Duncan Mackenzie.NET

and the Group Manager of Platform Evangelism at Adobe feels the need to comment about it. […]

One of their users emailed us to comment on our video quality... essentially pointing out that it sucked when viewed through their TV using TV Tonic. Well I was puzzled because, while we don't ship out DVD quality video, our high quality download is quite good for a podcast. Turns out though, after […]

for use on non-DRM'd files (one that can do both is fine... it just isn't what I'm going to use it for) must transfer meta data correctly (ID3 tags) batch would be great, point it at a folder structure and let it run I've tried a couple, but so far I haven't found a single free one that works well. […]

I was interested, and I guess I still am, but I'm not sure yet... […]

I like this idea... I'd like it more on a Media Center box, but I still like the idea […]

I captured some footage of Viva Piñata to test the quality of capturing the analog video out from the 360 into a miniDV camera... worked out pretty good I think. […]

If you have digital cable from Comcast, including HD service, then go up into the 600's and try to find the new Universal HD channel. Repeats of shows like Firefly, Battlestar Galatica (new series, not old), The Equalizer, Knight Rider... and tons more, all in HD. I watched an episode of Firefly […]

I stumbled upon the PSP Connect site a few weeks ago, and I've been really enjoying it as a source of video for my Zune. This site, since it is aimed at the PSP, has a ton of great 320x240 MP4 content, including a lot of popular viral videos, movie trailers (of all the upcoming Sony movies for sure) […]

If you know me, or read my blog much, you'll probably gather that I've fully bought into the WMA/WMV world. I've always been a bit annoyed at the iPod model of things as well... I mean, seriously, you can only use iTunes with iPods and iPods with iTunes... talk about crazy... people need choice, who […]

While working on a certificate issue for the 'next' iteration of on10.net, I decided to code up a new feature that has been sitting on our feature list for quite some time. ASX files are very simple files that let you list out a series of media files and Windows Media Player will happily play them […]

Grab it here if you'd like, A Special Christmas

If you are following Zune news, then I'm sure you've seen this 'hack' to let you see your Zune as a read-only hard drive. […]

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I had no idea this was possible, but has anyone managed to either: […]

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For all you wanna-be ENG folks, video interviewers, YouTube/Soapbox producers, etc... you need this video. I need this video... we all need this video. […]

Ok, if you are a programmer... or even if you just can relate enough that you think Office Space is one of the best movies in the world (doesn't everyone?) then I need you to do this: […]

As you may have noticed, I've been playing with Soapbox lately and it is rocking. Yep, there are other sites out there, but I've been finding the quality (it is all flash video folks, but there is still a range of quality) of the videos I've uploaded to Soapbox to be a few steps above the other site […]

Visited the Zune buildings today to film an interview for on10.net... I'd show you a few screen captures from the tape, but I had nothing to do with the camera work so I don't have anything to grab from yet. Since I'm a bit of an Zune enthusiast, Laura and Jesse ran camera and I handled asking the q […]

Brian and I just posted a demo of the wireless sharing features in the Zune, so if you are into that sort of thing you should check it out.

He's performing in Seattle, so we're going to head down with our cameras and see what we can get on tape (or disk in the case of our newest camera). […]

I love working at Microsoft and finding out all my information about our products from Engadget :) […]

As someone who works on a video based Microsoft site, you'd think I would have already found this... but I had no idea it was out... description from the site itself: […]

This is crazy, I watch SciFi channel all the time and I never saw an ad for this! (of course, I skip all the commercials :( ) […]

And the general geek-focused music world in general I suspect... but I only see Frontalot's name on there now. […]

Sampy and I were looking at some photos of the MC Chris concert from PAX05 and I had to go dig up the song. Easy enough to find the MP3 on MC Chris's site, but I remembered a video ... not this one, but close enough. […]

I interviewed Christoph, the guy behind mceWeather, mcePhone and now mceAuction... while I was down in Las Vegas for the eBay Developer Conference (ages ago) and I have finally managed to post the video up to on10.net. Enjoy :) […]

I love this; […]

But with a really cool name: http://shootingthekids.dpblogs.com […]

As a few folks already know, I like portable media devices... and I have a couple myself (I had the Samsung, it got smashed... now I have a iRiver PMC and a Creative Labs PMC.. if you are interested in getting one for free... check this out)... and I use them on trips with the kids. My normal usage […]

If you are interested in portable video, downloading video podcasts, etc... check out today's episode on 10 ... featuring me!

Along with Zooba.com, I've kept my Audible membership as well... (and Columbia House DVD and BMG Music ... oh, and Vonage... ok, there are quite a few free offers that I ended up keeping!!). Audible is pretty handy for those of us who have the occasional long driving trip, I burned 'Getting things d […]

Just FYI, the gifts on some of these free sites change from time to time, and the PVPs4Free site has added the Creative Zen Vision (video/audio/photo player) and the Portable Media Center from Samsung, the YH-999.   […]

I have no idea when this is coming out, but I have got to get one... I've tried various remote keyboards but this one seems much better designed for lap-based use, which is exactly what I'm aiming for...

I'm not sure who invented this term, SAF, but it comes up often around folks who are into new technology for the home... "sure you might want to install a media center pc, but have you taken into account the spouse acceptance factor?" or the more common, "having to restart the cable modem sure reduc […]

http://www.gamestay.com/ is a blog/site with info on all those topics, so you might want to check it out!

