Windows Media Center

One of Media Center's shortcomings is the lack of native support for metadata management. Enter Media Center Master. This free application can be configured to pull cover art and other metadata, such as movie synopsis, director info, etc directly from the Internet to be displayed in your native Movie Library. MCM will also pull metadata for TV shows and you can also use it in conjunction with MediaBrowser.

Read the full Media Center Master post over at How to Geek.

As a Media Center enthusiast I found this article from GeekTonic very interesting. The article talks about Paul Thurott's recent way-too-early preview of Windows 8, in which Thurott indicates Microsoft may be moving away from TV tuner card support since recent trends have entertainment shifting more towards the web and web based applications.

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Some Metadata managing apps like Media Center Master and YAMMM require your movie folders to be in individual (and correctly named) folders so that they can  properly store metadata and cover art. Even the default Media Center library works on the same principal. So what the heck do you do if you have a large collection of movie files in a single directory? File2Folder to the rescue. This handy little application will take each movie file, create an identically named folder, and move the movie file into that folder. A huge time saver to say the least.

Check out my full write up at How to Geek or download File2Folder and have a go yourself.

If you use Windows Media Center on a dual monitor or multi-monitor system you may be aware that WMC "traps" the mouse so that you cannot work on the other monitor. This is a big annoyance for Media Center users who enjoy a little entertainment while browsing the web or doing a little work.  Fortunately there is a little app called the Maxifier that eliminates this "trapping" and let's you run Media Center in full screen mode on any monitor. It also offers additional options and customizable hot keys. There is a stable version (1.4) for Vista Media Center and a Beta version (1.5) for Windows 7.

This is a really simple little app that solves a big annoyance for many Media Center users. You can download it and give it a whirl here, or read my full write up on The Maxifier at How-To Geek.

This is a bit of a follow up on my previous article on how to play VIDEO_TS and VOB files in Windows 7 Media Center. The first time I focused mainly on how to play the DVD rips using the Media Browser plug-in for WMC. This time around, I'm going to focus specifically on ripping your DVD to play in the native Windows 7 Media Center Movie Library.

Once again, I'm going to use DVDFab's HD Decrypter to rip the DVD, but we're going to adjust some settings so that HD Decrypter creates an xml file that we can use to automatically pull cover art and metadata for our movie collection in the native Movie Library.

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So, you'd like to cut the commercials out of some of your recorded TV programs? There aren't too many programs around that can edit Windows 7 Media Center's Recorded TV (.WTV) files. Before you go digging through Google looking for answers or dropping some cash for a fancy program, you might want to check out this little Windows application that might be right under your nose.

I'll admit it. Initially, I didn't even think about trying movie maker to edit Windows 7's WTV or DVR-MS files. The general consensus solution for editing WTV files was to convert them to DVR-MS files, then use any of a variety of apps to cut commercials, or save favorite clips. While I was perusing the online help files in Windows Live Movie Maker, I noticed WTV as one of the supported file types. I immediately grabbed a couple files, imported them into WLMM and gave it a try. Sure enough, it worked, and it really didn't take very long.

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