I installed SecondRun.tv tonight and did a little playing around with it, and I have to say, it looks great so far.  It does have its problems, but it’s only been available for a few hours, so there will definitely be some tweaks needed before it’s ready for prime-time.  The interface is simple to use and looks great.  The slick look of the application relies on heavy use of network logos and TV show artwork, a lot of which is still missing, so for now you’ll see a lot of empty grey boxes for all but the more common shows.  I’m sure that will change as soon as Jason, the developer, has time to finish setting it all up.

The main screen shows the network logos, which you can scroll through to find content.  Once you’ve selected your network, the list of shows appear as large images on the screen with the name of the show, and in some cases a description.  Selecting a series brings up a full screen background, usually of the cast, with the list of episodes running across the bottom of the screen.  The interface is all MCML-based up until you select an episode to watch, and then it looks like the application switches over to a brower control to view the content.  For a while you’re able to see the Hulu web page with the video control in the center, but once the video starts playing, it automatically switches into full screen mode.  Well, sometimes.  In my testing, it worked about half of the time, but once again, this is an early beta, so nothing to complain about.

Things I’d like to see in future releases would be easier ways of finding the shows I want to see, such as a list of all titles available from the main page, or the ability to log into my Hulu account to show my queue and subscriptions.  For an initial effort though, this is pretty awesome, and I’ll definitely use it when the need arises.  Typically, that means my DVR failed to record something, so instead of getting out the wireless mouse and keyboard and opening Hulu in a browser to replay the episode I missed, now I’ll be able to jump into SecondRun.tv and watch without leaving Media Center.

Find out more about SecondRun.tv and download the free plugin here.

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Since my blog is geared toward home theater and digital media, I decided it would be a good idea to spend a little time talking about my own home theater, how I set it up, and what kind of equipment I’m using.

One of the things I had always wanted was my own home theater, separate from the living room of course, since having blacked out windows and a giant TV screen in the living room has a decidedly low WAF (wife approval factor.)

I had come fairly close in my first house, which had a small loft with no windows.  Unfortunately, it was open to the living room below, so it wasn’t possible to get it completely dark.   Still, it worked fine while I was a bachelor, but once my wife-to-be moved in, it was impossible for me to watch a movie upstairs while she tried to watch something else downstairs. That was only a short term problem though, since we soon started looking for a new house to start our new life together.

Under Construction

We decided early on to have a house built, since housing developments were coming up everywhere at the time, and we wanted the benefits of choosing our floor plans and options.  This was also when I knew I’d finally get that home theater I’d been dreaming of.  Before long I found a perfect floor plan that had two adjacent rooms that would be the perfect size for a small home theater, so we bought the house with the stipulation that the builder remove the wall separating the two rooms to make one large room.  This gave me a theater roughly 13 x 21 feet.  One of the added benefits of having the house built was that I was able to sneak in and run cables while the house was still being framed.  I ran CAT-5 cable for networking, and speaker wires for the surround sound.

The Transformation

Once we moved into the new house, I cut into the drywall, pulled the wires out that I had run, and installed wall plates for all the speaker plugs and network jacks.  The next task of course was to transform the bright white walls into something darker and more suitable.  I painted the ceiling charcoal grey, and painted the walls dark blue.  To block the light from the windows, I covered them with a type of insulated foil, which also served to prevent radiant heat coming through the windows.  For anyone concerned about how this looks from the outside, the windows have mini-blinds in them, which is what you see from the outside.  The foil was only visible from the inside, until I covered the windows and the white closet doors with dark blue drapes.

A friend helped me build a platform for the second row of seating, and we covered it with carpet matching the rest of the room.  Final touches on the theater were to hang movie posters on the walls, and add track lighting to cast indirect light that didn’t create glare on the big screen.  I also added rope lights around the riser so that when the room is completely dark, guests wouldn’t trip when trying to get to their seats.

The Equipment

Here’s a quick run-down of the equipment I’m using:

• Mitsubishi WS-65869 1080i HDTV
• DirecTV HR20-100 HD DVR
• NMediaPC 288BA HTPC with Windows Vista Media Center
• JVC RX-8000V Receiver
• JBL surround speakers
• Sony 120 watt subwoofer
• Philips Pronto Pro TSU7000 touchscreen remote
• X-10 for controlling lights and ceiling fan

The Finished Product

I’m very happy with how everything turned out.  Sure, there are things I’d like to do to upgrade my theater a bit, such as replacing the couches with leather theater chairs, and replacing the 65″ TV with a 1080p projector, but I’ll get to it eventually.  Now, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and since this entry is long enough already, there’s nothing left to do besides leave you with a gallery of photos showing off the final results.

