Extreme Windows Blog

Dell Unveils Alienware X51

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:01:42 GMT

When you think of extremely powerful PCs for gaming – people usually think of really big desktop towers (yup, I have one…). However, to fight that “stereotype” of gaming PCs, Dell has unveiled the Alienware X51. The Alienware X51 is pretty much one of the smallest gaming desktop PCs to hit the market. From front to back, it measures 12.52”. From top to bottom (from the front), it is just 13.5” tall. And it is 3.74” wide! The idea behind the Alienware X51 was to give gamers the opportunity to do all the awesome gaming but accommodate for flexibility to be used in almost any living space with such a small chassis.

While small in size, the Alienware X51 comes packing quite a punch for such a small desktop PC. It features Intel’s second-generation Core processors (either a Core i3, Core i5, or Core i7) with Intel’s H61 Express Chipset. For awesome high definition gaming and video – the Alienware X51 comes standard with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 discrete GPU with 1GB GDDR5 onboard memory. However, you can also get an optional NVIDIA GeForce GTX 555 discrete GPU also with 1GB GDDR5 if you want more graphics power. These GPUs also allow for the Alienware X51 to support 3D – which includes 3D gaming and 3D Blu-ray video. With HDMI 1.4, you can connect this PC to a HDTV and if the HDTV supports 3D – do 3D awesomeness.

Here are the full specs for the Alienware X51:

Intel Core i3 Dual Core (standard) and Intel Core i5 and i7 Quad Core Processor Options
Intel H61 Express Chipset Architecture
Mini-ITX Motherboard
Powerful NVIDIA Graphics Card Options: 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GT 545 (Standard) *OR* 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 555 (Optional)
Configure with up to 8GB of DDR3 Memory (4GB Standard); 2x 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM Slots
Fast 7,200RPM 1TB Hard Drive
Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner (Standard) or optional Blu-ray Disc Reader
Internal High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio with Waves MAXX Audio Software
Integrated 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet NIC and Integrated 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Wireless LAN (standard)
USB 2.0 (6x); USB 3.0 (2x); Microphone In; Headphone/Speaker Out; HDMI 1.4 Output; RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet; Front, Rear and Center Speaker Ports; SPDIF Digital Output (TOSLINK); SPDIF Digital Output (Coax)
Alienware 240 Watt Power Supply (Standard) or optional 330 Watt Power Supply

One of the other things that stood out for me with regard to the Alienware X51 is that with the design of the chassis, Dell made sure to accommodate for “future upgrades”. With the Alienware X51, you’ll be able to perform your own hard-drive, graphics, and memory upgrades quickly and easily.

Not only is the Alienware X51 small and super powerful, it also comes at an affordable price starting at $699. Alienware X51 is available now on Dell.com and Alienware.com.

I also suggest reading this most excellent blog post from John Blain and Frank Azor who is a Product Lead at Alienware on the Direct2Dell blog.

I’ll be blogging more about this PC in a few weeks as I’ve got one coming to me!

Extreme Christmas Lighting With Windows 7

Paul Donnelly — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:11:54 GMT

It’s that time of year again and I’ve seen plenty of holiday lights go up. I’ve also seen some news stories about the extensive animated light displays people put together which got me wondering about the software and hardware they are using. I didn’t have to look far as I found a great example right here in Seattle. For 3 years Jim Winder, a friend of the Helmstetler Family, has helped them put together a display of lights officially called “West Seattle Lights presents The Helmstetler Family Christmas Spectacular.” The light show starts at 5PM each night and is set to music which is broadcast via a low powered FM transmitter. This is a really impressive display and just one example of the crazy things that people do that are powered by Windows 7.

This kind of project really looks like geek nirvana to me: Hardware, software, electricity, music and even a low power radio transmitter all in need of custom assembly! The lights blink, flash and animate to music exactly has Jim has programmed them. The key to making this all work is hardware controllers that can illuminate strings of lights when commanded by software. Jim is using equipment from Light-O-Rama which I have to tell you, looks like really cool stuff. The software is configured in advance by Jim to construct a sequence of precisely timed commands which are sent to the controllers throughout each song. Each controller can variably light the individual strings that are plugged into it and create special effects like fading up or down, shimmering or blinking.

His display has over 68,000 lights this year on over 700 separate strings and has 560 different channels that can be controlled. While this is an amazing amount of illumination Jim made an investment up front in using all LED lights to keep operating costs low and avoid the other challenges posed by the power consumption of incandescent bulbs. In fact because all the twinkling and flashing keeps the duty cycle very low he figures the additional cost on the power bill is about $30 for the month.

I can imagine the nights and weekends stringing lights, building trees and plugging in extension cords as well as all the troubleshooting that goes with it though I had not considered that the music sequencing would be the most labor intensive part of the process. To get everything just how he wants it Jim estimates it takes him about 6 hours per 30 seconds of song! With a week of work per song this clearly isn’t something that you throw together at the last minute which is why he described it to me as a “year round hobby.” Why does he do it? He says he’s always loved Christmas lights and it’s fun to watch the holiday smiles from kids and adults alike. You can find videos of the 2010 display here and the ‘kickoff’ lighting for the 2011 display here.

This really does seem like it could be a blast so I asked for some advice if I or anyone else wanted to just try it out. Here are his pointers:

Do your research. He likes Light-O-Rama but there are other systems available.
Start small. You can get controllers with 16 channels.
Start early. Sales happen early in the year. He builds displays in spring and summer. Even for a small experiment it could be an exercise in frustration to try to put it together at the last minute so don’t wait until October.

I usually do a ton of lights at the holidays but I’ve never tried anything beyond using an X10 system to easily turn them on and off each day but I’m actually considering giving this a shot next year on a very small scale. If you’ve recently tried your hand at this or another DIY lighting automation project let me know what you’re up to and what your experience has been in this thread in the Windows Experts Community.

3 Things I Love About Internet Explorer 9

Paul Donnelly — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:29:48 GMT

I’ve been using IE9 since the beta was released and while there is a lot I like I have really come to appreciate a few things in particular. I still run into people that haven’t heard about them or tried them out personally so thought I’d post about them here.

1. Pinning and Jump Lists. Given I’ve used desktop shortcuts and IE favorites for years I was a bit skeptical when I first heard of the pinning feature. What I found was that after I tried it I quickly got to the point where I can’t imagine NOT having it. Really. If you haven’t tried this out, you really should and once you do you should show your friends too. It’s that good.

