For those that don’t know, Windows 7 comes with a feature called Windows Media Center. Windows Media Center can be used to turn any Windows PC into a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) when a TV card is present in the PC. Windows Media Center also comes with Internet TV which provides free access to shows and movies streamed across the Internet. Windows Media Center is designed to be used with big displays. People can connect their Windows PCs to their HDTVs and use Windows Media Center to display content. In this post – I’m going to talk about my own setup in my living room which is powered by Windows 7 and Windows Media Center.

A little over 3 years ago, I published a blog post about my Windows Media Center PC and setup in my living room. That post was celebrating the 5th anniversary of Windows Media Center. This year it celebrated its 8thanniversary and I still have that very same PC I blogged about 3 years ago running my all-things digital entertainment in my living room but with Windows 7 of course! That PC - a CineMagix Grand Theater Entertainment System from Velocity Micro – has probably been on and recording tons of TV shows for 90% of those 3 years. It’s held up pretty well. Over the course of the last 3 years, I’ve done a few things to the PC such as adding Blu-ray. But I think after 3 years, I decided it needed a more substantial upgrade: a new graphics card and a new TV tuner card with better capabilities.

Note: In the rest of this post, I am going to be talking a lot about “cards” such as graphics cards or TV cards. These “cards” are components to PCs that add and provide functionality. For example a graphics card provides the graphics capabilities for the PC and a TV card provides TV capabilities. There are sound cards and network cards too – you can probably guess what those cards do ;-)

For the last 3 years, my Windows Media Center PC has been running with a pretty decent graphics card (an ATI Radeon X1950) but it didn’t have HDMI. I had been using a DVI-to-HDMI cable to connect to my HDTV. But I wanted to go “native” with straight HDMI. Back in March, I had posted about HDMI and Windows PCs. I recommend giving this post a read for understanding the benefits of HDMI – especially in the particular scenario my Windows Media Center PC is serving in my living room with my TV. I also wanted to have a DirectX 11 capable graphics card in this system. So I went out and picked up one of AMD’s low cost DirectX 11 capable graphics cards (with HDMI!): an ATI Radeon HD 5450. I will likely upgrade this card again to something more higher-end in the future (likely a graphics card with more onboard memory) but for now this works perfectly for my needs.

Next was the TV tuner card. When I bought this PC from Velocity Micro, it came with a TV tuner card that supported CableCARD – or “digital cable tuner”. When digital cable tuners were first introduced, they were only available as part of a new PC. What’s a “CableCARD”? A CableCARD is a special PC card that you can lease from your cable company (U.S. only) that can be used with a digital cable tuner to view and record digital cable TV channels (pay TV channels like DiscoveryHD or HistoryHD as well as premium channels like HBOHD and ShowtimeHD) without the need for a special set top box such as a DVR unit from a cable provider. A TV card that supports CableCARD has a slot in the back that allows a CableCARD to be put in. With a digital cable tuner card in a PC, you can use Windows Media Center to watch and record digital cable TV channels - and in HD!

The TV card that came with the PC was an ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner. At the time, it was top-of-the-line. However, there were draw backs that over the years have grown into a little bit of some frustration. For example this digital cable tuner card was a single tuner. That means that you couldn’t watch and record different channels at the same time. Whatever you were recording at any given time, you had to watch it too – you could not change the channel. There were many times where I wanted to watch something and record something else at the same time.

This is where the new Ceton InfiniTV 4 digital cable tuner card comes in.

Last November, we announced it would be possible to add a digital cable tuner card to any Windows PC that supported it. Because of this, I could now replace my current TV tuner with something newer on my own. Ceton’s new InfiniTV 4 TV card is a brand new PCIe 1x digital cable tuner that is hitting the market that includes 4 tuners in one card! That means with the InfiniTV 4 TV card, I can watch a TV show at the same time I’m recording 3 other shows at the same time. At any given time, in Windows Media Center you could be recording up to 4 HDTV shows at the same time. For me – the InfiniTV 4 offered an incredible upgrade to my Windows Media Center PC. Ceton’s work here with their InfiniTV 4 TV tuner card this a great example of a product from one of our partners that takes Windows to a whole different level and makes a good feature (Windows Media Center) great.

After I completed the upgrade of my Windows Media Center PC - my living room’s digital entertainment experience was simply awesome. Recording multiple TV shows while watching another is amazing. However, I foresee another upgrade in my future: more storage! I’m running out of hard drive space from recording so many TV shows!

Do you want to add one of Ceton’s new digital cable tuners to your Windows PC? In Windows Media Center, you can use the Digital Cable Advisor Tool (located under the Extras gallery) to check if your PC is capable of running a digital cable tuner. If your PC checks out and has a spare PCIe 1x slot, you can buy a Ceton InfiniTV 4 here. Ceton has begun shipping units to those who have pre-ordered and people are starting to see them arrive this week.

I suggest visiting the website The Green Button as it is a great place to find Windows Media Center and home entertainment experts to help you out if you need assistance or any tips or tricks integrating your Windows PC with your TV!

