Microsoft provides free Anti Virus software for your home

Starting today, you can now download the final release of Microsoft Security Essentials, the replacement for Microsoft’s OneCare. Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download from Microsoft that has been designed for the home market so it is simple to install and easy to use. The software uses Windows Update to ensure it is always kept up to date and lets you know the protection status of your PC by a coloured shield scheme. Security Essentials is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 but to my (and I imagine many others) dissapointment there is no product available for Windows Home Server.

At home I have used both AVG and Avast so I am going to give this a try to see how it compares. It will be interested to see how this compares and whether it will be adopted unlike the previous OneCare product.

For more information and to download Microsoft Security Essentials visit http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/default.aspx.

Internet TV for Windows Media Center Now in the UK

For awhile now US Windows Media Centre users have been enjoying the beta of Internet TV provided by MSN Video however this has been impossible until this week in the UK, some people attempted to get this to work by setting their regional settings to English US, though this allowed the beta to be installed due to regional IP address locking most content was unavailable.

That all changed yesterday when I noticed a new option appear in the Extras menu. Internet TV Beta 2. To ensure you receive access to the beta, just ensure you have Automatic Downloads switched on.

Once installed I was surprised to see a decent set of programmes, with full TV shows from the BBC and Channel 4 including Peep Show, Mock the Week, Shameless and Bottom, Music Videos, News Clips, Movie Trailers and more. Whilst I thought the content was of a high quality, offering full series of some good shows the video itself wasn't that great. I found I had to put up with quite a bit of blockiness especially compared to the iPlayer. No high definition content is available at the current time, but let’s hope that comes online in the future.

Blu-Ray to DVR-MS continued...

Well the saga continues. After my initial post of using MakeMKV and DVR-MS ToolBox readers of the post and I have found some issues. It appears that the DVR-MS Toolbox encoding the MKV files is failing with an error trying to decode the video contained within it. After a bit of investigation it appears to be that some Blu-Ray disks work fine and some don't. A few people have resolved this by installing different codecs but still occasionally have issues. As my goal was to be able to RIP my Blu-Ray disks to the hard disk with the least amount of effort and without installing lots of software on my media centre this solution doesn't really cut it. As you may of guessed I killed my Windows 7 by trying additional third party codecs.

So I was back to my quest to find a solution. On my travels I discovered an application called TSMuxer. This application has the ability to very quickly convert HD video files between formats with no quality loss whatsoever. This works by changing the container formats but keeping the video and audio streams the same.

TSMuxer is a small app that has the ability to grab the .mkv files I had created via the instructions of the last post on this topic and convert them to either .ts and .m2ts. The file format m2ts is the original blu-ray format and .ts is the original dvd format found within the vob filests.
Compared to my attempt with DV-RMS, you are not going to see the files size reduction as you did with Microsoft own format. However I find this procedure much more reliable and as .m2ts is a container there is no loss of quality.

TSMuxer does not require the input file to be a .mkv, I started with this as I had started going through my Blu-Ray collection. You can simply use TSMuxer to look at the disk and burn it straight to .m2ts.

This process took about 20 minutes and resulted in a file that plays natively in Windows Media Player 12, Windows Media Center and even better – streams and plays in HD to an Xbox 360 Media Center Extender. No stupid codec packs and no dodgy DirectShow filters.

For more information and to download TSMuxer follow this link http://www.smlabs.net/tsmuxer_en.html.

USB Vs E-SATA Whats best for adding disks to your Windows Home Server

After finding a method of converting my Blu-Ray films to a single loss-less file format that Windows 7 Media Centre is happy with I came accross a new problem, Storage. I use a Microsoft Windows Home as a central storage point for all my media. As my free space started getting lower I decided to add some storage. As my Home Server is a Tranquil T7-330 there is no more space for additional hard disks. Not a problem because Microsoft says just plug an external USB Hard Disk in and add it to your storage pool. So I did that!

However when watching some HD films I noticed a fair bit of lag and stuttering, but only on some. After some investigation it turned out that the HD films on the external USB disk were the only ones stuttering. So there was obviously some performance issue.

I noticed my machine had an E-SATA port on it. The external enclosure I purchased as well as USB had an E-SATA port on it. So I decided to switch the enclosure over to E-SATA. But before I did I wanted to benchmark the enclosure and disk at USB so I had some hard figures to compare the two technologies.

After a bit of digging around I came across HD Tune. This free application provides a great utility to benchmark the raw performance of the physical disk. It also uses S.M.A.R.T. Information (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) to provide health information on the disk and error checking software. For more information or to download HD Tune visit http://www.hdtune.com/.