When I started using it I realized that there are some sites that I use way more often than apps that I have pinned. Pinning them lets me treat these sites like an app. My favorite example of this is Hotmail. From the Jump List I can start composing an email in exactly two clicks. Being able to see the number of new messages in my inbox is just a bonus. I actually respond to my Hotmail email much quicker than I used to when I had it saved in my IE favorites.

All that you have to do is drag the tab at the top of the IE window to your taskbar and let go. You can pin any site to the taskbar but if the site has made a few simple additions you’ll get the full experience of Jump Lists, notifications (like how many new messages in my inbox) and more. There are tons of sites that have done this and you can find many of them listed in the IE Gallery.

If you’ve got a site of your own it’s now easier than ever to enable the full pinning experience for your visitors. Just visit http://buildmypinnedsite.com and follow the instructions.

2. Lower power consumption. This might seem like a small thing but it helps wring the most power out of my ‘always too small’ laptop battery and contributes to reducing overall energy use on any system. Sure I use sleep mode and make my screen dim quicker to save battery but those only work when I’m NOT doing something. Using IE9 as my browser saves some energy while I AM doing something.

Measuring this energy savings goes well beyond my efforts to use a Kill-A-Watt to get my PC’s power consumption down. The IE team has a great blog post on the specifics of how they measured this and the results.

3. Hardware acceleration. This one doesn’t get old but I have started to take it for granted. I’ve found myself using a PC that belongs to someone else and having it feel slightly ‘off’ as I browse the web until I realize it’s not running IE9. The full acceleration really contributes to the overall web experience besides creating truly amazing experiences in some specific scenarios. There are a couple great posts on the IE blog about this including a breakdown of the HTML blizzard demo and a rundown on the hardware acceleration architecture.

If you haven’t taken the time to install IE9 you really should check it out. Once you have it installed try out the pinning on your favorite sites. It’s truly one of those things that’s hard to be without after you experience it.

The HDHomeRun Prime puts TV on your PC anywhere in your home

Paul Donnelly — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:37:20 GMT

One of my favorite features of Windows 7 is Windows Media Center. For several years now it’s been the main way my family records and watches TV as well as watches Netflix and DVD’s. To add to some of the cool things I can do with it though I’ve been eagerly awaiting the first network attached CableCARD tuner, the HDHomeRun Prime from SiliconDust. The benefits of networked tuners has been covered in previous posts here but the inclusion of CableCARD support in a networked tuner makes for a deluxe solution for getting TV on your PC anywhere in your home.

The HDHomeRun Prime is a small standalone device that connects directly to your home network by plugging into an Ethernet port on your router or a network hub. It also takes a coax connection from your cable company and accepts a CableCARD that they can provide for you. Once connected you have three separate tuners that can be used to watch or record from. Windows 7 PCs on your home network can then use these tuners to watch and record live TV with Windows Media Center.

I’ve been using one for a few weeks now and I have to say that my favorite thing is being able to get TV to my laptop without having to plug into anything. I was surprised how well it worked over my wireless actually. I’ve got an 802.11n network at home and it just simply worked. Once connected over Wi-Fi I was able to use Media Center to watch a live show from anywhere in my house. A quick look at Resource Monitor showed a stream between about 6 to 10Mbps on average while I was watching Pawn Stars.

The tuners are ‘pooled’ when you configure several PC’s to use them which allows me to do things like record two shows using the desktop PC in the playroom while watching another channel live on my laptop. I can do any combination of watching and recording from various PCs across the three tuners provided.

It gives me tuners on my main Media Center machine but since I don’t have to dedicate a tuner to any one PC it makes it easy to get TV to places in the house where I have a PC and might only occasionally want to watch TV. This is the case with the first PC I configured, the one in our kitchen. It’s pretty slick as of course you don’t need to run any coax to the PC, install a card or even connect a USB device. You just install the software and configure Media Center on a PC that is digital cable ready and you are set to go.

The initial HDHomeRun configuration was easy and took only a few minutes including a quick call to my cable company to enable the CableCARD. I used the ‘Device Webpage’ link from the configuration utility to check the status menu to see when it had received the signal from them and was ready to go. I’ve made the mistake in the past of hanging up before I had time to confirm a successful activation. Watching this screen helps avoid that problem entirely.

Once the device itself is setup I just went to the PC’s I wanted to enable and ran the HDHomeRun setup program and then Windows Media Center Live TV setup. I had already run the Digital Cable Advisor prior to this to confirm my PC was digital cable ready. No additional calls or authorization from the cable company are necessary.

After setting up a few systems I could do something I’ve wanted to be able to do with digital cable for a long, long time. Easily get premium digital cable content to all the Windows 7 PC’s in my house. If three tuners aren’t enough SiliconDust has a dual CableCARD version available that provides six separate tuners.

Links:

Network Tuners are Chock Full of Win – Great blog post with more details on network tuners

Digital Cable Advisor – Tips on verifying compatibility and enabling your Windows 7 PC for digital cable.

Windows Experts Community Forums – Get advice and talk with other enthusiasts about network tuners and or anything related to Windows.

HDHomeRun Prime – SliconDust’s product page for the HDHomeRun Prime.

Beyond Windows Backup

Paul Donnelly — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:30:58 GMT

I’m sure as a knowledgeable Windows user you regularly back up your data. You are backing up your data, right? If not, then please remember that Windows 7 includes Backup and Restore which you can find off the Start Menu in the Maintenance folder. There is some great information on using Windows Backup and Restore on the Windows website.

As a techie I don’t need to extoll the virtues to you of creating regular backups. But backups are only useful if you can restore what you want when you want to. Over the years I’ve learned some tips and techniques (the hard way in some cases) to help make sure my backup system comes through when I need it. As I was backing up my systems at home to prepare for a move it occurred to me to that I should post about my approach to safeguarding my data and making recovery simple if I need to do it.

None of these tips do any good if you don’t backup regularly though so please do that. None of them apply exclusively to the backup features included in Windows either so you can use them no matter what your preference is for backup software.

Testing

If at all possible, test whatever method you use. I’ve heard stories from people about going back to a backup only to discover they hadn’t really prepared as well as they thought. Quite often this is because they were not backing up all their data. Perhaps they had added a new drive at some point or moved where they were storing files but the point is the data they needed wasn’t there. Another situation that I’ve experienced personally is where I thought that the backup would be easy to restore to a ‘bare metal’ or ‘clean’ system if I had a major failure which turned out not to be the case.

