MCE Backup 2.0 (for Vista Media Center + MCE2005)

 

Ian Dixon has just released a (beta) update to his MCE Backup tool – 2.0 (v0.5) – which now supports Windows Vista Media Center!

 

This is a very cool app – and provides some really useful management/backup features for those of you playing with Media Center (and invaluable if you are migrating/upgrading machines from MCE2005). By the sounds of it Ian had to do some fancy footwork to get everything working under Vista’s new security model.

 

 

 

Some Features (taken from Ian’s Blog)

 

Features:

• Backs up TV channel assignment
• Backs up Scheduled recordings and series recordings
• Backs up recorded TV to local drives, or networked drives (via UNC paths)
• Backup up an additional folder
• Has its own schedule engine for automating backups
• Displays the status of critical Media Center services
• Command line and GUI version available, 10 foot version coming soon
• Works with Vista and XP
• Can be used to transfer settings from one Media Center PC to another

Requires .net framework 2.0 to be installed

To download this app >>>   Click Here to Download the  .MSI Installer

And don’t forget to leave Ian some feedback too (nb: this is the best way end users can help addin developers get their apps out there and working for everyone – so don’t be shy).

The other thing that amazes me with this app – is that Ian already has a FT job, produces the Media Center Show podcast and the Media Center Extra Vodcast - so I’m wondering if he maybe has found some magic way to squeeze an extra 10 hours out of each day. (either that or he has a team of elves working away on some of this). 

 

 

Off-Topic: Petey and Jaydee Xmas video on YouTube..

 

A good friend of mine (that I’ve known since high school) – Dylan Perry from Momentum Animations - dropped around last night for some laps of Ridge Racer on the 360. 

 

Dylan, and his wife Rachael have been running a 3D animation company for a few years now – and after initially starting out on TV commercials and Music Videos – they have since produced a couple of their own shows.

 

One of which is ‘Petey & Jaydee Go Exploring’- which comprises of 45 second episodes – where two micro sized aliens ‘Petey + Jaydee’ arrive on earth and ‘discover’ various human appliances such as toasters, microwaves, shavers etc. By the end of each episode – one of the aliens always gets killed/diced up by the appliance (and of course miraculously appears again in the next episode). Petey + Jaydee has enjoyed some success around the world - and has been popular on 3G mobiles and on TV. (and its short runtime and lack of actual spoken dialog makes it work in universally). There’s I think 6 series now of this show (with 13 episodes a piece) – with each one featuring the aliens in a different location (ie Series 1 was the kitchen, Series 2 the Bathroom… and the last couple being themed – ie World Cup, Christmas etc)..

 

Dylan mentioned that he’d put up a ‘special’ Christmas music video on You Tube for Petey & Jaydee - which contains a lot of footage from the Christmas series – a funky Xmas remix tune (sung in P/J gibberish) – and is actually a lot longer then a standard episode (its about 3-4 minutes). This is somewhat of a rare treat – as you normally have to be on the right tv network/mobile network to be able to see their shows. Unfortunately the YouTube compression does it’s nasty work on the video quality so thats a small price to pay (as it actually looks pretty stunning when it’s at full DVD or HD quality).

 

So anyhow – if you have a moment – go check it out on YouTube! (and you can also see a couple of other clips by them from another Show ‘Dragonslayer Junior’).  If you like it – you can also visit their new Online Store – and buy a copy of the DVD – or some t-shirts/caps etc.. (and there’s a few episodes for internet download there too).

 

Here’s a couple of pics of Peter and Jaydee -

 

            

Something that also might be of interest with this – is that they use a 3d program called Animation Master (from Hash Inc.) to do almost everything you see (except for some of the final fancy stuff done with Adobe AfterEffects). Animation Master is distinct in that – it only costs US$299 for the full product – as opposed to $1000′s (or $10,000′s) you would pay for some of the rival products. (3D Studio, Maya etc).. So this makes it totally in reach for a lot more people – and smaller companies/developers who want to create high end 3d graphics. I think there’s a demo version available on their site – so if you’re into this sort of thing – give it a shot. (and I believe there’s a strong/active community of end users and enthusiasts for AM to help you along).

 

Using Wix 3.0 for Vista Media Center Installers..

 

Aaron Stebner has posted some really useful information on his blog for those looking at using Wix 3.0 (and Votive) to build Vista Media Center compliant .MSI Setup packages. (and is useful both for those wishing to start out with Wix – and those who have previously used Wix 2.0).

 

If you’re now building applications for Vista – you may have noticed that the Setup/Deploymenbt wizard in VS2005 no longer cuts the mustard – so Wix is a godsend..