The technical blurb on the two technologies shows that USB 2.0 provides 480Mbps where E-SATA offers between 1.5Gbps and 3.0Gbps dependent on your motherboard chipset. So I already new that E-SATA would be faster and probably solve my issue but in real world performance is there a noticeable difference? Well Here are my results.

Though I ended adding 1TB Western Digital Green Edition SATA Disks I ran the test with an old Western Digital 160GB SATA Disk as the benchmark. The enclosure used is an ASAKA 3.5" USB / E-SATA unit. The Intel motherboard used support 3.0Gbps through put.

1). Sample 160GB Western Digital SATA Hard Disk - USB

2). Sample 160GB Western Digital SATA Hard Disk - E-SATA

3). The actual 1TB Western Digital SATA Disk connected via E-SATA

If you compare the results of the 1TB disk to the 160GB disk connected via E-SATA you can the see that the actual physical disk itself makes a big difference.

So to answer the question of whats the best way to add additional space to your Windows Home Server here is my two pennies worth. First off, as you probably guessed from the results E-SATA is the way to go however I would not personally purchase a retail USB/E-SATA external Hard Disk. I would purchase an E-SATA enclosure (there are plenty to choose from) and a high quality Hard Disk such as the Western Digital Green Edition disks. The reason for this is that the retail external hard disk units you buy often have a cheaper quality hard disk than you would probably purchase yourself. These are often 5400rpm instead of 7200rpm and have 8Mb of Cache rather than 16Mb. Purchasing a high end disk such as Western Digital Green Edition not only provides a high spec disk but provides a cooler and quieter disk which is essential for 24x7 operation.

Now I can go back to watching HD films with no stuttering.

Outlook Web Access for Everyone

Previous versions of Outlook Web Access have worked in the majority of browsers but only in a 'light' version which removes most of the functionality. The following functionality of the Premium version are not present in Light:

•The Tasks module
•Task-specific properties: Only the text of the task items can be read through OWA Light.
•Search for mail items: OWA Light users can search only Contacts and Address Book. •Reminders
•HTML composing of messages: OWA Light users get only plain text textboxes with no editing or formatting options.
•Flags and Categories
•Weekly view in Calendar: OWA Light shows the daily view only.
•Free/Busy grid in Appointment/Meeting Scheduling Assistant: OWA Light users get only "Suggested Times".
•Print
•Spell Check
•Conversation View
•Account Quota information
•Recover Deleted Items
•Calendar month view
•Add/edit distribution lists
•Public Folder access
•S/MIME features
•Add/edit rules

The only way to get the full functionality in Outlook Web Access was to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer. However Microsoft has now realised that there are a large number of people and businesses are now using alternative browsers to Internet Explorer. Rather than try and fight this and limit non Internet Explorer users to a lesser experience with Exchange 2010 users can experience the same, great Outlook Web Access Premium experience within Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 3+, and Safari 3+.

This also includes some new features not seen before in the OWA expereince. These include:

Instant Messaging (IM): Outlook Web Access now contains instant messaging functionality within the client. Administrators can choose to connect this to Office Communications Server (onsite) or the Windows Live Messenger Service (hosted). Using the status indication of another user, employees can quickly decide if they should send an e-mail or just fire off a quick IM to get a fast response.

Conversation View: By grouping messages from a single conversation together, the new conversation view enable user to quickly identify the most recent messages, and the chain of responses. Conversation view is always preserved, even if individual e-mail message are located in different folders in the mailbox. By treating an entire group of messages as a single conversation it can be managed, ignored, moved, and deleted as a whole. New messages to old conversations will automatically be placed in the folder to which you have directed the conversation, even if you have deleted or ignored a conversation.

Single Page of Messages: Outlook Web Access 2010 no longer has pages. All messages are on one page and no matter how big the folder, your mailbox will let you scroll through every message without having you advance through pages. Users can more efficiently access the messages and scan conversations to find the communications they are looking for.

Single Page of Messages: Outlook Web Access 2010 no longer has pages. All messages are on one page and no matter how big the folder, your mailbox will let you scroll through every message without having you advance through pages. Users can more efficiently access the messages and scan conversations to find the communications they are looking for.

View/Set Status: A user's contact list is shown in Outlook Web Access with colorful indicators to let the user know if their contact is available to chat or not. This presence indication lets users know which means of communications will help them get the information they need instantly. Users can not only see the status of others but they can also set their own so other users on the network know if they are available to chat.