You can reduce the chances of a surprise like this by testing your backup system. Not everyone will have what is needed for a full blown test of all scenarios but if you are like me you build and upgrade systems often enough that you occasionally have some ‘spare’ hardware on hand. If you’ve got the hardware you might want to test recovering from a hardware failure such as a disk drive. With a ‘spare’ drive you can carefully disconnect the working one from your system, attach the empty one and practice restoring the whole system. Can you find your system repair disk to get the system booted to access the backup? Did the backup restore properly?

For more simple scenarios you don’t need anything special at all. Simply grab your backup and try to restore a file or two as if you overwrote or deleted it. Did it work? Was it easy?

Covering your bases

Take a few minutes to think about what scenarios you might need to recover from. We all know that backups are important if you need to restore a deleted file or a failed disk but what other scenarios might you want to cover? For instance what about theft or complete loss from flood or fire? What if it wasn’t that your drive failed but that someone stole your laptop? What if someone broke into your home and took your system? Do you use a portable backup disk that is normally connected to the system? What if they took that too? Do you backup to Windows Home Server? What if it was stolen along with your PC?

Certainly covering every possible case is not realistic but I’d say it’s worth it to at least consider which ones you’d want to be prepared for. Keeping the portable backup disk somewhere separate from your other equipment, in a safe or at least well hidden place may help protect against the theft scenario. Backups are insurance and like buying insurance it’s all about what you wish to protect yourself against and what it’s worth to you.

A little help from your friends

Enterprises rely on offsite backups for critical data and it’s actually easier than you think for us ‘non-enterprise’ types to do this too. One of my favorite ways to cover this is with a friend or relative. If you consider it worthwhile you can invest in a portable USB or eSATA backup disk and occasionally relocate it to a secure ‘undisclosed location’ which in my case is commonly known as ‘my mother’s house’. Just take your spare backup drive to a relative’s house when you visit for thanksgiving and leave it there. A few times a year simply bring your latest backup and exchange drives. As an added bonus you can do the same for your relatives by taking theirs home with you. If you are like me you’ll be checking on mom’s system to make sure it’s backed up properly when you visit for the holidays anyway.

You can do this just as easily with other types of media. Instead of an external drive you could occasionally burn critical files to DVD or Blu-Ray and store them at a friends or relatives house. This is a reasonably simple way to cover for theft and fire. I should note that there are backup services that allow you to store data in the cloud that cover this scenario very conveniently. The most common reason I hear for not using them for offsite backups is size. For example a sizable music collection is something you might want to protect that represents a big investment, takes a lot of space and doesn’t change frequently. This is exactly the type of data well suited to archiving remotely.

To wrap this up I’d say that just putting a bit of thought and time in up front can pay off in the end as it always seems like things fail at the worst possible time. I have had hardware failures that could have induced a heart attack but since I was confident that the backups were there and worked properly they were rather stress free and as expected, were easy to recover from.

I’ve captured the tips covered here in a Wiki entry in the Windows Experts Community. If you’ve got more tips or tricks for protecting your data please consider adding them by signing in and editing the page.

Measuring and reducing your PC’s electricity cost

Paul Donnelly — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:25:16 GMT

Personal computers are now ubiquitous and are something you expect to find in almost every home. With over a billion PCs in use throughout the world things like power consumption can really add up on a global basis. Windows 7 includes great power management features that extend the time you get ‘on battery’ with a laptop and reduces the overall power consumption on a desktop. Have you ever set your system to never sleep and stay on all the time though? Have you ever wondered how much that power management is saving on your electric bill?

If you are like me you’ve probably got more than one PC around the house. If you are tempted to leave any of them powered up 24x7 then read on. One of the hidden costs of a technology hobby can be buried in your power bill at the end of the month. Some systems can consume a fair amount of electricity but just because it’s not readily visible doesn’t mean it can’t be estimated or better yet, measured. I thought I’d spend a few minutes to consolidate some of what I’ve learned about minimized my energy use while still spreading plenty of technology around my home.

This is more than being ‘green’. After all, nobody wants to spend more than they have to on their power bill. Armed with a little knowledge it can be pretty easy to save enough on the monthly electric bill to cover a few song downloads. For this post I used a machine I have that I built a couple years ago. It’s been a great machine and is probably similar to systems in use by many PC enthusiasts. The actual configuration of the machine is not that important though. The power your system actually uses will vary from this one, perhaps significantly. The methods to measure and calculate though are the same regardless of the actual system used.

When we’re talking about power consumption we’re talking about watts. To calculate watts we use the power formula, P=VI where P is the power consumed, V is the voltage across the load and I is current through it.

Above: My system consuming 157 Watts (157.25W = 117V * 1.344A)

Most people won’t have the necessary test equipment laying around to measure voltage and current individually but luckily there are inexpensive devices available that will measure both and do the power calculation for you. They are inexpensive enough that they could pay for themselves in reduced energy costs if you make some changes based on your test results. In some places your electric utility might even loan you one like they do here in the City of Seattle where you can check one out from the public library. This is a fun gadget to have as it helps expose the operating costs of many electrical devices. The one I’ll be using is a P3 International Kill-A-Watt P4400.

First, here are some basics about power and billing. As I mentioned power consumption is measured in watts. Electrical utilities in the U.S. generally bill in kilowatt hours (KWH). One kilowatt hour is a load consuming one thousand watts for one hour. The same amount of KWH is consumed whether it’s a 2,000 watt load that runs for 30 minutes or a 100 watt load that runs for 10 hours. One way to think about this is like water. 2,000 gallons per hour flowing for 30 minutes will result in 1,000 gallons being consumed. 100 gallons per hour flowing for 10 hours does as well.

Rates charged vary by region and utility but I pay around $.10/KWH on average for most electricity I use. You can look on your electric bill for your actual rate. It will look something like this:

For an example we’ll assume the above measured 157W reading is constant and calculate what it costs to operate that system 1 hour by taking the following steps.

1) Make sure watts consumed is in kilowatts

(Measured Watts/1,000 = Kilowatts)

157 / 1000 = .157

2) Calculate cost based on the load, number of hours spent at that load and cost per KWH.

