the black market restaurant and enjoy a chicken feast where John orders all kinds of hosiery while Tony has the soup this is where he discovers that Mr Cobb has been killing people accorss multiple states, John and Tony then make there move into the kitchen drawing guns and informing everyone that they are looking for Cobb John gets a knife to the head and Cobb slits his own thought Tony chews on Cobb to find out all the information he needs but in doing so gets his badge revoked however Mason thinks this is an opportunity and hires Tony to work for him and his organisation.

That was a taste of chapter 1 but the story unfolds twisting and turning as it goes, the artwork makes reading this series fantastic it colourful and easy to look at.

My recommendation would be to pick up Chew volume 1 and give it a shot I would think you will enjoy it

Dropbox

Dropbox has become very popular over the last year many designers & developers are now using it not only to backup their files but also to share their work with other people who may be working on the project . When you sign up for a dropbox account you are given 2GB worth of space free of charge, you can earn 250MB by referring your friends to dropbox and then the pricing plans start at $9.99 a month for 50GB.

The Dashboard you are provided with is really easy to use, you can upload, edit, delete, move and much more with your files and what is more the files are not actually deleted they are kind of archived so that if you need that version back you can simply restore it, this is also the case when you sync the same file the older version is simply moved to another location and not overwritten.

Move, Rename Or Copy To

Show Deleted Files Inside A Folder

You can also install a client on any of your machines be it linux, mac, or windows and sync your dropbox folder over ALL of these systems really great if you do some work at home but when you are on the road use windows or linux, this comes at no extra cost and bandwidth is also free.

DropBox also offers an iphone app, this makes your data accessible anywhere in the world which to me is pretty cool.

This is my preferred method of backup, i have my iphoto library syncing with my dropbox, this took some time initially as 25GB of data too quite a while to upload but once it is their really really good.

Local Backup (External Hard Drive)

Storage is really cheap these days a 1TB hard drive can be picked up for under £100 and with software like Carbon Copy Clone you can make a identical backup of any disk to another disk easily.
Getting yourself a external hard drive is one of the best ways to backup, it doesn’t include bandwidth costs for uploading nore does it include storage costs for your files, but it is not protected from theft or fire or damage so getting this little pot of gold caught up in a house fire is going to see your primary copy of files and your backup go up in smoke along with your home.
An alternative to this is to backup to a external hard drive and keep it at a friends or member of family you could even keep it in your desk draw at work, bring it home once a month then take it back, this is called an off-site backup and it is what alot of large corporations do to protect there backup tapes or disks in case of fire etc.

Iomega 1TB Hard Drive

The Iomega hard drive is what i use for all my backups, it comes in a lovely metal case and is also pretty silent, the only problem with it is that there is no firewire and instead it uses USB 2.0.

Super Duper!

SuperDuper! is a great little application from a company called Shirt-Pocket the interface is simple and easy to use but under the hood are some really powerful tools and options.

Super duper! Gives you the option to tell it on what day and at what time to perform you backup operation, this is flexible right down to the day of the month the weed and the time. SuperDuper! then gives you an overview of what is going to happen on that day at the bottom of the schedule screen.

On this screen you get to choose what you want to copy and where you want to copy it to, here you can see that the main hard drive is going to be cloned to the external hard drive labeled ‘backup’

Here are the options that can be set for SuperDuper! you can see that SuperDuper! can initiate a repair on file permissions before a copy to ensure that valid files and permissions are copied to the backup device, you can then set what you want SuperDuper! to do when it is copying and also what you want it to do once the copy has been completed .

SuperSuper! has more options labeled ‘Advanced’ here you have options to create a disk image of your backup, run shell scripts are more. For my needs the Advanced options were not needed so i never really had to use them

Once SuperDuper! has started to copy the application will display a full breakdown of what exactly it is doing as you can see in the above image.

Conclusion

I have found that a local backup coupled with Dropbox the best solution.

Dropbox offers so many more advanced features over other services which is why i decided to use that solution for what i wanted using this with SuperDuper! for added security knowing my backup is also stored offsite and accessible without any bandwidth charges is a brilliant safety net.

How do you backup, what services or tools do you use?

The Walking Dead is a black and white comic book series published monthly by Image Comics, it first came into circulation at the beginning of 2003.

In January 2009 6 years after the first issue was released The Walking Dead sold twenty three thousand three hundred and ninety five copies.

The Walking Dead is a book I picked up by chance I found it on a list of good book on a popular comic book forum, I ordered the first couple of issues as singles and really liked it so I then started to get it in trade paper back form which is currently up to issue number 11 and can be purchased from your local comic book store. Trade paper backs are a collection of single releases all compressed into one book.

Okay so now lets talk a little bit about what the series is about, if you are joining this series as a new reader be warned the following contains spoilers.

The Walking Dead was written and created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore however Tony was replaced by Charlie Arnold as of issue 7 but Tony continued to draw the covers for the series up until issue 24.

The Walking Dead is based around a small time police officer Rick Grimes who is from Cynhiana Kentucky, the first issue starts with Rick and his partner Shane in a fire fight but Rick is shot and ends up in a coma when he wakes up now knowing where he is he starts to explore the hospital and soon finds out that everyone in the hospital and his town have turned into flesh eating zombies. Rick heads home hoping to find his family, when he dosent find them there heads to Atlanta in search of them as that is where everyone had been sent to stay safe.

When Rick arrives at Atlanta he finds that the city too has become over run with zombies as he is exploring he bumps into another character called Glenn, Glenn is working with some of the other survivors scavenging supplies that they need from the city. Rick follows Glenn and eventually finds Lori and Carl they are with the other survivors and are are okay they had been staying with Rick’s partner Shane who is not best pleased to see Rick as later in the series we find out something very interesting about what Shane has been up to while Rick was in a coma.

The group leave the camp they had near Atlanta and head off to try and find a place that they can call home along their way they settle in several places but only setting up little camps, some of the characters who have used guns before including Rick take it in turn to keep an eye on the camp shooting zombies that try to attack there camp. Later they fall upon a prison which they settle in for some time but when they are out exploring they fall upon another city Woodbury which is run by a man who calls himself the ‘Govenor’ he tortures Rick the details of his torte are best left for reading.

Exciting.

I wounder if this will inspire the kids to do other such films?

Here are some pictures of what the kids created

The Stage in all it’s glory, this is going to be where the stop motion is fimed.

Some of the characters the kids made

Some more

and more

and more

and more

here they are making them