SMS Sync: Exchange ActiveSync now provides the ability to send and receive SMS text messages from Outlook and Outlook Web Access. Incoming messages, sent via EAS to the user's mobile device, will be seen both in the usual SMS message location and the e-mail Inbox.

Get your media centre to automatically login

A lot of people don’t recommend this, it is a security vulnerability after all. However there are some of us with Media Centres that don't want to get out of their chair every time they turn the TV on. An easy way to solve this is to enable auto-logins for your Windows PC. This is possible in Windows 7, as it was in prior versions.

Here’s how:
1. Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard to launch the “Run” dialog box.
2. Type in "control userpasswords2" and click "OK". The User Accounts window will display.
3. Uncheck the option “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”
4. Click “OK”. You will then be prompted to enter the current password and confirm it. After doing so, you will no longer be prompted to enter your password upon login.

Creating Bootable Windows 7 USB Flash Drive

Well now the final release of Windows 7 is out it's time to rebuild all my machines. As my netbook has no optical drive in it I decided to look into making a bootable USB pen drive to install the os. I found loads of good guides on how to do this so I thought I would put together the easiest options.

You need a USB Flash Drive with at least 4GB of space and a copy of Microsoft Windows 7 on DVD.

Even if you have an optical drive you may want to use an old USB pen drive as your chosen media to install your operating system as the performance from a pen drive is considerabbly quicker than an optical drive. In fact I did a side by side race on identical machines and the usb pen drive installed Windows 7 in 28 minutes while the DVD took 52 minutes.


Step 1: Format the Drive
The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. Be warned this will erase everything on your drive.

1.Plug in your USB Flash Drive

2.Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”

3.Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:

diskpart

list disk

The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step. I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1.

4.Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “1” with the number of your disk below.

select disk 1

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=NTFS

assign

exit

When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.


Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable
Next use the bootsect utility that comes on the Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1.Insert your Windows 7 DVD into your drive.

2.Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:

d:
cd d:\boot

3.Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Windows 7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk F:\ by the computer:bootsect /nt60 f:

4.You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.


Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive. After you have copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.


Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option.

Blu-Ray to DVR-MS

I don't like clutter and being a bit of a neat freak I don't want a shelf of DVD's getting dusty in my lounge. Not a problem because with a Media Centre I can Rip my DVD's onto either my Media Centre or Windows Home Server so I can simply browse them through the great Movies section in Media Centre on Windows 7 and play them natively. However in the age of HD Blu-ray films are the way to go. However this causes a couple of issues. Firstly even in Windows 7 Media Centre does not play Blu-Ray natively you have to install another application, some of which do plug into Media Centre but its still a bit clumsy. The second issue is you can't just copy them to your hard disk because of there large size (around 50GB per film), so can't fit many films onto your storage. So I just read the discs, however I find that Blu-Ray discs seem to take forever to spin up and start playing the film. So the Holy grail of Media Centre for me is to burn my Blu-Ray films to a file format that doesn't lose too much quality but takes up less space and plays natively in Media Centre. Well I think I have sussed it. Here is a guide on how to convert your Blu-Ray disc from their 50GB size to a 6GB DVRMS file.

Stage 1. - Convert your Blu-ay disc to MKV
MakeMKV is a great application that provides a one-click solution to convert video that you own into free and patents-unencumbered format that can be played everywhere. MakeMKV is a format converter, it converts the video clips from proprietary (and usually encrypted) disc into a set of MKV files, preserving most information but not changing it in any way. However we don't want a multiple file format and there aren't many media players that support .mkv out of the box. Media Centre certainly doesn't. However this application does provide us with a great file based platform to move on with. MakeMKV is really easy to use, simply open MakeMKV insert your disc and click the open disc button. This then presents you with a list of all the chapters. Select the Titles you want - I personally only want the film, I'm not worried about the extras so I select only Title 1. Though this helps reduce the file size we can bring it down more by expanding the title and only selecting the audio format you require and remove all the subtitles. Choose your output folder and click Make MKV. Once complete you will end up with a folder of the name of the film and a single .mkv file of the same name.
For more information on MakeMKV visit http://www.makemkv.com/.

Stage 2. - Convert MKV to DVRMS
Media Centre cannot play MKV files so we now need to convert the file to a format media centre likes. DVRMS is the standard format for video in Media Centre and is the file type that all recorded TV is created in. This format allows the media centre to easily jump x number of seconds back and forward throughout the show and also the ability to remember where you stopped your show so you can resume from that point days latter. For Media Centre this is my file format of choice.