(Measured KWH * Hours Spent * Cost Per KWH)

.157 * 1 * .10 = $.0157

The above system would cost me a little over a penny and a half per hour to run. Though that sounds pretty inexpensive you’ll see below that it can add up fast.

Here is the configuration of the system on my test bench that I’m using for this post

Intel DP35DP Motherboard
Intel Q9550 CPU
8GB RAM
Seagate ST3500630AS 7200 RPM 500GB SATA Drive
Asus Geforce 8400GS display adapter
Thermaltake Purepower 600W power supply

The system power plan was set to High Performance and for simplicity I’m measuring only the system itself here and not any of the peripherals such as the monitor. You can apply the same techniques in this post to devices and peripherals if you wish.

The first and most relevant measurement I did was that with the PC idle. After booting and logging in I gave the system plenty of time to complete post boot activity then I checked the load and measured 102 watts.

If you were to leave this system on 24 hours a day this is the state it would likely be in most of the time. With the Kill-A-Watt device I’m using it would be difficult to measure and calculate spikes and widely varying workloads to get a precise consumption figure. The idle state represents a baseline that assumes that if the system is left powered up this is the least amount of power it would consume.

Precision measuring aside, it’s interesting to see how different loads might impact power use. To check the effect of some specific scenarios I made use of a couple handy utilities to load down the system. As you can see below I used HD Tune to make the disk extremely busy and then got a reading of 106 Watts which is only slightly higher than the load at idle. A busy disk in my system doesn’t appear to impact consumption that much.

There was however a measureable impact from placing a load on the CPU. Using a tool called MaxCPU I put a 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% load on the Q9550 and saw 125, 140, 152 and 165 watts respectively. It’s clear that in this system the CPU load plays a big role in determining instantaneous power consumption. This measurement illustrates that Windows 7 and modern CPU’s work together to provide processing power when needed but avoid wasting energy when it’s not.

Above: 165 watts measured with the CPU at 100% load

Up to this point the measurements have all been about what the system consumes when powered on. To find out the potential savings we need to look at what is consumed in the lower power states. By selecting the Sleep option off of the start menu shutdown option I saw that in S3 the system consumes only 4 watts. This is a significant difference from the 102 measured at idle!

System State	Notes	Load
Idle	As above	102 Watts
Disk under load	Stressing disk using HD-Tune	106 Watts
CPU at 25% load	Using MaxCPU	125 Watts
CPU at 50% load	Using MaxCPU	140 Watts
CPU at 75% load	Using MaxCPU	152 Watts
CPU at 100% load	using MaxCPU	165 Watts
Sleep (S3)	Selecting Sleep from the shutdown menu	4 Watts
Hibernate (S4)	Selecting Hibernate from the shutdown menu	3 Watts
Off (S5)	Using shutdown	2 Watts
Off (G3)	Using switch on the power supply	0 Watts

Above: Various readings taken during my tests. Note that you can find more on the specifics of System Power States at MSDN.

Armed with a complete set of measurements we can calculate the cost of operating this system and the savings realized through the use of power management. For starters, what would it cost me to run this machine for a month if it were left on all the time? While the load may vary somewhat depending on what the PC is doing it’s safe to use the idle load of 102 watts as a minimum estimate.

102 Watts * 24 Hours * 30 Days = 73,440 Watt Hours or 73.44 Kilowatt hours.

73.44KWH * $.10 = $7.34 per month

If the system was configured so that it spent 8 hours a day on and 16 hours in sleep we can show the savings

102 Watts * 8 Hours * 30 Days = 24.48 Kilowatt hours

4 Watts * 16 Hours * 30 Days = 1.92 Kilowatt hours

For a total of 26.4 KWH * $.10 or about $2.64 per month.

Using sleep represents not quite $5/month in savings on this system. Since I’ve got more than one PC the savings here can actually be significant! Based on what I found with my own systems I made changes to capture some of those savings. I also located some rather power hungry peripherals that I decided to replace when I found that their consumption didn’t decrease when the PC was sleeping or even turned off.

If you get the chance to measure your system let me know here or join me over the Windows Experts Community and tell me about your results. I’d also be interested in hearing about other tips people have to maximize their energy savings.

Strategies for remote access to your files and system

Paul Donnelly — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:45:57 GMT

Whether its files and documents, your media or complete control of your system one of the advantages of a connected world is that there are many ways to get to what you want from where you want. I wanted to cover several techniques you can take advantage of to easily ‘phone home’ to your systems or data when you are out of the house.

Anywhere access

First, if access to your files, especially docs and photos, is what you are after you can’t beat SkyDrive for easy access and sharing from anywhere. This is the way to go in many cases and even though I use all the techniques I cover below I use SkyDrive too. It works great from Windows Phone too! You can find great tips on using SkyDrive here.

Media Streaming

If it’s your media library you need to access while you are away from home then Remote Media Streaming, a feature of Windows 7, is a great way to do that. It’s easy to configure so you can get to your music, videos and even recorded TV remotely using Windows Media Player. Pete Brown did a great post a while ago covering exactly how to set this up. If you haven’t tried this out you should give it a try.

A full remote access solution in a box

If you want a comprehensive approach then Windows Home Server is really the way to go for remote access to files, documents, media and your systems. Windows Home Server represents the deluxe solution by allowing you and other people you permit to remotely access your data as well as Remote Desktop to multiple systems on your home network. It’s easy to set up, handles the configuration of your firewall and provides you with a domain name putting together all the pieces right from the control panel. You can find more on WHS remote access features here.

Letting Remote Desktop out of the house

The perfect complement to Remote Media Streaming is what I call ‘the do it yourself approach to Remote Desktop over the Internet’. With Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate Edition you can use Remote Desktop to get to your system from across the room or around the world. From across the room is simple, but the around the world part requires a little configuration. I’ve used this setup for a long time and it comes in handy quite a bit. To get it working three things are needed:

1. Enable Remote Desktop

2. Allow Remote Desktop traffic through your firewall

3. Make your system discoverable on the Internet

Enable Remote Desktop

To enable Remote Desktop or to check to see if it enabled already, open Control Panel and then System then on the left choose “Remote Settings”.

If you will be using only Windows 7 or Windows Vista to access your home system then you should choose the bottom option which requires NLA. You can find further explanation of these options and how to determine if your Remote Desktop client supports NLA here. Click the “Select Users” box and make sure to only grant permissions to the accounts you will use remotely. Minimizing the number of accounts with access and using strong passwords on your accounts are a must. Making this machine available on the Internet removes a significant layer of security and you shouldn’t take this lightly.