 

I’ve been using Wix 2.0 for a little while now (and have used it to build setup packages for the past 4 Media Center apps I’ve released). After struggling to get started initially – Aaron released some sample Wix 2.0 scripts for a Media Center addin (the Q application) - and I have used this as the basis of all my installers since. I’m now really keen to try the new 3.0 features out – and the Votive addin (mentioned in Aarons post) makes it quite a bit easier – and allows you to use Visual Studio to trigger (via the Build Solution function) and edit your Wix builds (via use of XSD schemas in the Visual Studio editor).

 

I’d probably need a whole night to list all the articles on Aaron’s blog relating to MSI building – however – start with the one above – and work your way backwards. There’s quite a goldmine of information there – and covers lots of the more tricky issues – such as working with 64 bit installers/registry, .NET v3 dependancy issues just to name a few. You can also see his work/samples in the Media Center SDK (he wrote the sample Wix 2.0 scripts supplied with the Q and the Z samples) – and again are invaluable for gettings started.

 

 

 

 

A Big, Big Announcement coming for WPF 3D???

 

Ok – the suspense really is killing me..  A bunch of guys from the WPF team have hinted that something VERY BIG is going to be announced - imminently about WPF 3D (Windows Presentation Foundation).

 

This is from Daniel Lehenbauer’s Blog (the main guy who wrote the guts behind WPF 3D) :

If you’re watching the WPF blogs you might be seeing hints that something incredibly important is going to be announced tomorrow afternoon on the WPF 3D Team blog.  This is possibly the most exciting announcement related to the 3D features in the WPF since…  well, since we’ve announced WPF was going to have 3D features!

Trust me, you DO NOT want to miss this.  Subscibe to the WPF 3D Team blog now!  (RSS, Atom)

(I am really worried I haven’t built the surprise up enough.

I’m going to take a punt on what it is… (don’t go starting any roumors now – this is just speculation)..

a) I think it’s  an announcement that the cool 3D functionality from DX10 will be directly supported (ie reflections, shaders, shadows, bump mapping etc etc). Currently in WPF 3D - a ‘DX7 like’ feature set is being supported – so this would really be huge.

b) Another guess (if the above is wrong) – is that a whole additional swag of WPF 3D functionality is going to be opened up specifically for WPF/E.

c) and a ‘just in case’ guess. Microsoft are going to announce they are releasing a new tool in the Expression Suite that is focused on 3D (ie something like Zam3D but done with the same rendering technology) – and maybe even works with XNA as well..?

and then again I might be completely wrong…

The announcement might be already out by the time you read this – so try the links above.

 

<EDIT time="the next day">

Ok well I was totally wrong on all three guesses (bummer)!… 

The announcement actually was… (drumroll) …  that they have now made it possible to properly use the standard 2d controls in 3d scenes (ie you can have a textbox or slider displayed inside a 3D scene – such as wrapping it around a sphere – and it now responds to all the input methods like keyboard/mouse etc). In the past – you had to do some fancy 3d hittests etc (and write callback handlers) – in order to do anything like this (so this new ’feature’ saves a whole stack of code/pain if you are using 3D).

What’s nice about this announcement is that the have done it using the same core engine – and just extended some of the existing Viewport3D classes (which shows off just how extensible WPF is).  Anyhow – go check the links above to read all about it..

Although this is all very cool stuff – I can’t help feel the anti-climax – and think they overhyped it just a little too much. (and I was expecting something a little Bigger)..

</EDIT>

 

 

Work-In-Progess: More Big Screen TV Series (Part 2)

 

There’s been a really encouraging response to my original post on Big Screen TV Series beta (thanks to everyone who has provided comments/feedback and suggestions). I never thought I’d receive so many feature requests before I’d actually made anything available!

 

Well the good (or bad) news is I am accomodating some of these requests – so it’s now taking a little longer to get the first beta ready.

 

However – I’ve made quite a bit of progress on this addin since the first post – so thought I’d share some of the more interesting screenshots with you..

 

 

New Main Menu System

 

In the previous post – I mentioned that I wasn’t happy with the design of the initial main menu in the addin (aka the screen where  you nominate which tv series you want to look at to begin with)..

 

I played with quite a few designs – and think I’ve come up with something that works quite nicely – and "sortof" resembles the Vista MC recorded tv section with a touch of Apple Frontview (for the reflections).

 

The navigation system is also similar to the recorded tv in that the list of available items scroll left/right – and you have your standard tab buttons displayed accross the top of the screen (as the main categories). An area which I enhanced – included adding a secondary row of tabbed buttons for further filtering of the lists. (ie if the main category is ‘genre’ – then the filters would be the genres themselves such as ‘comedy’ etc).

 

There’s also multiple list views (allowing you specify the size/type of the tiles) – and in the screenshot below – a couple of these views are shown.

