Windows 7 Media Center + Extender vs. Mac OS X + AppleTV = not a fair fight.
I am a long-time Apple TV user, stubbornly making Apple's "hobby" useful in my home theater with an array of hacks and community developments -- despite their efforts to keep it locked up. I found that, once hacked, it was the most flexible and elegant thing out there for getting my media from my computer to my TV. With Windows 7, and my unabashed enthusiasm for it, I decided to give Windows Media Center another try. What I discovered puts my hard-hacked Apple TV solution to shame...
OS X + AppleTV
To start with, the Apple TV is a good iTunes Store device. If you're happy consuming only the content Apple offers through their store, and want a way to get it on your TV, its a good solution.
No one gets all their content through iTunes, though, so enter the Patchstick. With it you can unlock Apple TV's OS X potential, allowing SMB or AFS file sharing with your computer, run an app called Sapphire to put a pretty face on your media library, and even install Boxee to get access to a number of additional Internet-delivered content providers.
Hacked, the Apple TV is a very useful device, and as long as you don't mind trailing Apple's updates by a couple weeks to a couple months, using it along-side a Mac and an iPhone/iPod touch its a elegant and cohesive solution -- most of the time. Add an Airport Express or two in some other rooms, and you have a whole-home music and video set-up.
The biggest complaint I had is that the FrontRow experience pales compared to the Apple TV. In our set-up the computer doubled as the bedroom media center, and while it was nice that both the home theater and our bedroom could share the same media, the experience lost cohesiveness at the computer...
On the Mac -- the more powerful device -- we'd frequently be switching between FrontRow, the Finder and iTunes to manage content. I couldn't imagine using a Mac as a home-theater-only device; you constantly need to pick up the keyboard and mouse. The Mac itself was essentially unaware of the AppleTV, save for syncing content. And FrontRow is essentially unaware of the iTunes Store. Its like Apple isn't really sure where an actual computer fits into the scenario.
I used a Rube-Goldberg device of RSS > Google Reader > Google Reader Notifier > Transmission BitTorrent client to get my subscription-delivered content -- a fragile chain that broke not infrequently -- and an AppleScript scheduled via iCal to keep the file system clear of stale content.
Updates on the Apple TV became a management nightmare -- the device is under-powered to begin with, so every couple months it would need a wipe and restore. When that happens, expect to carve out a couple hours to get the hacks back into place. On top of that, the stinking device doesn't have an On/Off switch, so I had to co-ordinate timers and CRON jobs to keep it healthy and prevent it from sucking through my power bill.
Don't get me wrong. Its workable. Its lightyears ahead of what your cable company offers. And it is pretty slick when its all working - no one can accuse Apple of making ugly UIs. It looks good. If you already have a Mac, you can pick up an AppleTV for pretty cheap, and get started at a reasonably low cost. But since you can't do much without hacking, this isn't a solution I'd expect my parents to use.
WMC 7 + XBox Media Center Extender
The reason I've stayed away from Windows Media Center, and its Extenders, in the past, is that I'd constantly hit a brick wall trying to use content not natively supported. It felt cludgy, and its use of what was essentially Remote Desktop Protocol just seemed like a half-hearted attempt.
A lot has changed in Windows 7. It natively supports MP4, and DivX AVIs, so right out of the box it plays almost anything you throw at it -- no hacking needed. Its still pretty much RDP under the hood, but that technology has matured to the point where you don't even notice it any more. In fact, because it ensures a consistent experience between the Extender and the PC, its actually a good thing.
The approach is different than the Apple TV -- the Extender is a function of the computer. While the AppleTV can do things that FrontRow can't do, in the Microsoft scenario, the Extender is somewhat dumb. Turns out, this is fine. I expect my PC to be more powerful than my TV. But there's not a whole lot of compromise. Some of the Extras don't appear on my TV, and a few menu options are left out when shown on the Extender. Otherwise, the experience is the same.
The two most important things about Windows Media Center are that it's consistent across devices, and it's extensible across devices:
- It's so consistent that I can pause a movie downstairs on the big TV, go upstairs and resume the show where I left off from the bedroom.
- It's so extensible that I don't have to hack it to add plug-ins, or new functionality -- I just run an installer on my PC, and both it, and my Extender device are instantly upgraded.
A low-end XBox costs less than an Apple TV, is way more powerful and responsive, has an Off switch, and oh ya... it plays great games too. Everything "just works" together: you plug it in, follow a pairing process no more complicated than the Apple TV requires, and within seconds all your content -- regardless of source -- is available. There are dozens of online content providers built right into Windows Media Center, and others can be added on simply by even a novice computer user.