Allow Remote Desktop traffic through your router to your system

By default the firewall in your router almost certainly blocks the ports needed for Remote Desktop access. For the sake of this explanation we’ll assume you want to enable just one system on your home network for access via the Internet. In this case you’ll want to forward port 3389, both TCP and UDP, to the correct machine on your local network. The IP address for this machine in your local network should be configured so it does not change. This is so that the port forwarding always forwards traffic to the correct system. You can accomplish this via a DHCP reservation on your router or by using a static IP address for the system.

This is bit tricky to cover here in detail here as different routers accomplish these things differently. My Linksys port forwarding looks like this:

And on a D-Link router it looks like this

Make your system discoverable on the Internet

Perhaps the biggest single inconvenience to this solution is that when the IP address you get at home from your ISP changes and most will at some point, you will not be able to get to your machine remotely without checking to see what the new address is. This is something that will need to be done via your local network at home which defeats the purpose of our work here!

There are good solutions to this problem though such as TZO.com, Dyn.com and No-IP.com among others. These services will maintain a DNS name for your home network and keep it up to date so you can always reach it remotely. Most offer a free version of their service. I actually use No-IP.com but there are many that will work.

Once you’ve got Remote Desktop enabled, try it out locally on your home network then give it a shot from a friend’s house. You’ll find the Remote Desktop Connection available under Accessories on the Start Menu or just run mstsc.exe. For computer name provide the fully qualified domain name of your home system as you configured it with your DNS service.

Other considerations

Security is important when making any system available on the Internet. As I mention above, only enable the account(s) that you need to have access and put strong passwords on them. In addition to those accounts all members of the administrators group will have access so tighten those passwords up too. You should also consider changing the name of the Administrator account.

An important factor for all of the above techniques is bandwidth. A lot of broadband connections these days have pretty good upstream bandwidth. Enough that you can expect to stream some music and video without any problems. Remote Desktop can be configured to work very well even over low bandwidth connections. You can tweak the settings for remote desktop from the client on the Experience tab to give you the best performance.

If you’ve got any questions or anything to add let me know here or follow up over in the Windows Experts Community.

One minute a day to pick up daily Windows tips

Paul Donnelly — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:20:00 GMT

I’ve said before how it’s great to get to work with enthusiastic people who know tons about Windows. Recently I heard about one of those people sharing some great tips with everyone else in a really clever way. Michel Martin has created a video series of Windows 7 tips and tricks he calls “One minute a day”. He’s been publishing five videos a week and not surprisingly they are each about one minute long.

His tips run from the very basic, to things only a real geek could appreciate. After all, who among us wouldn’t appreciate a desktop shortcut to hibernate our system? While not every one of these tips is brand new I find I’m more likely to discover new ones and give them a try in this format as sometimes all I’ve got is about a minute.

Michel has helpfully posted the steps for each of these tips in the ‘How To’ section of the Windows Experts Community wiki.

If you or someone you know is doing something unique to spread the word on tweaking or personalizing Windows get in touch with me here or drop me a note in the Windows Experts Community and let me know about it.

Ceton announces the InfiniTV 4 USB external CableCARD quad-tuner

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:47:56 GMT

Today, Ceton has unveiled their external USB CableCARD quad-tuner product: the InfiniTV 4 USB. The InfiniTV 4 USB will hit at around $299. It with first be available for purchase from Cannon PC and Fluid Digital on August 19^th with pre-orders expected to start shipping on September 19^th. InfiniTV 4 USB will be available at other retailers such as Amazon, Micro Center, the Microsoft Store, Newegg, Velocity Micro and Zones later in September.

A year ago, I published a blog post talking about upgrading my Windows Media Center PC which included adding Ceton’s InfiniTV 4 PCI Express CableCARD quad-tuner. Since then, I’ve loved the product to death and have used it to record all my favorite shows. However, recently I updated my PC at home and ran out of PCI Express slots (another blog post for another day). Short of replacing the motherboard with one that has more PCI Express slots than the one I have now (which is no easy task mind you) – I could no longer use the InfiniTV 4 PCI Express quad-tuner. So I am absolutely stoked to get my hands on the USB version of the product in September. The InfiniTV 4 USB can be used with virtually any Windows 7 of any form factor.

The InfiniTV 4 USB quad-tuner can also be used as network tuners as well using Ceton’s InfiniTV Network Tuners Wizard. See my blog post here from May on the network tuner experience.

One more thing – for those of you who want the internal InfiniTV 4 PCI Express model Ceton is announcing today a price reduction to $299 for that as well.

The Games for Windows Marketplace has moved to Xbox.com!

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:51:00 GMT

As of this week, the Games for Windows Marketplace has a new home on Xbox.com. When you now visit GamesForWindows.com you will be taken to Xbox.com. Now you can purchase and get details on your favorite Games for Windows and Xbox 360 games all in one place! Your Games For Windows and Xbox LIVE profiles are the same which allows people to take advantage of their LIVE profile in LIVE-enabled games they play on their Windows PC. Go check it out!

AMD Unveils A-Series APUs

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:34:01 GMT

AMD’s Fusion Developer Summit is taking place this week in Bellevue, WA and AMD is taking the opportunity to launch their high-end series of APUs (Accelerated Processing Units). If you recall – an APU is the combination of the CPU and GPU into a single die. AMD’s Fusion family of APU processors is a combination of multi-core CPU (x86) technology with discrete-level graphics.

Back in January at CES, AMD launched their E-Series and C-Series APUs – codenamed “Brazos” – targeting small form factor PCs, netbooks and tablets. Since then – over 5 million units of the E-Series and C-Series APUs have been sold since Q4 2010.

Today, AMD is announcing the A-Series APU – codenamed “Llano” – targeting more mainstream PCs ranging from laptops to desktop PCs to all-in-one PCs!

The A-Series APU is a much higher-end APU than the E-Series and C-Series APUs. The A-Series APU is a combination of a quad-core processor (4 x86 CPU cores) and discrete DirectX-11-capable graphics (the E-Series and C-Series APUs did not include quad-core processors). Laptops with A-Series APUs will enjoy excellent HD graphics capability and over 10.5 hours of battery life.