 

   

You will notice in the categories/filters above – there is also a ‘browse all’ category – which allows you to view series filtered (and sorted) by the status (ie. Latest Recordings, Upcoming Recordings, Unmatched episodes, etc). I have also added a placeholder category for a ‘kids’ mode. (from a user request that a ‘kids’ only mode be provided to ensure only ‘safe’ content was available over an extender).

One user has been a great help (I won’t name them for obvious reasons) – and sent me their Recordings.XML file for testing – which had over 250 series requests – and thousands of recorded file entries. This made be quickly realize I was going to have to support much larger quantities of data on screen – and not make it too cumbersome to work with. (you might recall the initial main menu screens only showed about 5 items at once)..

As I have both banner size and portrait size images to work with from the data source – one view I created has 7 rows x 4 columns – so that allows you to see up to 28 items on screen at once.

 

Below is a couple of these views demonstrated -

 

 

    

 

 

Selected Item behaviour

 

Something that I have done a little differently to other addins (and the main Media Center UI) – is that I wanted to allow people to easily perform actions on a series (such as view details – or play a latest recorded file) – without leaving this screen.

 

Unfortunately developers aren’t allowed to catch/act-on the ‘i’ (info/details etc) button being pressed from MCPL applications – which is the place this sort of feature is normally implemented elsewhere in Media Center.

 

What I came up with was that when you press OK on an item – the scrolling list bends backwards (in 3d) – and a popup dialog appears on top of the list. If the user wants to go back to the list – they just press ‘Back’ on the remote control – and the list bends back in (retaining the selected item / list state).

 

In the example below (for the TV Series ‘Weeds’) – this popup window allows you to view series details, directly play the video clips – or look at recorded files.  If the user clicks ‘View Series’ then they will be taken to the Series/Episode view screens (as previewed in my last post).

 

I included a much larger size screenshot for this (as some of the details were being lost) - however I can’t of course show off  the funky animation going on :

 

 

 

 

 

The information/Actions that comes up here is not yet finalized – and I will have other context sensitive buttons appear – (such as ‘link series’ - if it hasn’t been matched with a known tv series – or a single button to view the episode guide.)

 

In the picture above – you can see that it has located the latest recordings and next scheduled recording – and provided links for quick access. (the glowing yellow video icon also indicates that one of the episodes is new/’unwatched’).

 

I’d also like to allow users to be able use their ‘play’ buttons on their remote controls (as well as ‘OK’) to allow them to quickly play the latest recordings both from the popup or the main list.

 

 

Progress on the Big Screen Guy..

 

I also complained last time about not knowing what to do with the big screen guy.. I figured tv arials etc were too hard to draw – so I went for something even simpler – a red dot!…

 

My first effort was as follows :

 

 

 

Then I got this feeling that people would maybe think I’d drawn a tellytubby – or worse – the red dot was actually something ‘rude’ …..

 

So I worked up my courage – and managed to draw another red dot… (to represent the series record) – this time replacing the big screen guy’s head..

 

 

 

I’m quite happy with this one now (ok the line thickness etc is all over the place) – but the general concept is there.

 

Ok – I’m going to get back to coding again – so hope you enjoy the new screenshots!

 

Thanks again to everyone who commented – and keep them coming (even if I don’t get your request in for the first beta – I can start to ensure the addin’s design will allow for it in a future version)…

 

 

Work-In-Progress: Big Screen TV Series

 

Ok – no blog entries for a few days?… Yep I’m still here – but I’ve been busy – heads down tails up on a new MCPL addin for Vista Media Center (blogging/forum/email time has been limited – and a good night’s sleep has been elusive these past few days – and all my other addin work has been put on temporary hold).

 

 

What is Big Screen TV Series?

 

This is an addin I’m really excited about – and the best way to maybe explain it is – what My Movies does for DVD libraries – this does for your collection of TV Series videos/recordings.

 

Basically, this addin works by monitoring all your Past/Future Recorded TV Files (and non dvr-ms content like DivX etc) – and extracting the TV Series related information.

 

From there – Big Screen TV Series will download (from a massive database hosted the internet) comprehensive Series information – like Episode Guides, Imagery, Overviews + Cast/Crew/Writer information (both at Series and Episode level) – and then mash it up to give you a really easy way to watch, view and manage it all. You can also choose from multiple Banners/Images – or BYO jpeg’s.

 

Here’s a couple of screenshots (main menu on left – episode guide view on right)

 

      

And in these screenshots – on the left is the Cast/Crew view on an episode – and on the right is the recorded files view for this Episode.

      

 

I’m 90% happy with the look/feel of the UX – however the I’m planning a big redesign of the Starting Page (Main Menu) – which I don’t think works as well with the standard Column of Buttons/Items layout you see above.

 

The tab buttons on the side is someting that works really well (although you can’t see the animations in these pictures) – they are similar to the XBox360 dashboard buttons (so they Bend towards you when you select them).