Audio junkies and gamers listen up – imagine a device that could easily “upgrade” any stereo headset to 7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound. Turtle Beach is lifting the covers on a device that does just that. Today, Turtle Beach is announcing their Ear Force DSS product – a surround sound processor that takes in audio from an analog stereo source (like a stereo headset) and upgrades it to Dolby Pro Logic IIx for virtual surround sound (7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound). With any stereo headset, you can use the Ear Force DSS to get 7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound while watching movies and TV (or Internet TV) through Windows Media Center, Blu-ray movies, or playing games all on your Windows PC. Turtle Beach makes some amazing headset products that the Ear Force DSS serves as a perfect complement to such as the Ear Force X31, X11, XLC, Z1 and PX21. The Ear Force DSS and Ear Force headsets are perfect for gamers looking to have impressive audio capabilities while gaming – and work not just with Windows PCs, but also with Xbox 360’s (and PlayStation 3’s) as well.

Turtle Beach sent along an Ear Force DSS for me to try out this weekend. I was traveling this weekend so it actually worked out to be a great weekend for me to try out the Ear Force DSS. I brought along Turtle Beach’s Ear Force X11 headset with me. And of course I had my Dell Studio 15 (“The Goat”) with me too. I didn’t bring any movies or TV shows to watch but I’ve been really into Batman: Arkham Asylum lately. I had Batman: Arkham Asylum installed on my laptop and intended to do a little gaming this weekend. Incidentally, Batman: Arkham Asylum has Dolby as a partner – even better! I didn’t want to bother those around me so I connected up the Ear Force DSS and threw on the Ear Force X11 headset.

Wow. With the DSS, the sound coming out of the headset while playing Batman: Arkham Asylum was amazing. In particular, Mark Hamil’s voice as The Joker truly stood out in the game, with the creep-factor amplified. I also found I could hear a lot more of the background sound effects than I was used to hearing. And the audio for explosions and weapons fire and throwing batarangs were enhanced within the game thanks to the built in bass boost.

The DSS is a pretty small, basic device. You connect it to your PC (or Xbox) to power the device. It also serves as a USB pass-through where you can connect a USB device to the USB-in port and it will connect the device to your PC as if it were physically connected to your PC. There are several display lights on the top of the device that tell you what the device is doing. You’ll notice in my photos above that the light for “PLIIX” is lit up. This means the device is processing the audio input to Dolby Pro Logic IIx. There is an output volume control and an input audio control. You can also control the level of bass boost (I mentioned bass boost above). And there are 2 buttons: a power button on the side and a Dolby Bypass button on the top. The Dolby Bypass button lets you turning off all audio processing – and is a good way to hear what the audio would sound like without any processing by the DSS. I used this to see the difference between having the audio processed or not while playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. I really did see a difference too!

Admittedly, as I wrote this blog post I also enjoyed listening to music from my collection in Zune with the Ear Force X11 headset and the DSS. The audio in this situation was also very impressive.

Again, for someone who wants impressive high quality audio when playing movies, TV, or games on your Windows PC, the Ear Force DSS is the perfect device to let you hear everything you want to hear (and maybe more).

The Ear Force DSS will be $89.95 (MSRP) and is available starting today from the Turtle Beach Web site. It will also be available soon at other online retailers and major US and Canadian retail stores.

When I was in college (The College of William & Mary, Class of 2000) all I had to work with was a struggling Pentium II PC running Windows 95 that my Dad built—and I was really grateful for it.  At least I could do my homework and play a networked game of Quake in warm peace.  About half my freshman hall had to make midnight trips to computer labs on sleet-slickened brick walkways to do homework—and forgo gaming entirely. Today, our good friends at Best Buy are making sure that you won’t ever be one of those people.

Starting on May 23, head over to Best Buy or BestBuy.com (U.S. only) and pick up either a 14” Toshiba E205 or 15.6” Dell s15z notebook along with an Xbox 360 Arcade and get a $200 discount (I’ll come back on 5/23 and update the links so you can go directly to the offer page). Ben will soon post a hands-on review of the Toshiba E205 and he’s right – it’s beautiful.  Don’t miss the WiDi video in his post.

Both PCs come with Windows 7 Home Premium, which is perfect for taking full advantage of all the built-in media features, like Windows Media Center, in Windows 7.  They also weigh less than six pounds, have 500GB hard drives and come with 30 days of Geek Squad support.  So, if you’ve been lobbying to get an Xbox 360 you probably won’t get a better bargaining chip than this deal. You get an awesome PC to get you through school in a blaze of shiny, high-GPA glory and an Xbox 360 Arcade to blow off some steam.

For anyone who’s interested, I lived on Yates 3^rd South from 1996-1997 and can be found @winashbrown

Kevin Purdy from Lifehacker posted earlier this last week about how to "geek out" with Windows Media Center but in such a way that non-geeks can take advantage and use. For you Windows Media Center geeks (or aspiring geeks) out there - this post is a must read. In the post, Kevin talks about Netflix, easy sharing of media using Windows 7's HomeGroup feature, Internet TV, and installing a TV tuner turning your PC into a DVR.

