I’ve heard you can do a little hack to get WMP11 to install which has Windows Media Connect v3.0, but I’ve come across a more appealing solution for streaming video to the xbox360 from the WHS.  Installing the Zune software on the WHS will allow the xbox360 to connect and view any of the content in the Zune library.  I had previously tried this on one of the Vista desktops (I have 2×30Gb Zunes) and it worked.  I didn’t have time to do it last night so, I will try it tonight and with any luck I will be able to move on to breaking the WHS with all the other tweaks and hacks out there.

One feature I’m excited to see, but not use on there is the backup.  It uses disk dedupe technology so you are only using space for each unique version of a file.  3x computers running Vista means only one copy of the Windows folder.  I’ve also excluded it from doing a backup of the large game install folders (WoW is over 9gb).  Maybe I will back them up once I add a couple 1.5Tb Seagate drives. 

Once I get everything installed I will post a picture or two of what it looks like.  It’s kind of like the last mod I planned for my Windows Home Server.  I have a couple 3D renders you can click the rest of the story to see.

If all that wasn’t enough it’s Tuesday and that means Buffalo Wild Wings.  It’s been a tradition going back about as long as I can remember 8+ years.  I noticed last week that they have the blazin’ challenge here now.  If you can eat X blazin’ wings in X minutes you get your picture put up on the wall.  I may have to take that challenge up afterhours.  I am going to need beer to win that one…

Entertainment Center:

Computer room:

Taken from: http://forum.wegotserved.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=2878&hl=ps3+pvconnect

I have noticed that this topic has come up a lot lately. My PS3 shows most movies as “unsupported data” or doesn’t show movies at all.

The reason for this is that Sony has changed the Upnp handshake string that it sends out to identify itself to media streamers. Below are the steps to follow for getting PVConnect / Twonky to recognize your PS3 correctly again:

1) Open a remote desktop connection to your home server.

2) From windows explorer go to the following path: C:\TwonkyMedia\resources

3) Open the file clients.db (use notepad don’t worry its just a text file)

4) You will find an entry marked ID:060 It will look like this

ID:060
NA:PS3
HH:PLAYSTATION3
DB:FIX
XM:DLNA10
XM:DATETIME
DL:MP4DLNA
HP:chunked
MT:mpeg,mpeg2,vdr,spts,tp,ts video/mpeg
MT:m4a audio/mp4
MT:avi,divx video/avi
AV:no-m3u

5) You need to put a space between PLAYSTATION and 3 so it should look like this: PLAYSTATION 3

6) Exit notepad saving your changes.

7) From the windows home server console select PVConnect

Select the Media Receivers Tab

9) Click on reset list

10) From the PS3 scan for media center under any of the Photo / Music / Video search for media centers or whatever it is

After that PVConnect (aka Twonky) will recognize the PS3 as a PS3 and your video problem will be solved

If you have the HP MediaSmart Server there is the v1.3 software update.  This update delivers enhanced media streaming capability from PacketVideo, server-side anti-virus protection from McAfee.  PacketVideo is also refered to as PVConnect or Twonky and it replaces Media Streaming with more support for uPnP devices.

Getting PCs to work was the first problem I solved.  Playing videos through Media Center was a matter of installing the right codecs.  I found the Combined Community Codec Pack was the choice that sounded best to me.  If you have Vista 64-bit you will also need to find “x64 Componets_v152.exe”  I also needed to install a reg hack to be able to see .mp4 files in Media Center.   I don’t recall where I got either of the last two updates, but you can get the contents of the .reg file by viewing the rest of this blog.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\video/mp4]
“UserApprovedOwning”=”yes”
“Extensions.SpaceSep”=”.mp4″
“Extensions.CommaSep”=”mp4,m4v,mp4v,”
“Extension.Key”=”.mp4″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mp4]
“Permissions”=dword:0000000f
“UserApprovedOwning”=”yes”
“Runtime”=dword:00000007
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“MediaType.Icon”=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,\
6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,\
00,77,00,6d,00,70,00,6c,00,6f,00,63,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,2d,00,\
37,00,33,00,33,00,00,00
“MediaType.Description”=”MP4 File”
“Extension.Handler”=”mp4file”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Descriptions]
“Others”=”Other file (*.mp4)”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\MUIDescriptions]
“Others”=”Other file”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Types]
“Others”=”*.mp4″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\MLS\Extensions]
“mp4″=”video”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Media\Windows Media Player\Capabilities\FileAssociations]
“.mp4″=”mp4file”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Applications\wmplayer.exe\SupportedTypes]
“.mp4″=”"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.mp4]
“Content Type”=”video/mp4″
@=”mp4file”
“PerceivedType”=”video”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.mp4\ShellEx]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.mp4\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}”

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.mp4]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.mp4\OpenWithProgids]
“mp4file”=hex(0):

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\video/mp4]
“UserApprovedOwning”=”yes”
“Extensions.SpaceSep”=”.mp4 .m4v .mp4v”
“Extensions.CommaSep”=”mp4,m4v,mp4v,”
“Extension.Key”=”.mp4″

Installation was a snap, although I had to change over to a Vista 32 box to install the included HP software.  I was able to configure accounts username/password to match the local accounts on each Vista box.  This allows me to connect to the server without entering any information.  It also gives each account a private user folder to store personal files that are blocked from the other users.  Permissions were fairly basic, but this is meant for a home not business so I understand.

Shortly after copying media files I ran into my first snag.  Viewing video files (mp4 or dvd (video_ts folder).  on Vista Media Center, PS3 or xbox360 all had various issues.  I will be following up with some of the things I’ve tried, the successes/failures of each and what I am still trying to make this all work…