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One of the primary reasons I built my HTPC was for watching movies.  I wanted to have my movie library available online, with a nice interface for exploring my collection, without the need to shuffle through shelves of DVD cases trying to find a movie to watch.  That’s how I found My Movies.   The interface is great, and it has all the features I wanted, and then some.

Once I ripped my DVD collection to disk, my next step was to set up a quick and easy way to show off my home theater by playing specific movie scenes using My Movies.  What I ended up with worked great, and has been a huge success, so I’m outlining the steps here for anyone who may be looking for a similar solution.

Before You Begin

These instructions assume that you’re already using Windows Media Center, and have installed the My Movies plugin.

Pick Your Demo Scenes

The first step, and maybe the most difficult, will be to decide which movie scenes you’ll want to choose for your demos.  When choosing a scene, it goes without saying that you’ll want to use scenes that will really show off your home theater equipment, so start with your favorite action flicks.  Find a great sequence with lots of action and sound, but try to avoid choosing that final battle scene at the climax of the movie.  If someone in your audience hasn’t seen the movie yet, you don’t want to ruin the ending for them.  Instead, try to find a scene toward the beginning of the movie that won’t give away too much of the story.  For the demo in this post, I’ll be using the scene from Iron Man, where Tony Stark escapes from his captors in the Mark I suit.

Isolate the Movie Clip

1. Once you’ve chosen a scene to use, you’ll need to rip just that section of the movie to your hard drive.  This is how you’ll be able to play just the part that you want, without having to start the entire movie and locate the right chapter. For this, I use a program called DVDShrink.  It’s free, and it lets you pick the exact starting and ending point of the movie.
2. Start up DVDShrink, then click the Re-author button in the toolbar.
3. Next, in the DVD Browser tab, open the dropdown, and select the folder where your movie is located.  (Or, if you don’t have the entire movie on disk, and just want to rip the demo scene, you can put in the original DVD and select it.)
4. After you’ve selected the movie, you will see a list of all the contents of the folder or disc.
5. Select the item listed under “Main Movie” and drag it over into the DVD Structure window on the left.
6. On the left side of the program, enter a name for the scene.  I used “Iron Man Demo.”
7. Click the icon that looks like this:
8. Now drag the sliders around until you have your start and end frames selected.  While you’re making your selection, keep an eye on the total duration of your sequence.  You don’t want to make it too long.  Five or six minutes is usually about right.
9. Click the play button and use the preview window to make sure you’ve picked a good starting and ending point.  Try to find natural beginnings and endings for scenes, so they don’t appear to start or stop too abruptly.
10. Click the Backup button in the toolbar.
11. In the backup target dropdown, select Hard Disk Folder, then choose the location to store the movie clip.  I store mine in the same folder as the main movie, under a subfolder called Demo.
12. Check the box to Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders, then click the OK button.

Add Demo to My Movies Collection Management

Now that you’ve got the movie clip onto hard drive, you’ll need to get it added to My Movies in a way that will make it easy to find and play back, in an intuitive way.  To do that, I’ll walk you through the steps to add the clip as a movie trailer, set up a new Demo category, then create a filter to display only movies that have demo clips attached.

1. Open My Movies Collection Management.
2. Find and select the movie you’ve created a clip for in the list of movies.
3. On the details page of the movie, find the field for “Local Trailer,” and click the button beside it to select the trailer location.
4. When prompted to choose a file or a folder for the trailer, click the Folder button, then browse to and select the folder where you saved the clip.
5. Next, click the Categories button.  It should be located directly above the Local Trailer field.
6. When the Categories window appears, click the Create Category button, and add a new category named Demo.
7. Select the Demo category, and click Add Category button.  This will associate the new Demo category to your movie.
8. Close the Category window, then click the Save Title button on the main details page.
9. Now click the button beside the Filter dropdown, which appears just above the list of movies.
10. When the Edit Filters window appears, click the Add Filter button, which appears in the lower left corner.
11. Name the new filter Demos.
12. Scroll down to the bottom of the filter selections, to the Categories options.
13. For Categories, select “Some,” then check the category named Demo.
14. Close the Edit Filters window.