Lately, folks have been talking a bit about HDMI. HDMI is a special type of connection designed to deliver digital content from one device to another audio or video device through a single connection. That content can be standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD) movies or something as simple as MP3 music. HDMI is a completely digital connection, as it transmits uncompressed digital data. It is a standard that is replacing the old-style analog connections such as S-Video and VGA. A common use for HDMI today is connecting devices like a PC or an Xbox 360 to a HDTV.

As I had been seeing a lot of talk about HDMI, I realized that HDMI is very common today in Windows PCs. In looking at the PCs I currently have in my office and at home, the majority of them have HDMI. Those PCs include my Dell Studio 1555, Dell Inspiron Zino HD, Acer Aspire Revo, Toshiba Satellite E205, Acer Aspire 1420P (the “PDC laptop”), ASUS G71Gx, HP TouchSmart 600, and HP Envy 13. These PCs span a variety of form factors from small “nettops” to full-blown all-in-one PCs. Even netbooks are now shipping with HDMI (it’s smaller than the VGA connection).

All the above mentioned PCs are running Windows 7 of course. What’s great about Windows 7 and HDMI is that when I plug any of these laptops into a HDTV via HDMI, it recognizes the display and sets the screen resolution correctly. And because HDMI does not just do video but audio too, it also brings in the audio. During the holidays while visiting my parents, I connected the HP Envy 13 I was using at the time to my dad’s 52” HDTV. We rented several movies from the Zune Marketplace and watched this in full HD on his HDTV.

Of the PCs I mentioned above – the Acer Aspire Revo and Dell Inspiron Zino HD are prefect little Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center. And with HDMI – a single cable connected to an HDTV is all one needs to watch movies, play music, go through family photos, watch DVDs, or even watch live TV*.

*You’ll need a TV tuner to watch live TV in Windows Media Center. Some PCs are so small they don’t support any additional hardware inside the actual system. Not to worry! You can pick up a USB TV tuner which works just fine! I’ll talk about this in a later blog post.

You can also add HDMI to existing desktop PCs (for the folks out there that like building their own desktop PCs) fairly inexpensively. Many graphics cards today are shipping with HDMI built in. Earlier this month, I blogged about 2 new affordable DirectX 11 graphics cards from AMD: the Radeon HD 5570 and Radeon HD 5450.Both these graphics cards come with HDMI.

Many Windows PCs ship with Blu-ray playback capabilities. You can use your PC to play Blu-ray movies. With HDMI, you can connect a Windows PC to an HDTV and watch Blu-ray movies on your HDTV without having to go out and buy a standalone Blu-ray player. Most of Windows PCs that ship with Blu-ray also ship with software for Blu-ray playback. I also did a blog post about Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 last December which is Compatible with Windows 7. Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 is an excellent application for Blu-ray playback in Windows 7 as well.

Yesterday, Dell officially announced availability of the Dell Inspiron Zino HD.

The Inspiron Zino HD is a small PC that packs quite a punch in an 8” by 8” square. Hip to be square, right? Ok – enough Huey Lewis, let’s talk about what this PC comes (and can be configured) with:

• It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit or Windows 7 Professional 64-bit*.
• You can customize the PC with 7 solid colors.
• You can customize the PC with 3 designs.
• The Inspiron Zino HD uses AMD’s Athlon processor (single or dual core).
• The base configuration is 3GB of RAM, but can be configured with 4, 6, and 8GB of RAM with 8GB being the max.
• Storage shouldn’t be a problem with your choice of 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, or 1TB 7200rpm SATA hard drives.
• You can choose either a DVD +/- RW drive or Blu-ray drive.
• For graphics, you can choose either an integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4330 with 512MB of dedicated memory.
• It has HDMI and VGA ports.
• A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated gigabit Ethernet are both standard.
• It has integrated 2.1 High Definition audio with the choice of going with a Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition audio from Creative.
• For your wireless needs, you can choose either a Dell 1397 802.11 b/g wireless card or Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card.

This little PC starts at just $229 and can be customized to support a variety of configurations depending on your needs.

Matter a fact, Dell’s Lionel Menchaca talks about a perfect use for the Inspiron Zino HD – a Windows Media Center “hub” with Windows 7. You can connect this PC up to your HDTV via HDMI and play HD Blu-ray movies. You can buy a USB TV tuner to watch and record live TV in Windows Media Center and also stream video content via Internet TV and Netflix.

For a powerful Windows Media Center setup with Windows 7, it is recommended when ordering your Inspiron Zino HD you choose the discrete graphics option (the ATI Radeon HD 4330) for the best experience. With with the storage options you get with the Inspiron Zino HD, you can literally make this PC the centralized “hub” on your network for all your digital media. And of course HomeGroup in Windows 7 makes it easier than ever to share that content with the rest of your PCs on your network too.

In the coming months I’m hoping to pick one of these up and deploy it in my home as my own Windows Media Center hub.

* Base model comes with Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-bit.

Photos credit: Dell. See the full set of Inspiron Zino HD photos from Dell’s official Flickr page.