The title says it all.  I went to copy the new Hulu Desktop application to my NAS drive on my unRAID server yesterday afternoon and was met with a Windows I/O error.  Immediately, I logged into the unRAID web interface and saw the dreaded red button next to the old 320GB Maxtor IDE drive that served as my NAS storage drive.  I then used Putty to log in, started up the included Midnight Commander application and began copying everything over to an empty 500GB drive that was already added and on standby.  Just FYI, a mouse is recognized and usable within Midnight Commander when executed in a Putty session – much easier to work with.

This morning I finished removing the failed drive from the array and noticed that my 30GB cache drive was showing up as unformatted.  Sigh.  I removed it too.  I wondered if maybe that cache drive was failing because there was no NAS assigned to it any longer, but I didn’t want to hurt my head thinking about all that.  I considered the old Promise PCI controller too, but there were errors showing up on the old NAS drive, so I discounted that.  In the end, I don’t really care.  I’m sort of glad to be getting back off the PCI bus, but I can’t add anymore drives now until I can spring for an entire new enclosure.   I do have one picked out that’s considerably less than what I’ve been buying, however.  The ST5X1PM-B at Addonics.com for $189.95 looks pretty good.  It doesn’t have the removable trays, but I honestly haven’t enjoyed their convenience enough to pay an extra $100 for them again.  I think I have enough storage left over until birthday time comes.  I think that Maxtor may have some warranty left on it too 9and they’ve since been bought by Seagate, who I’m pretty loyal to now)…

Anyway, long story short, I encountered my first ‘recongized’ failure with unRAID and it performed 100% as advertised.  No data lost and only a few minutes of downtime.

Yaggs, the author of the SecondRun.tv plugin, has added another addition to the Media Center pluing library – HuluDesktopWMC.

I have not tried it out yet, but basically this is a small plugin that places the Hulu Desktop interface within Media Center.  Since Hulu Desktop works with a remote, it apparently provides a somewhat seemless interaction between the two.

Anyway, reports say it works in both VMC and 7MC, so that’s some good news.  It also requires Hulu Desktop to be installed and there is a coupe of small configurations you have to initiate in order for it to work properly.  You can more info at the TGB thread on it or the official SecondRun.tv site.  Download also available at the latter link.

Yes, I realize I’ve been nonexistent for the past couple of weeks, but the weather is nice and my interests have swayed outdoors.  This leaves me out-of-the-loop when it comes to HTPC-related material.  However,  I did find some time today to take the recently updated ImagesByName Project files and incorporate them with my own personal updates to generate a new base file.

I tried to make a large update, but I couldn’t find a way to discern between the IBN project updates and my own.  I pretty much handle my own image additions and don’t necessarily want the IBN files overwriting my own and vice versa.  So, I decided to just make a new base file available here and start with new updates from that point.  I will leave the old files available also.

I signed up for a new free webhost to serve these files.  It looks pretty good and you may want to check them out if you want a free site of your own, for whatever reason.  Hit up 000Webhost.com and look at their free plan.

Anyway, the new base file is available in the downloads section.  Just download it and overwrite your current files.  Make sure you have the file named IBN_Base_3-29-09.rar.

EDIT:

After seeing several downloads of the old ImagesByName.rar over the past hour, I wanted to make it clear that if you’re starting from scratch or want the latest images, then the IBN_Base-3-29-09.rar file is all that you need! All previous files are older than what is in the May 29th base package.  I’m only leaving those files up until the next update to the May 29th base.

Also, the new base file download is right at 200MB.

I know I haven’t been around much lately, but I’ve been way too busy with life (good thing).  I did want to bring this breaking news before I run back off into obscurity.

Microsoft just announced that Netflix is now an official part of the Vista Media Center experience.  While there is unfortunately no extender support, this is still a huge addition to those of us who have WatchNow!

You can read more about it over at TGB in this announcement.

This is supposed to be an automatic update that is pushed out over the next 48 hours.  I have not yet received it, but I’m watching quite impatiently for it.

Here’s a nice little video showing it in action:

Netflix for VMC

dgaust over at TGB just posted  a link to his trailer application.  It looks pretty good, but I can’t say that I’ve used any trailer applications yet (I don’t have the space to spare to store a bunch of trailers…I’d rather stream them).

Read about it and download it here.

I don’t have much info on it, but JackLuminous, the developer for the Video Library, has posted a link with some screenshots of his new 2.0 alpha build that has yet to be released.  You can see them here.  It looks pretty good.

No word on when it will be released yet, but he does mention there are a few more things to complete before considering it.  You can keep track if its status in this thread at TGB.  Skip pages to the 90s for recent developments (it’s a long thread).

Some pretty good bug fixes and a couple of new features were implemented in the latest beta of unRAID (4.5b5), released yesterday.  Complete release notes are here.  Download here.

I don’t post too much about unRAID anymore, but that’s not to be considered a negative against it.  I still believe it is the best media server platform available.  I can’t imagine anyone being unhappy with it if given an unbiased trial run.  Sure, it has its downsides, but so so does everything.  After using Windows server platforms, I find unRAID has much fewer downsides as a pure media server.

I came across this little add-in a while ago and although it doesn’t pose much of a use for me, I’m sure many of you will find it a godsend.

It’s called PowerPlaylist and was created by Media Center guru Charlie Owen.  So, what does this thing do?  I’ll just give you the CodePlex excerpt explaining it,

“PowerPlaylist adds a custom Start Menu strip with up to five tiles to Windows Media Center in Windows Vista. Each tile represents an audio, slideshow and / or visualization combination which will start when the tile is selected. PowerPlaylist is very customizable by the consumer using the PowerPlaylist Editor, including the title of the custom Start Menu strip and the name, image, audio source, slideshow folder and visualization for each tile.”

If this sounds interesting to you, there are both Vista and Windows 7 versions available in the Releases box to the right on this page.

First, I want to say that this post does not have anything to do with hardware acceleration.  If you’re playing MKV files within 7MC and want to subtitles, you’re not going to get it.  What I do want to say in this post is that Shark007’s codec pack for Windows 7 x64 (using v1.1.5 x64 Components release) now includes DirectVOBSub as a working component for the x64 Windows Media Player.  It is not enabled by default, but no longer requires the hack to get subtitles working.

Just run the Settings Application with administrator priviledges and make sure DirectVobSub is selected at the bottom right of the Config tab.  That’s it!

I have never been a fan of codec packs and I still am not.  I’m not going to criticize anyone for their preferences, but I have never seen the need for anything more than ffdshow when it comes to Media Center.  It does it all and it does it well.  That is why I can only recommend Shark007’s codec packs if you insist on using one.  When it comes to 7MC, I’d have to say that this codec pack is a ‘must have’.

Check out his site…there’s more there than just this codec pack!

As much time as I spend reading the Media Browser forums, I don’t know how I missed this little utility posted nearly a week ago.  psouza4 (Pete) has developed another little metadata fetching utility for Media Browser that incorporates many different movie title sources (primarily tMDb and IMDb).  This is nice since I actually prefer info from IMDb, while I grab actors and backdrops from tMDB using MetaBrowser.

The application download, forum thread and complete info is here.  Grab it and see what you think!

Update:

I’ve just been informed that Pete has decided to rename his Media Center Master and he will be registering a domain to host this project.  Stay on the lookout since there is apparently more to come from this application!