I use a uTorrent on the PC with the RSS functionality built-in for my subscribed content, which shows up in the "Pictures + Videos" section of WMC instantly. And best of all, I put the keyboard and mouse away, because I can do pretty much all common media management tasks on the PC right from my remote.
Not a Fair Fight
Apple really only has their toes in the water here, and Microsoft has been working up to Windows 7 for quite awhile. But while Apple has the iTunes Store and the devices, Microsoft's only real asset in this arena is the XBox. Apple could, if they chose, offer a cohesive PC/TV/Mobile media acquisition and consumption strategy, but I think they're genuinely unsure of where the computer should fit into the picture -- they prefer a locked-down environment, but a full computer gives the user more control than they're comfortable with -- so they've moved timidly into the living room.
Microsoft has chosen a more open path, with any number of Extender devices, (you don't have to buy an XBox -- other devices will do the same job) a broader array of native media types, and extensibility offered to other content providers besides their own store. Windows 7 is really good, and Windows 7 Media Center trumps everything else out there, hands down.
Full Disclosure
Despite being a Microsoft employee, my job has nothing to do with Windows Media Center or XBox. Aside from employee pricing in the company store, there's no perk for me to use the Microsoft offering over anyone elses, and no job expectation that I will do so. I choose freely what technology goes into my home, and I have a very heterogenerous network, with Macs, PCs and other devices playing happily on my WiFi -- check out my tag cloud: I like Apple stuff!
For a long time I stuck with the Apple TV because, once hacked, it was the best solution out there -- regardless of who I work for. That is no longer the case. Windows Media Center 7 with an Extender is a better, more elegant, more flexible and more cohesive solution. Don't believe me? Try it out -- I think you'll see, as I did, that in this round, Windows is the clear winner.
Apple’s Pippin Game System booting to Marathon
One of Apple's dazzling failures, the Pippin @World or Atmark, produced by Bandai (the Power Rangers people) and briefly by Katz Media, was to be a TV set-top box/game system with Internet connectivity. It was a barely disguised PowerPC-based Mac, with modified (ruggedized) ADB ports, and flash memory in place of a hard drive. It ran a modified version of Mac OS 7.5.2 which was contained, in its entirety, on each game CD.
Here's a Pippin booting to the classic Bungie game, Marathon...
Windows Phone 7 Series
So the cat is slowly climbing out of the bag on Windows Phone 7 Series. I think I'm allowed to say that I've seen it, and that its awesome. The initial set of information was announced at MWC, to pretty rave reviews.
I'm new to blogging about Microsoft, so I won't say any more, for fear of messing up. Follow CKindel on Twitter, and plan to be at MIX 2010 if you're interested in learning more about this pretty revolutionary step in mobile device interaction.
Stream Video to your iPod or iPhone
Looking for a simple way to stream your (non-iTunes) video library to your iPhone or iPod touch over WiFi? Check out Air Video from InMethod.
The server app transcodes your media on-the-fly so you can consume formats the iPhone OS doesn't support. The newest version even offers experimental web-delivery. The app comes in two parts -- the server that runs on your Mac or PC, and the Client that you install on your mobile device. The server advertises itself over Bonjour, so there's virtually no set-up involved. In practice, files that need conversion before playing start-up on my iPhone within about 30 seconds.
The free client can view only 3 videos from your server. The $2.99 full version has no limits. I'd love to see additional mobile devices exported, but otherwise I'm very satisfied with my purchase.
Windows 7 is Good
Quite simply Windows 7 is really, really good. So good, in fact, that it finally gives my Mac a run for its money. Its a maturation of Vista -- eliminating many of the annoyances, while introducing some great new ideas -- but still not going after some of the more ambitious technologies that were dropped from Vista by the time it was released. In short, this is a cleaned-up Vista -- not a whole new OS.
Still, there are a few things new that are worth the learning curve... and maybe a couple that they probably could still stand to improve.
Good
- The new Taskbar is fantastic. If the Mac OS Dock and the Windows XP Taskbar had a baby, it would look like the Windows 7 Taskbar.