AMD has done work with the A-Series APU to ensure it has the necessary “horse power” to handle the most performance-demanding applications through parallel processing. Laptops with an A-Series APU have 400 gigaflops of performance horse power while desktops have 500 gigaflops. Specifically, this will help with video and image processing for example.

All A-Series APUs utilize what AMD calls their VISION Engine that combines hardware and software to provide the best experience possible for digital content such as videos and games. For video playback, AMD is introducing a new feature with the A-Series APUs called Steady Video. This feature ensures that videos play steady and smooth and also enables 3D gaming and 3D Blu-ray playback. The A-Series APU supports a variety of connection standards including HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort 1.1, and USB 3.0.

With Internet Explorer 9, you get the benefits of hardware-accelerated HTML5 and Direct2D performance while browsing the web on a PC with an A-Series APU since is it has discrete level graphics capabilities built right in!

With AMD Fusion APUs – including the A-Series – you can pair it with a discrete AMD Radeon discrete graphics card for a dual-graphics experience. This means that with a Fusion APU and a discrete Radeon graphics card in a PC you can experience the power of dual graphics with up to an 75% graphics performance boost according to AMD.

The A-Series APU is currently scheduled to appear in more than 150 laptops and desktop PCs throughout the second quarter of 2011.

It’s very exciting to continue to see the hardware innovation our partners are doing!

Windows Experts Wiki: Great articles, a challenge and a mysterious prize

Paul Donnelly — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:37:59 GMT

It’s been just over a month since we’ve launched the Windows Experts community, a home for enthusiasts and hobbyists who create amazing experiences in and around their lives with Windows and other tech products. This is the place to go if you’re pulling together a home theater and want to use Windows Media Center to power it, or are building a collection of your favorite movies, music and photos and want to serve them up around your network. Here you’ll find like minded Experts helping each other out, sharing their projects, their challenges and their successes. It’s the kind of place you can go and post up about a specific components you’re thinking of adding to your PC, and get a good deal of helpful feedback from folks who have done the same.

Perhaps the brightest spot in Windows Experts in the first month is the Windows Experts Community Wiki – where experts can capture their unique experiences into short articles so that the knowledge is easily found and shared again. More than another type of consumer, enthusiasts turn to their communities to flesh out best practices and how-to’s for the coolest tech scenarios you can imagine. A few sample articles: How to add multiple guide listings to Windows 7 Media Center, How to Boot Windows 7 Like a DVR, or How to control your Mouse Cursor with a Logitech Harmony Remote Control.

There’s a lot of great articles on there, and we’re just getting started! If you’ve got a scenario or best practice you’ve honed that you’d like to share, please head on over and do so. Any community member can add or edit Wiki entries on Windows Experts, and this June, you may even win a great prize for doing so!

That’s right – in honor of the current promotion for the college bound (Buy a Windows PC for $699/Get an Xbox 360 for FREE), we’ve started a stub article in the wiki on Things You Can Do with a Windows 7 PC and an Xbox 360. While many of our enthusiasts know all about experiences you can create with a PC and a Xbox 360 thanks to features like PlayTo and MCX, we’re hoping to educate the college-bound with Wiki articles that show them the kind of cool scenarios they can create with their new found tech. If you’ve got a good idea in mind, pop on over now before someone else calls dibs.

Did you say prizes?

I did. We’re picking some of our favorite Wiki articles this month and sending them the kind of gift that only a true enthusiast can love: the Soon-to-be-infamous Windows Experts Mystery Bag O’ Stuff, or as we’re calling it around the office, the STBIWEMBO’S. As the name implies, it’s a bag o’ stuff gathered from around the company and our world of partners, tossed together with little rhyme nor reason, and shipped to your door. I hear there’s some good tech in there this time around, and we do hope that our winners will post up an unboxing (er, unbagging) of the first STBIWEBO’Ss that we send out. You can check out all the details on this contest, here, or get hoppin’ on a wiki entry for it, here.

Building a cool, capable Home Theater PC with AMD’s Fusion APU

Paul Donnelly — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:11:00 GMT

I first heard about the Fusion APU's from AMD my first thought was "these sound like they would be PERFECT for a home theater PC!" They are super capable, work great with Windows 7 and DirectX 11 but take very little power to operate, keeping them cool and easier on the power bill. With Fusion architecture, all of these capabilities are all packed onto one chip, too, which means it's well suited to a tiny system. What's more, all of this engineering was done with Windows in mind, as AMD worked together with a team here at Microsoft to make it not just work but shine with Windows 7.

With system board makers announcing a good selection of products based on Fusion, I decided it was time to give it a go. I got in touch with our partners at AMD and asked them what they'd recommend for this application. Soon after that I had an Asus E35M1-I Deluxe Mini-ITX board in my office, and I set out to combine it with some affordable components to build a small HTPC.

The Asus board comes with an AMD E-350 APU already onboard. This means that all you need to add is memory, storage, a case and a power supply and you have a basic system. The E-350, formerly codenamed "Zacate" includes the dual-core CPU, Northbridge and Radeon 6310 graphics all on one chip, including hardware decoding of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and h.264 yet has a total power dissipation of only 18 watts! For comparison the CPU in my current HTPC has a TDP of 65 watts or about that of a standard incandescent light bulb while the E-350 is actually very similar to a compact fluorescent bulb that could replace it.

Let me just say this about the system board - this thing is crazy! It's passively cooled, has six 6GB/s SATA ports, four USB 3.0, eight USB 2.0, HD Audio, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet and Wireless N on board. It takes two DDR3 DIMMS for up to 8GB RAM all in a Mini-ITX form factor that measures less than 7" x 7". Importantly, it just looks cool.

A 4GB DIMM and 500GB 6GB/s SATA drive round out the basic components I picked to make the system work. I found an LG drive in the Windows 7 Compatibility Center for playing back DVD and Blu-ray disks. You'll also find the ATI tuner I'm using there. It's a fine piece of miniature engineering in itself, supporting ATSC, QAM, DVB-T, NTSC, PAL, and SECAM so it will work not just here in North America but in places around the globe as well.

I decided on a PicoPSU based power supply. If you are not familiar with the PicoPSU based power supplies, they are really two components. One is a tiny ATX connector mounted board that snaps directly onto the system board and contains the DC to DC circuitry needed to produce and maintain the different voltages the system requires. The second component is a typical laptop 'power brick' that supplies DC power to the connector mounted circuitry. This helps keep a heat producing component outside of your case.