Everytime Brian tells me something that involves his portable media center, I think about getting one. He has the Samsung model, which I really like the look/feel of and it seems to work well (although the length of transcoding is a reoccuring complaint), but my only real plan for getting one was to […]

I started writing this entry about "Giving advice on technology to friends and family...", but I realized after I had rambled on for a bit, that it was more about technology decisions... when companies force us to decide between MP3 and WMA or iTunes and WMP or even Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio or […]

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you probably know about my column "Coding4Fun", well now there is an entire site on MSDN going by that name... to be clear, this is not a site all about my column :) ... it is a site dedicated to the same concept though, hobbyist coding. Check it out at: ht […]

Ok, this may seem really odd, but I swear it happened to me... :) […]

Of course, the iPod has been available (and widely publicized) through these free sites for a while (shuffle, regular/mini, or photo model all have their own sites), but if you are like me and you want to use a media player that works with more than one brand of device, or if you want to stick with […]

That may not seem like a big deal to most MIcrosoft developers, since most of them write code for that exact purpose, but I have spent most of my time in Redmond writing sample code and even with my switch to development I'm focused on writing internal systems that are not likely to ever be exposed […]

Brian and I were chatting (arguing actually) about the PSP the other day at lunch... I thought the idea of selling movies for the device, movies that you couldn't use in a DVD player at home, was crazy and Brian didn't. Brian's opinion is likely the more accurate one (it usually is), these PSP movie […]

I've recently unhooked my Tivo... I picked up a Media Center Extender (the HP one) and that was the final step to moving all of our television watching to MCE 2005. We love it and we record tons of shows. Extender works wonderfully, better than the XBox extender because there is no stupid DVD to put […]

I saw a newsgroup post (by Todd Bowra) that an update was available for my XBox media center extender, but I can't find anything about this on any of the media center sites on http://www.microsoft.com or xbox.com, so I thought I would spread the […]

I stopped at Starbucks in Redmond today on my way into work, and the drive thru was really backed up so I decided to run inside. Well, that was lucky for me because I got to see and play with the latest expansion to their service offerings, the ability to

As Chris already noticed, Charlie Kindel is discussing home data storage and home servers... both topics that interest me for about the same reasons as Chris. I'm a big fan of Windows Media Center, I have a ton of WMA files, digital photos, and I'm starting to have 3 seperate places where I store di […]

I created a Pocket PC remote for Windows Media Player, but I only had speakers right next to the music system... so the remote wasn't all that useful... but I just picked up this wireless speaker; and suddenly it is time to install that software again ... my wife now puts the speaker wherever s […]

I installed MCE onto my main home computer recently, which happens to have a modem that supports caller id.... and I was just sitting in front of it tonight watching a recorded episode of “The Dead Zone” when someone called... a nice transparent message floated up telling me their name and #.... and […]

It is like bootleg concert recordings but the quality is better and I had to pay for it :) […]

I am a closet audiophile, with all the usual history.... did the 'music man' thing for plays, moved up to music guy for bar bands, blah, blah, blah... spent way too much time worried about the alignment of my high-end tape deck, etc... but at some point my obsession with all things audio related […]

Hmm... pretty cool so far, guess I'll see when I decide to start moving music around to my MCE box, my laptop, my Rio device... etc... found the Cake song I wanted though :) […]

A version of this code appeared recently on MSDN Belux, and it was so cool I asked Ianier Munoz if he'd mind turning it into a column for my Coding 4 Fun series.... lucky for me, he said yes and here we areYou have got to check this one out... […]

I was pretty impressed with the first Roku offering, a HDTV focused media player that included "art packs" to use your HDTV flat panel as artwork... not that I have one of those flat LCD or Plasma displays... but the idea was appealing. […]

I'm getting back into my column writing, and I'm looking for topic suggestions... I actually have a long list of ideas already, but I'm always interested in hearing what you folks want to read about! So... suggest away! Feel free to include topics related to the Media Center edition of Windows XP as […]

The latest 'issue' of my Coding 4 Fun column has been published to MSDN; Duncan Mackenzie describes how to control a serial-port–connected LCD panel using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET. It is probably worth mentioning that I have hidden a CRC16 class in the code download […]

I'm going to buy an album as download-only today, from www.buymusic.com, and I hope it all works out as good as it sounds (no pun intended!). My biggest worry when downloading music from the various sites is that I won't be able to fit the DRM requirements into my digital music lifestyle. I listen t […]

Ok, maybe a night of Halo with my coworkers has skewed my perspective on this topic, but come on... wouldn't that just be the coolest... maybe the little alien guys, the chief, Cortona (not sure on the spelling for that one)... […]

Now, it is helping me to find things! The blog page on my personal site has become stuck in DVI/HDTV/Component Video land after one of my posts, all of the ads are about HDTV related stuff... but, this just appeared and it looks pretty cool. Not the most visually appealing device, but I'm thinking t […]

I have been drooling over this for that last few weeks... inner monologue: it doesn't do anything that I really need, and if I ever get around to hooking my current music system up with […]

Was it fate, or mere coincidence? Today, I checked out a little online message board where MSFT employees sell/trade various used items (computers, appliances, furniture, baby clothes... whatever) and someone was selling one of those new Samsung DVD players with DVI out... yep, the very same one tha […]

I don't know if it is just me, but there are some times when a new product comes out and they have me from the moment I see the ad; the price is right, the features are exactly what I am looking for, etc... […]

Back in June I published a column showing you how to make a simple Pocket PC remote for Windows Media player. I didn't know it at the time, but some of my readers have sent in links to a professional version of the same idea. Built using the .NET Framework 1.1 and C#, Zerama looks amazing... everyth […]