It does take a bit to get used to, but I think most people are going to love it. Just like in OS X, your favorite applications get left on the bar -- whether they're running or not, they're sitting there waiting to be invoked. This drastically reduces the number of times you have to dig into the Start Menu to find something you use all the time. Running applications are shown on the Taskbar as before -- in place if you'd already had them there, sequentially if not. They can be re-sorted while running, and the icon indicates if there's more than one window open. Aero Peek lets you look at each of those windows to decide which one you want to bring to the top. - On a related note, the WinTray is being re-vamped. This is the list of icons next to the clock on your Taskbar. The new behaviour isn't enforced by Windows, so its up to application developers to change how their app runs, so this transition will be slow. But the eventual goal is to reduce clutter in the WinTray. The application icon in the Taskbar is now the source of notifications and contextual controls. Right clicking on a properly implemented Taskbar icon will invoke the application's menu of actions, and the icon itself can change to a "needy" color to get your attention.
Some icons will still belong in the WinTray but, as in Vista and XP, you get control of what ones show up.
If you're used to looking for status notifications next to the clock, this is going to be an adjustment. I've already missed a few IMs because I wasn't watching my Taskbar icons -- and this is maybe my first complaint. The "needy" state is shown with a fairly subtle orange glow. It looks pretty, but its not nearly as attention-grabbing as the bouncing/badgeable Dock icon in OS X. - The Control Panel continues to get cleaned-up, and that's always a good thing. But I've never liked how Windows, by default, hides control panels into categories. This introduces a "beginner" and "advanced" mode for the Control Panel, which is a UI no-no. Just make the default UI better, guys!
- Networking is really cool now. Apple's use of ZeroConf is insanely great, and I wish everyone would implement it, but Microsoft has done a fantastic job of a more brute-force auto-discovery. It finds all sorts of devices on my network, and then uses the Internet to look up more information about them. Vista had a similar feature, and it was cool, but Windows 7's is even cooler.
- Libraries are a little awkward, but I think they're a step in the right direction. Most people don't actually keep all their documents in "My Documents" and most people don't actually keep all their pictures in "My Pictures." Libraries let you mark any folder as belonging to the Documents/Pictures/etc... library, automatically indexing them for fast searching and easier retrieval from the Start Menu. Even network shares can belong to a Library, as long as their set-up for offline use.
- Boot times and wake-up times are much faster than Vista. We have a small laptop with a slow hard drive. With Vista, waking up from sleep was painful. We'd open the lid, have a meal, and by the time we were finished it would be ready to use. In Windows 7 boot is noticeably faster, wake is exponentially faster.
- Actually, everything feels snappier in Windows 7. Apparently, it doesn't benchmark any better, but they've moved more of the UI processing to the GPU, allowing the system to feel more responsive, even if its working hard in the background. Mac OS X made similar moves starting in OS X 10.4, and Vista did make a big deal of GPU use, but with Windows 7 they really seem to have gotten it right. I use my machine hard, and its very rare that the UI ever feels blocked or sluggish.
- There are other cool features buried in Windows 7, but I predict that the average home user won't be touching them any time soon: media streaming is pretty cool, but you have to have a pretty Microsoft-centric household for it to be useable. Media sharing continues to improve, as does the Media Center, but these are somewhat niche features at the moment.
Not As Good
- Networking is still frustrating. If your network provides a happy, simple path to connecting, you won't have any issues with Windows 7. If you need to do any advanced configuration, you'll be frustrated that, yet again, getting to the actual Network Connection properties is even further hidden from you than in Vista. Its great that things have been simplified, but sometimes I want to right click on the connection and manually change some settings. Windows 7 seems determined to make that difficult. No other OS does this, and Windows shouldn't either.
- They've removed a lot of the cruft that used to come with the OS. This is generally a great idea, but I miss a couple things. For one, there's no Mail client that ships with Windows. None at all. You're supposed to go download Windows Live Mail. I understand why they did this, but sometimes its handy to have a quick and dirty mail client built-in. Similarly, Vista introduced a Calendar app, and Windows 7 discarded it. Calendaring in OS X with Apple's built-in iCal is wonderful, supported system-wide, integrated well with all their apps, and supports open standards for publishing and subscribing. Vista's Calendar seemed like a tentative step in that direction, but then they abandoned it in Windows 7 and offered no alternative -- save for Microsoft Outlook. One might be led to think that they were wary of doing Calendaring right at the OS-level because it might cannibalize sales of Microsoft Office.
- The Start Menu continues to be a pet peeve of mine in Windows. I like the concept -- in fact, I usually adjust my Macs to have a Start Menu-like folder in the Dock -- but I absolutely hate the way Microsoft insists on organizing it. Even if you try to re-organize it, apps will put themselves back where Microsoft thinks they should go. This is not unique to Windows 7, but I sure wish they'd fix it.