To contain all this goodness I found a great little case that was small but accepts a full size 5.25" DVD drive and 3.5" hard disk to help keep the cost down. Everything fit together like a glove and when it was all assembled it's quite amazing how much capability is densely contained in this compact system.

I did a quick DVD install of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, installed the latest AMD Catalyst suite from the downloads section of the AMD website, applied Service Pack 1 and the latest Windows Updates. One thing I noticed is that during setup, with the DVD drive spinning and the hard drive busy, the whole system topped out at 36 watts power consumption. Truly a far cry from my current home theater PC which consumes about 165 Watts in normal use!

After going through Windows Media Center setup to configure my TV signal, it was finally time for a test drive. The first thing I noticed was that the Media Center UI menu and transitions are smooth and look great. Picture quality was great watching an HD channel, and menu navigation was still smooth. Setting the HD stream to record shows plenty of CPU headroom left over and the system only consuming 30 watts.

Recording an HD show and playing back another at the same time didn't change things much. The system bounced around in the 30-34 watt range and still had plenty of CPU available. DVD and Blu-ray playback shined as well, with the onboard GPU doing most of the work. Even though I'd normally recommend a wired connection for HD content I joined my HomeGroup with the system connected only over the onboard wireless N and played plenty of recorded HDTV and never saw a problem. For an HTPC this system is every bit as good as I'd hoped for!

After putting it into service for a while, I can say that this system really does stand out as the solution I've been looking for. It's small, consumes an incredibly tiny amount of power and performs great on everything from live TV to Blu-ray. I've already recommended this configuration to a few people who are looking to build a new HTPC. There are a lot of possibilities here too if you wanted to go even tinier by using a slim optical drive or none at all and using a 2.5" drive or SSD.

One thing I've found is that the Fusion platform is not just great for an HTPC. Internet Explorer 9 is accelerated, as well as playback of Adobe Flash via the 10.2 player so it makes a great 'all around' machine for 'normal' use and web surfing. It performs so well that I'm thinking about building a similar one to replace my big, old P4 Hyperthreaded PC in my workshop.

If you're interested in putting together a system based on AMD Fusion or you've already had a chance to use one then join us over in the Windows Experts Community to discuss. I'd be interested in hearing about your plans!

Networked TV Tuners are chock full of win

Pete Brown — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:46:59 GMT

Brandon covered the big news this week for Windows Media Center enthusiasts: Ceton released a firmware upgrade and software package that allows you to assign the streams from their InfiniTV TV tuner to other Windows 7 PCs across the network, a major step in the convergence of networked and CableCARD tuners, one with huge benefits for connected home entertainment scenarios.

I’ve been a fan of networked tuners since I first waded into the world of Windows Media Center, I’ll admit my family’s TV viewing needs were minimal at the time: we had one screen and a small antenna and that was it. I was also pretty leery, back in those early days, of cracking open a PC case and installing components myself.

So when I was looking into TV tuners and WMC, a friend recommended the HDHomeRun from Silicondust, a little external TV tuner that connects to your network via Ethernet, and then streams TV to PCs across your network. Back then, a quick search on The Green Button (the Windows Media Center enthusiast community that recently morphed into Windows Experts) confirmed that these networked tuners were popular among enthusiasts. A few days later, I had set mine up and was watching TV across our home network – at the time, we had just one desktop and a clunky laptop that heated up quickly and was thus impossible to actually use on your lap.

In the years since, my use of WMC has certainly grown; I overcame my fear of cracking open the case and built a modest-but-sturdy HTPC with an internal tuner for our new basic cable service. Our network has since expanded with multiple laptops and netbooks and a variety of connected devices and phones. And through all the changes and updates, from XP MCE to Vista to 7, the HDHomeRun tuner has sat next to my router, quietly doing its job and doing it well.

Above: My HDHomeRun sitting next to my router. I totally had to dust them off before taking this picture.

What’s more, all the PCs, laptops and netbooks are now running Windows 7 Home Premium, which includes Windows Media Center – and so all of them can watch live TV from the tuners, since they are pooled. It’s a great solution for a family with multiple PCs.

Above: Configuring TV in my WMC – the two “Digital Antenna” tuners WMC sees are from the HDHomeRun I’ve been using for years. The cable tuners are from my dual AVer Media internal tuner.

While Silicondust has steadily expanded their lineup, supporting more standards and more streams, as far as consumers knew, networked TV tuners in general seemed to be on a different path from those in the realm of CableCARD TV tuners, which allow you to bring full HD, unencrypted premium cable content into Windows Media Center without the use of a set top box.

Then came CES in January, 2010: That was when Ceton’s InfiniTV 4 CableCARD tuner was featured in Microsoft’s keynote for its ability to provide four streams of HD cable content with a single CableCARD installed – meaning the goal of full HD encrypted, premium cable content inside of Windows Media Center without the use of a set-top box was now possible. At that same show, Silicondust announced the HDHomeRun PRIME – a networked CableCARD tuner that promised three streams of HD content with a single CableCARD. (I spoke with both companies at that show – good times.)

In the year and change since then, a lot has happened. Ceton’s tuner hit the market and the demand was intense – several threads in the enthusiast community grew several thousand posts long and one volunteer tirelessly tracked everyone’s preorders so that community members might get a better sense of when theirs would arrive. This past August, AVerMedia rolled out a networked tuner called the HD HomeFree Duet, and then in September, Silicondust announced it was teaming up with Hauppauge for a USB-connected CableCARD offering.

So it seems that the long anticipated convergence of networked tuners and CableCARD is at hand. As Brandon detailed earlier this week, Ceton has just released a new software + firmware upgrade for the InfiniTV that allows you to assign its 4 tuners to different machines on your network. Enthusiasts have been closely watching the beta firmware for this functionality; it’s now official, and Ceton owners can download a Network Tuners Wizard to set it up.

Last week we also saw that Silicondust announced on their Facebook page that the HDHomeRun Prime has received certification from Cable Labs and preordering begins soon (sign up for the company’s mailing list for more details).

These developments mean the range of networked TV tuner scenarios now stretches from the simple – like my very first HDHomeRun and set-top antenna, to the high end CableCARD multi-stream variety, and with multiple companies in the game, consumers will benefit from different choices, price points and features.