View Demos from Media Center

Now that you have your demo clips set up, let’s give it a trial run.

1. Start Media Center, then go into My Movies.
2. From the menus on the left, select Filters.
3. From the list of filters displayed, select Demos.
4. Now you will only see the DVD’s that you have added to the Demo category.
5. Select one of the movies to bring up the details for it.
6. From the menu on the left, select Cast & More.
7. Next, select Movie Trailer from the menu.
8. Your movie clip will start to play in a smaller window within My Movies.  To make the clip play in full screen, just use the remote to highlight the clip, and press the Select button.
9. When the clip is finished playing, click the Previous button on the remote to return to My Movies.

Impress Your Friends

After I got my HTPC set up and working well, I spent several hours setting up my favorite demo scenes, in anticipation of our next party.  As you might expect from looking at the screenshots, the My Movies interface is pretty slick, and being able to interactively shuffle through an online DVD collection and play demo scenes on demand proved to be just as impressive, if not more, than the actual demos themselves.  Needless to say, once your demo is over, be prepared to answer a lot of questions about how you just did that.

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That’s where it got tricky.  Netbooks don’t have an internal DVD drive, so the only way to install it is from a USB flash drive or USB hard drive.  The Windows 7 Beta is well over 2 GB, but the biggest USB drive I had lying around was only 1 GB, so that wasn’t an option.  I have an old 200 GB USB hard drive though, so I dusted it off and went to work.  Unfortunately though, this was the most difficult part of the entire installation.  For some reason, I had a nothing but trouble trying to get my netbook to boot from the USB drive.  It took a few hours, and I had to try countless methods from various Google searches, but in the end, here are the steps that worked for me.

Before You Begin

These instructions assume that you’re running Windows Vista, and have already downloaded the Windows 7 Beta and have either created a DVD or will be mounting the ISO.  If you haven’t gotten the beta yet, you can get it from the official site at Microsoft, or find it on the torrents.  If you’re not running Vista, you’ll need to use some other disk partitioning program.  GParted seems to be a pretty popular choice.

I would also recommend updating your BIOS, if you haven’t arleady.  I’m not sure if this is absolutely necessary, but I read that some people were not able to boot from their USB devices until they did this.

Upgrading the Memory

The 900HA only comes with 1 GB of RAM, so the first thing you’ll want to do is replace it with a 2 GB chip.  You’ll need a 200 Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM.  I got mine from NewEgg for under 20 bucks.  To install the RAM, remove the four screws on the bottom of the netbook, then take off the cover plate, and you’ll see the existing RAM chip.  Spread the spring clips apart on either side of the chip, and it’ll pop up for removal.  Slide in the new chip and press it down until the spring clips lock it in place, screw the cover plate back on, and you’re done.

(Click on images to see a larger version)

Creating a Bootable USB Drive with Windows 7

To make your USB hard drive bootable, follow these steps:

1. Plug in your USB drive.
2. Open the Start menu, then right-click “Computer,” and then select “Manage.”  This will open the Computer Management window.
3. Select “Disk Management” to view the list of drives, then right-click on the USB drive and select “Shrink Volume.”
4. Reduce the volume by 4 GB, which will be more than enough for your Windows 7 files, then click Shrink.  This will split your drive into two partitions.
5. Next, right-click on the 4 GB partition, and select “New Simple Volume.”
6. Format the volume for FAT32, and give the volume a label, like “Windows7″.  Make sure to check “Quick Format,” then finish the wizard.
7. Finally, right-click the partition and select “Mark Partition as Active.”
8. Now all that’s left is to copy all of the Windows 7 files onto the new partition.  This is one of the areas I had trouble with.  Just copying the files from within Windows didn’t seem to work.  My netbook would never boot from the USB drive.  I ended up getting it to work with XCOPY.
9. Open a command prompt and type: xcopy e:\*.* /s/e/ h:\ where E: is the DVD with the Windows 7 files, and H: is the 4 GB partition.

Booting the 900HA from USB

Before you can boot your netbook from USB, follow these steps:

1. Press F2 while booting to get into the BIOS settings.
2. Go into the Boot menu, and disable Boot Boster.  (You can turn this back on after you’ve completed the install.)
3. Change the Boot Device Priority so that the 1st Boot Device is set to “Removable Device.”
4. Save the settings and exit, then shut down the netbook.
5. Plug in the USB drive and turn on the netbook.  It should automatically start the Windows 7 install.

