Todo, Vista MC, Xbox 360 Multimedia Remote

TODO:

• Better antenna to pull in Buffalo stations reliably, maybe CM4221 or CM4228
• Work out some sort of permanent cabling solution from antenna on balcony
• Slim down Vista to make it more efficient on older laptop
  

My current digital cable and internet come in through an existing cable and hole from my balcony. During my tests so far, I would open my balcony door, and run a coax from the antenna to my USB tuner. If I go completely OTA (Over-the-Air), and give up my digital cable subscription, I could reuse that existing cable for my antenna; except it's supplying my internet as well, d'ohh!

I'm really trying to stick to using my older laptop as my backend server, based on the challenge, and its more power friendly to leave on, so I'm going to need to slim down Vista as much as possible, turning off unneeded services, etc. Stay tuned...

Vista Media Center:

The new interface is VERY nice, smooth, although I didn't use MC2005 very much, so I'm not sure if there's any downgrades in the Vista version. The new interface is much like a certain handheld's interface, sliding efficiently left-right, top-bottom. The navigation can be slow at times, mostly when my PC 'Mono' gets bogged down, but does seem much better in #5728.

After transferring my music collection to Mono's external 40GB drive, I ran Album Art Fixer to correct the missing cover art, and got about 80% fixed, but the remaining ones stand out like missing teeth in MC. I think MC relies on the AlbumArt_{XXX}.jpg format, whereas Media Player will use it or 'folder.jpg'.

Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote:

I bought it due to the fact that using the gamepad was a pain. While watching DVD's it was always powered down when needed, and with the addition of Live TV and Media Center, I thought it was worth the convience. It's pretty nice, backlit keys, but only supports operating a TV and the Xbox360; no receivers, dvd players, etc. Being able to hit the green MC button, and have the XBox360 power up, and go directly into Media Center is very nice.