2Windows Media Center eHome LogoFull 7MC codec setup

Published by & filed under Codecs, Misc Media Software, Windows Media Center. Last updated .

I’ve pre­vi­ously pos­ted sev­er­al times about codec issues on 7mc, but I’ve now got a solu­tion that is com­pre­hens­ive, fairly simple and works con­sist­ently.  With a few free codecs and util­it­ies you can have full decod­ing sup­port, DXVA, sub­titles and fant­ast­ic flex­ib­il­ity work­ing in 64bit (or 32bit) Media Cen­ter.  The fol­low­ing instruc­tions are spe­cif­ic to the x64 edi­tion, but should work just as well on the 32bit edition.
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0Quizdom LogoQuizdom tablet “video capture” not working

Published by & filed under Misc Software. Last updated .

I was asked to invest­ig­ate why some video cap­ture util­ity which is part of the soft­ware pack­age for the Quiz­dom Tab­let was­n’t load­ing cor­rectly on a par­tic­u­lar laptop. Invest­ig­a­tion revealed that quiz­dom used the XviD codec and installs it as part of its setup routine. The laptop in ques­tion already had a video codec installed that was cap­able of decod­ing XviD videos, and this pri­or codec had a high­er mer­it than the XviD nat­ive codec installed by quiz­dom. Dis­abling XviD sup­port in this codec proved to be the solu­tion. Any­one with the stan­dalone MPC-HC codecs or ffd­show installed may come across this problem

0GATSO Speed Camera LogoTomTom speedcam alerts — inc eurozone

Published by & filed under Misc Software. Last updated .

Like many people I use a TomTom sat nav, and I’m a big fan of the speed cam­era data­base provided by Pock­et­G­PSWorld.  It is also pos­sible to down­load some nice alerts from PGPSW, but I find the beeps are rather annoy­ing, and the max­im­um speed sup­por­ted is 70, which is fine for the UK, but isn’t very help­ful for maps of Europe.  As a res­ult I have mashed togeth­er an altern­at­ive set that I think are much nicer.  Get them from the [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]downloads[/intlink] page.  They work for both UK and Euro maps.  The Euro ones go up to 130.  Both sets have a nicer voice (female) and a nicer alert beep.  By all means try them out.  They install and oper­ate exactly the same as the ones offered by PGPSW, if you need help installing them have a look there.

0Dell 3130CN LogoAdding a print icon to print individual blog posts

Published by & filed under Web Technologies. Last updated .

In addi­tion to this blog I also have a blog about recipes.  I decided that I wanted a print icon on the main page for each post so that people can print the recipes.  Googling provided vari­ous sug­ges­tions, none of which worked.  How­ever, I even­tu­ally cobbled togeth­er the fol­low­ing, which seems to work…
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0UK Channel LogosChannel Logos (formerly on Theme7mc.com)

Published by & filed under Windows Media Center. Last updated .

The Theme7mc site seems to have been pulled, and loc­at­ing the resources that used to be on it isn’t straight-for­ward.  As a former con­trib­ut­or I was keen to find where the con­tents had gone and am pleased I can point people to the Theme7mc archive post on Hack7mc.com where they can all be found.

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0Wireless WiFi 802.11 ABGN LogoResolved: Wireless video streaming problem

Published by & filed under Misc Hardware. Last updated .

I have a very strange issue which is caus­ing prob­lems play­ing videos over a wireless‑n net­work.  Play­ing the videos causes the net­work to drop out after a short peri­od.  Some­times this only lasts for 2–3 seconds, which just causes a video stut­ter.  Oth­er times the drop out is more per­man­ent and takes nearly a minute to recov­er, unless the wire­less radio is switched off and back on, whereupon recon­nec­tion occurs.
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0Nexus RealSilent 120 Orange Fan LogoStability issues

Published by & filed under Misc Hardware. Last updated .

I’ve been hav­ing some sta­bil­ity issues with my HTPC recently. A rein­stall did­n’t help so I con­cluded it was hard­ware. Remov­ing all non essen­tials did­n’t help either so I figured it must be CPU, memory or mobo related. Noth­ing is over­clocked or tweaked and its all fairly recent brand name kit. I stress tested the CPU and memory without caus­ing either to fail, but I con­tin­ued to get occa­sion­al lockups and inter­mit­tent slug­gish performance.
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0Media Player Classic - Home Cinema LogoMPC-HC

Published by & filed under Misc Media Software. Last updated .

Just a very quick note — The latest ver­sion of media play­er clas­sic home cinema and the stan­dalone codecs seem rather elu­sive. The place to go for alpha and beta releases is XvidVideo.ru