To convert your .mkv files to a single DVRMS file I would recommend DVRMSToolBox which is available here http://babgvant.com/files/folders/dvrmstoolbox/category1340.aspx and it is ready to go out of the box.

Start by launching DVRMSToolboxSettings and find the Convert MKV to DVR-MS and put in Movie Folder profile, select it and hit and edit profile button at the bottom. If you aren't using Windows 7 and the Movie Library, then use the profile called Convert avi or mkv to DVR-MS.

Select the first step and hit Configure. Change the 'Replace Regex' box with your movie path, be sure to have it end with '\$1\' so something like 'C:\Users\username\Videos\$1\' or '\\whs1\Movies\$1\' so that the film is created within a folder with the name of the film. Before you exit and save, you can add your own steps if you want, say if you wanted to delete the source file or move it to another directory.

To start the conversion process launch DVRMSToolBox DVRMStoMPEGGUI. Double click on the input file box and navigate to your file (UNC paths are not supported here, so if the file is on the network, you need to map a drive). Double click on the output file box and navigate to your Movies folder where the film will be stored. From the drop down profile box select Convert MKV to DVR-MS and put in Movie Folder .

There is no status bar or anything and buffer errors can be ignored, but in about the same amount of time as it'll take you to watch the movie, the conversion will be complete.

Stage 3. - Display the film with cover art and synopsis in Windows 7 Media Centre
Windows 7 Media Centre has a great new feature called Movies where all your films are displayed with cover art and a synopsis of the film. This works well if you simply copy your dvd or blu-ray into the folder in their native formats, however with converting the file as we have done above Media Centre does not know what the film is. So we need to update the film with some meta information.

Yammm - Yet Another Media Meta Manager is a great utility that runs as a Windows Service and will download meta data, artwork, rename folders, rename files and\or create playlists. Metadata can be any combination of dvdid.xml, mymovies.xml and\or XBMC nfo file. All meta information and artwork is provided via either themoviedb.org or thetvdb.com. The reason why I recommend Yammm is because it runs headless without any user interaction and used folder.jpg instead of custom artwork locations. This is important to me as I use Windows 7 media centre and want all my films to appear in the Movies section. In fact Yammm has an option for Windows 7 media centre to ensure the correct meta information is presented in a format that the Movies section likes.

A key requirement for me is if my wife downloads a film it has to appear in the Movies section with the cover art and synopsis all without her having to do anything. Yammm provides this by simply allowing her to create a folder with the name of the film in the Movies directory and save the file in that folder. Yammm then renames both the folder and the file with the correct title and format e.g. if you name the folder star wars and file copied across was star.wars.xvid.hdtv then when Yamm has worked its magic both folder and file become Star Wars Episode One A New Hope (1977).

During the installation process of Yamm a configuration page will open. Here you need to specify the folder you want the service to watch, select the option to rename folders and movie files. I also select the IMDB rating and select the artwork download features I require. Most of the options you can tailor to your requirements but the ones you need to ensure are setup are in the Metadata section. For the movies to appear in the Movies section with artwork and synopsis in Media Centre you have to enable Windows 7 Media Centre for the meta data and select the user account that you run Media Centre under.

So there you have it, a fairly easy process to convert your Blu-Ray discs to a single playable file without loss of quality to the audio and video, and best of all its free. This process though is not without its issues. A special thanks goes to my good friend Steve Newman who has followed this process for me several times. However he has found that it does not work with HD-DVD or original DVD's. HD-DVD is not an issue for me as I don't have any but it appears that MakeMKV doesn't like the encryption used on the discs. Steve has a fair few of these as he was an early adopter (I held out until someone won the HD battle) and he has come up with a work around. Hopefully he will comment on his method for converting HD-DVD. As for good old standard DVD's well there are a multitude of applications that either backup the DVD to its original format like DVD Shrink http://dvdshrinksite.org/ or converters which rip the DVD to an AVI file. However the latter often do drop the quality a bit often in the audio going from DTS to MP3.

I would like to point out that all the tools used are freeware so they won't cost you a penny but please do not hesitate to leave a donation on their sites as these guys have put a lot of work into their apps and without them I know I would either have a shelf of Blu-Rays making the place untidy or spent a fortune on Terabytes of storage.

I would be keen on hearing your methods for converting DVD and Blu-Ray to a single file for media centre as I am sure there are probably better methods out there.