If you’re thinking of a networked TV tuner, here are a couple of notes to keep in mind:

Networked tuners are a great way to get a live TV on your laptop at home since you are not adding dongles and cables that tie you down.
You can put your tuners where your cable TV is instead of dragging coax around the house to each PC you’d like TV on. If your house if fully networked - this might be the quickest way to get TV all over the house.
Your performance is only going to be as good as your network. The good news is networking gear is getting more robust and easier to use at the same time, but keep in mind that you’ll pushing multiple streams of HD content around. A wired connection will always perform better than a wireless connection. If you’re rockin’ a generic, twenty dollar router/wireless modem, well, you’ll probably get the experience you paid for.
That being said, we have a decent, mid-range 802,11n wireless router, and I’ve been really pleased with the performance over wireless. SD content plays without a hitch; HD content tends to be subject to what else we’ve got going on around the house, and of course the PC I’m using at the time. Note that an 802.11n router (as apposed to 802.11g or b, etc.) is the minimum you’ll need to even attempt to stream HD content over Wi-Fi.
Since pooled networked tuners can be used by different Windows 7 PCs running Windows Media Center on the network, conflicts sometimes arise. When this happens, WMC gives you a brief message to let you know the available tuners are in use:

Note that the tuners in Ceton’s solution are not pooled; rather, you assign specific tuners to a specific machine, so conflicts like this are unlikely to arise.

If you have more questions about TV tuners or Windows Media Center, I whole heartedly recommend checking out the Windows Entertainment and Connected Home area of the Windows Experts community. This is where all of TGB’s content now resides, and you’re sure to find enthusiasts who can help answer or your questions, existing threads on similar topics, and maybe even a Wiki entry or two with more details.

Ceton Releases InfiniTV Network Tuner for the InfiniTV 4

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:18:12 GMT

Today, Ceton is making a few announcements worth taking note of. First off – Ceton has fulfilled the backorder of InfiniTV 4 TV tuner cards and is now making InfiniTV 4 TV tuner cards available from Amazon, in addition to its existing retailers. The next thing is Ceton is announcing and making available today a free new application with updated firmware that enables Network Tuners with their InfiniTV TV tuner products.

Download: Ceton InfiniTV Network Tuners Wizard

The concept of a networked TV tuner in a PC works like this: you have the host PC that includes the TV tuner physically connected to that PC and then you have “satellite” PCs on your home network that would then connect to the TV tuner over the network to watch and record TV shows through Windows Media Center in Windows 7. Ceton’s InfiniTV Network Tuner software is specifically designed for the InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner card. As a multi-tuner card, the InfiniTV 4 actually has 4 TV tuners built in. With the InfiniTV Network Tuner software, you can “assign” any of the 4 TV tuners built in to the InfiniTV 4 to a PC on your home network. Once a tuner is assigned to a PC, Windows Media Center will see the network tuner as if it was connected physically to the PC and allow you to watch live TV (and in HD) and schedule recordings. This works with virtually any Windows 7 PC in a variety of form factors such as desktops, laptops, all-in-ones, and some tablets.

Setting this up is pretty easy. First off – you’re going to need an InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner card. I’m going to assume you have one but if you don’t, you can purchase one here. You’ll need to download the InfiniTV Network Tuner software. Before you install the InfiniTV Network Tuner software, you need to make sure you have latest firmware installed on the InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner card. You can do this by running the Ceton InfiniTV Diagnostic Tool. The installer for the InfiniTV Network Tuner software also checks to see if you have the correct (latest) firmware and we advise you to update if you don’t. Once you’ve confirmed you have the latest firmware, you’ll then need to download the InfiniTV Network Tuner installer. You’re going to need to install this on the host PC (PC with the InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner card) as well as any “satellite” PCs on your home network that you want to be able to access a tuner. I recommend installing on the host PC first.

After you’ve installed the InfiniTV Network Tuner software, open Windows Media Center. You’ll find a new menu item: Ceton InfiniTV.

Under Ceton InfiniTV there is an option for “network tuners”. There is where you will set up and configure the InfiniTV Network Tuner capabilities. Click on this option to begin the configuration wizard.

You’ll choose “Setup InfiniTVs” and click next. You can come back to this screen after setting everything up and choose “Reset InfiniTVs to factory settings” to reset everything if you ever need to.

The configuration wizard should detect the InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner over the network. You shouldn’t have to do anything on this screen other than clicking next.

NOTE: If you are running this configuration wizard on a PC using a wireless network connect, you will be advised that for the best possible experience, a wireless network adaptor is not recommended. I’ve gotten it to work over wireless just fine but your experience may vary.

You’ll need to make sure that your PC’s firewall settings a properly configured to allow the network tuner capabilities to work correctly. Choose which ever firewall you use and click next.

After your firewall settings are properly configured, you will need to assign a tuner to the PC you’re running the configuration wizard on. Because I ran this on the host PC first – all 4 of the tuners were available. I chose tuners 1-3 to be assigned to the host PC. That left tuner 4 available for my other PC on my home network. If a tuner is assigned to a PC, it cannot be assigned or used by any other PC. Click next after you’ve assigned the tuners.

Your configuration will be applied and Windows Media Center will then ask you to set up your TV tuner.

After Windows Media Center restarts, your configuration is complete. You will then be asked to set-up your TV signal in Windows Media Center again to ensure it picks up the new configuration. Once that is complete, you’ll be able to watch and record TV shows in Windows Media Center using a TV tuner on a different PC! The InfiniTV Network Tuner software and configuration wizard in Windows Media Center needs to be run on any PC you want to be able to watch TV on over your network (host and satellite).

What if you have 2 PCs on your home network with InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner cards installed?

Using the InfiniTV Network Tuner software and the process I highlight above – when you get to the point in which you assign tuners to a PC you will see 8 tuners instead of 4. This allows you to assign 1, 2 or 3 tuners (you can assign 4 but that might prove problematic) to a single PC depending on how many PCs you are configuring, etc. For example – you could have a PC in the living room with 3 tuners assigned, a PC in the bedroom or office with 3 tuners assigned, and a laptop with 2 tuners assigned. The result is a whole-lot-of-TV-watching-and-recording!

Essentially, with Ceton’s InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner card and the InfiniTV Network Tuner software, any Windows 7 PC on your home network can be turned into a DVR. Again, if you already have an InfiniTV 4 multi-tuner card you can grab the InfiniTV Network Tuner software today and enable this functionality.