The Install

Once you’ve got the install process going, the rest is cake.  All I had to do was pick a few options and then let it do it’s thing.  The install was painless, and only took about 20 minutes.  I was immediately able to connect to my wireless network, my display adapter automatically set my resolution to the proper 1024 x 600, and even the multi-touch features were working on my touchpad.  Not everything worked right out of the gate though.  My LAN adapter wasn’t detected, so I installed the latest driver from the Asus website.  I also had to download and install the latest drivers for Audio, ACPI, and SuperHybridEngine.

First Impressions

I haven’t done a lot with it yet, but I like what I’ve seen so far.  It takes about 55 seconds to boot, which is about 10 or 15 seconds slower than with XP, but I can live with that.  My performance rating is 2.2, which is due to the Atom processor and the graphics card, but that’s no surprise.  Windows Media Center runs, but it isn’t snappy.  It had no problems playing a DVD off the hard drive from Media Center, but it had a hard time keeping up while I was playing some of the online content, like movie trailers and videos.  I’m not sure if that’s due to the processor or the speed of the wireless connection, or both.  I do like the new visual features while listening to music though.  Internet browsing seems fine too, which is mostly what I use it for anyway.  There are a lot of new features in Windows 7 that I haven’t learned yet, so I’ll be spending some time picking up some of the new tricks.  If it proves to be pretty stable, I might even install it on my main HTPC to get some of the benefits of the new Media Center features.  Then again, if it’s too buggy and crashes a lot, it’s good to know that the 900HA comes with a hidden partition with the original XP image on it, so I can do a quick recovery.

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Media Center Launcher Configurator is an application that makes it easy to configure as many programs as you want to be launched from Media Center, using the Media Center Launcher program.  The interface is simple to use, and even keeps track of the applications you’ve already registered.  It will also let you unregister applications or re-register them.  Here are some screenshots and instructions for using the program.

How to Use Media Center Launcher Configurator:

You must run Media Center Launcher Configurator as an Administrator in order for it to work.  To do that, right-click the icon and select “Run as administrator.”

Registering a new program to run in Media Center:

1. Check or uncheck the option to create a restore point before registering the application.
2. Select the New Registrations tab.
3. Complete the form by selecting the following:

• The EXE to launch from Media Center.
• An image to use as an icon in Media Center.  This can be a small JPG or PNG file.  I got my DirecTV logo from Google Images.
• A title and description of the application as you want them to appear in Media Center.
• A unique ID (GUID) for the application.  (You can supply your own or let the program generate it for you.)
• The tab strip where you want the application to appear in Media Center.

When you’ve finished filling out the form, click the Register button and the application will be set up for you.

Now when you run Media Center you should see your new program.

Reviewing programs that have been registered:

1. You can review programs that have already been registered by selecting the “Existing Registrations” tab.
2. Open the Applications drop-down to see a list of all the applications that you have registered.
3. Select an application to display all of the parameters that were used for the registration.

Unregistering a program:

1. Select a program that was previously registered.
2. Click the Unregister button.
3. The application will be removed from Media Center.

Re-registering a program:

1. Select a program that was previously registered.
2. Click the Re-register button.
3. The program will be re-registered using the same parameters that were previously used.

Download

Media Center Launcher Configurator is freeware, so feel free to download it and it use it as much as you want.

Credit Where Credit is Due

I also want to thank Michael Welter for developing the Media Center Launcher application, and for allowing me to redistribute it along with my own application.

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• Epson 3LCD technology with New “Crystal Clear Fine” D7 chip set and Ultra Black technology for superb black levels and extraordinary details
• Low fan noise of only 22dB
• HDMI 1.3a connectivity with Deep Color support
• Zoom ratio – 2.1x optical zoom, manual focus
• Brighter 200W E-TORL lamp delivers high brightness using less energy for up to 4,000 hours of lamp life

Maybe by the time I’m ready to revamp my home theater, they’ll have a newer model with wireless HDMI and an LED lamp.

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The unfortunate side effect is that existing customers with G2 phones, which include BlackBerries, RAZR’s and even the first generation iPhone, are now left with poor signal in areas that previously had strong coverage.

To add insult to injury, when the customers call AT&T to complain about it, they’re being told to upgrade their phone to a newer G3 version, at their own expense of course, which also extends their contract by another 2 years.

Thanks AT&T, but no thanks.  My wife loves her new T-Mobile G1 phone by the way.

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Asus Eee PC 900HA