Manage your Media Centre's TV Guide remotely

With the demise of the WebGuide (http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide) due to the Vista (with TV pack) and Windows 7 support there has been no easy way to remotely manage your Windows Media Center when you’re not home. But even then it was more of a work around. Firstly you would connect to your Windows Home Server, then using the AutoExit Add-in (http://www.asoft.be/) run the wake-on-lan command on your Windows 7 Media Centre. Once AutoExit or the Windows Home Server console shows it's up, you can then connect to the webguide site.Not exactly out of the box functionality.

However, this is hopefully about to change.

Remote Wizard for Windows Home Server gives you full control of all your Windows Media Centre systems from one convenient web interface. Running on Windows Home Server, it provides the same convenient, secure remote access as WHS itself. And it works just fine with Vista, Vista with TV Pack, or Windows 7 – 32-bit or 64-bit.
The product consists of a client that you install on your Windows Media Centre and an Add-in for Windows Home Server that connects the two. For more details follow this link http://remotewizard.net/RemoteWizardBeta.aspx

This all sounds great but there must be a catch? Well there are a few...
1). At the moment the site doesn't mention if the Windows Home Server caches and updates the Media Centre when it is offline or whether it will be a case of using a wake-on-lan as with the old Webguide.
2). When the product goes live it won't be free. Prices have not been confirmed but I believe it will be reasonable and well worth a purchase.
3). At the moment the beta programme appears to be U.S. only and there is no mention of a product for the U.K.
4). Because of Microsoft's policy on use of their Electronic Programming Guide data, the current beta schedules recordings by date, channel and time only. They are currently have their our own EPG in development (U.S. customers only; SchedulesDirect subscription required), should be available soon.

However I recommend keeping an eye on this site as it looks an interesting proposition and I urge you all to email them and request a U.K. version.