 

 

Auto Matching of your Videos to Episodes/Series

The program also has a few smarts – such as the ability to auto match your recorded TV Files (and future scheduled recordings) with episodes from the Episode Guide. This way it makes easy to track/manage what you have and haven’t watched – and ensures you don’t accidently watch episodes out of order – or that the network doesn’t start showing old repeats without warning (and if you are Australian – tv networks like Channel 9 are notorious for doing this). There’s also a wizard for linking Episodes to your local Files – if an auto match isn’t possible (ie there are enough typo’s in the EPG’s data to prevent the matching process from being successful).

The screenshots below show the Recorded and Scheduled file views for a Series. In the Recorded File view on left – the Video icon indicates whether the show has been ‘watched’ as well (which is also used in other pages to help you quickly find new unwatched episodes). Note that the Episode Numbers are matched for most Recorded TV Files – including an upcoming scheduled recording.

 

      

 

 

 

Inbuilt Management/Configuration (no external Desktop Tools Required)

One of the hardest parts of this addin has been the configuration/management wizards and screens – a task which I wanted to be accessible from with the MediaCenter addin (and not an external tool). Some of these are multiple step wizards and do background threaded downloading of data etc – which has been a lot more complex to write/debug then the general screens. (and hence these are the main parts I’m still working on for an initial beta release).

 

The screens below show some of this in action. 

 

 (Top Left) the More.. screen for a Season (allows you to manage links, banners etc) 

 (Top Right) Search results when linking a series (Jericho was searched for)  

 (Bottom) Search in progress (the green progress bar shows the percentage complete and the wheel spins around)..
 

      

 

      

 

 

 

Tech Stuff..

 

As mentioned at the start – this addin is developed for MCPL (Media Center Presentation Layer) – however one thing I’m doing quite differently is that I am using a single core MCML page for the entire program. (which navigates to itself with different Actions/Parameters). This is done almost exclusively by using repeaters/scrollers (with ContentSelectors) – not just the main content list – but also for the tab buttons, headers, details etc. Using this design also tranfers a lot of what would normally be done in MCML (via Rules and custom UI elements etc) into managed .NET code – so the MCML is a lot smaller then usual. Additionally a lot of the command creation/handling is now done within code.

I’m quite happy with this framework – however some of the ModelItem based classes are getting quite large – so I aim to refine the architecture somewhat to make it all manageable.

 

One thing that has given me a TOG (ton of grief) – has been working with the scroller – and switching between Static and Focusable UI items. The scroller is doing all sorts of strange things at the moment for Static content (focusable items are fine) – such as scrolling in the wrong direction sometimes. (more work required on this – and maybe I will just create a seperate scroller for static content and hide/unhide the appropriate one).. I’m trying to figure out how I can make a real Voodoo doll of the scroller element so I can stick some pins in whenever it causes me grief (ok.. maybe this is getting obsessive…)

 

 

What to do with the Big Screen Guy?

 

If you have been following my addins for Media Center – you’ll noticed that there’s a ‘guy’ being used for all the logos/branding. I’m planning to write a blog post one day about this ‘Big Screen Guy’ (no I don’t yet have a pet name that ends with an ‘eee’ – ie moki, loki)…

 

Anyhow – my challenge on each addin I write is to somehow dress up the Big Screen Guy icon with something that relates to the addin. (ie. In Big Screen Headlines – the guy is reading a newspaper, in Big Screen Contacts there’s a few of them to indicate your friends etc). I’m no graphic designer so I’m limited to very simple shapes – and also want to keep in line with the iconic type design.

 

I’m not altogether happy with what I made so far - the general idea being that the guy has ‘Square Eyes’ (from watching to much TV) – and has a TV arial coming out of his head.  Anyhow here’s what I came up with so far…

 

 

Yep - the guy looks kinda like an alien (not what I was trying to convey at all)… hmm… definitely some more work required there.. (Any Suggestions anyone? – keeping in mind I can’t draw – so it’s gotta be made of simple shapes)…

 

 

 

So when can we play with it?

 

Ok – I’m hoping to have a private beta out before the end of the week (if I can lock down and finalize the set of functionality I am happy with). As with other addins – this means a few select people will get to have a play days/weeks before its launched – and hopefully help iron out any showstopper bugs – before I unleash it to the general public.

 

I’ll put out a notice/emails when I’m ready to accept some private beta testers.. so stay tuned for this..

 

Also – it’s entirely possible I’m going to change the title of this addin to something else… (not sure if Big Screen TV Series really rolls off the toungue)..

 

Anyhow – hope you’re excited by this addin too.. I think this is something that has been missing and wanted from my own Media Center for a long time – so I can’t wait to finish it and get it out there – and of course use it myself!..