There are some improvements here though -- with pinned apps now being able to expose pop-out menus of recent documents, even if they're not running. - Windows Media Player. Really, does anyone understand the UI on that app? I launch it to watch movies, and close it as soon as the movie is done, because just looking at the interface gives me a headache. Also, why can't I hit spacebar to Play/Pause my show? Why do I have to fumble around for the mouse, then acquire the relatively small Play button?
And that's it... that's all I can think of that bugs me. Over-all Windows 7 is rock solid, super stable (Explorer crashes on me maybe once a week, but starts right back up where I left off.) I've yet to see a blue screen, or have driver issues. In fact, they've drastically improved driver handling, and I don't think I've even once had to look in Device Manager (although a friend trying to install on a slightly older machine has reported some headaches, so YMMV.)
For the install itself, I did a clean install, rather than an upgrade from Vista. Upgrades are supported, but clean is so much better. The whole thing was pain-free, took less than half-an-hour, and left me with no concerns about whether or not I'd configured everything right. In fact, it was quite like an OS X install -- just point at the drive you want it on, and let it rip. No questions asked, it just works.
If you're running Vista right now, you need to go Windows 7.
If you're running Windows XP on newer hardware, you need to go Windows 7 to get the most out of your machine.
If its an older machine, and its running XP well, maybe you should just stick with what works. But when you're ready to upgrade, you'll want Windows 7.
In short, Windows 7 is for everyone. Maybe you don't need it today, and I wouldn't throw out a Mac for Windows 7, but the two OSes really do stand shoulder-to-shoulder now, and I'm happy to have Windows 7 in my technology family.
Resolving missing dependencies when building a NeXTStep/OpenStep App
If you've played around with NextStep/OpenStep trying to build a sample app -- say, so you can find out how much OS X/the iPhone is like those sweet black machines of yesteryear -- you might have an error like this one, when attempting to build a sample app you've created: AppKit.h not found (or any one of the other billion header files that are missing)
This may mean an incomplete installation of the Developer tools. Here's what to do:
- From the Developer CD, open the NextCD folder and then Packages.
- From the Services menu, use Open Sesame to open the Package as Root
- Install the Package to its default file locations.
Now, in your project in PB, you may need to tell the compiler where to find those libraries.
- From the Tools menu, open the Inspector and look at the Build Attributes.
- Under Framework Search Order, Set... a new path to where those files just got installed: /NextLibrary/Frameworks
- Do the same for Header Search Order, but use /NextDeveloper/Headers
Now you should be able to Build in Project Builder! Note that PB doesn't have a "Build and Go" that I can find, so once you build, you need to use Workspace Manager to find your newly made .app and double click it to test it out.
HD-DVD vs. Upconverted DVD – A real-life comparison
So I did pick up an HD-DVD, but both my Mac and my XBox do such an awesome job of upconverting DVDs that I wasn't sure this whole next generation optical format war was even worth it. You can see lots of screen captures online, but those are usually under optimum conditions, and often biased. I wanted a real-life comparison, under normal home-viewing conditions -- a real, human comparison.
So I set up a little tri-pod, put my Batman Begins DVD in my XBox, and my new Batman Begins HD-DVD in the XBox HD-DVD player, found the same scene on both, and took a picture. I didn't get quite the same frame, but its close enough. Don't look at actor -- look at the stuff around him. The keyboard, for example, or the other things on the desk.
Even to my unscientific eye, HD-DVD does look significantly sharper and more detailed. What do you think? Click the picture for a larger version, and excuse the moire effect -- that's the fault of the camera, not the source...
Drobo Looks Good
This thing solves all of RAID's problems, while maintain all the redundancy. If it had built-in NAS, instead of the add-on module that works by disabling local access, I'd buy one today. Even with that caveat, Drobo is how external disc storage should work.
- Watch the demo to see all its features.
XBox360 + Connect360 + Linksys WRT54g (firmware hacked)
Nullriver's Connect360 is a fantastic little app that you can run on your Mac that will fool your XBox 360 into thinking its talking to a PC, allowing you to share your iTunes, iPhoto and video libraries with the 360 dashboard. The video transcoding is a little lossy, but for SD applications it works exactly as advertised. Well worth the $20 they're asking.
According to the Connect360 Support website, you can't use Connect360 on your Mac to connect to your XBox 360 if your network uses a Linksys WRT54g with homebrew firmware on it. They're right -- it doesn't work.
The solution is pretty simple, however. Abstract the Mac and the XBox from the router using a good* network switch. The switch will allow the two devices to communicate (via broadcast) with each other without having to go through the router, and all will work as expected.
*Note: The Connect360 site also warns that some switches may cause a similar problem. I'm using a NetGear Gigabit Switch to accomplish this, and it works perfectly. YMMV.