Universe’s Tech Blog

Media sharing or media streaming is a great way to get your music collection spread around the house without copying files all over the place. It’s becoming a much more accepted way of handling digital content, with hardware UPnP clients and wireless home routers with streaming capabilities in-built.

If you have a Vista box, you can turn it into a streaming media server quite easily. Vista natively supports UPnP peer-to-peer networking, so it simply leverages of this ability plus Media Player 11’s cataloguing features to pump out music, pictures and videos across the local network.

Not all clients can connect to a Vista-based machine though. Other Vista clients can, as can the Xbox 360. Check out the PlaysForSure website for a full list of compatible clients.

Media sharing works for music files (WMA, MP3 and WAV), video files (WMV, AVI, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2), pictures (JPEG, JPG and PNG) and playlists (WPL and M3U). According to the media sharing documentation, other file types MAY be sharable, “depending on how your computer is configured” – this basically means that if the content is accessible and Media Player can catalogue it, it should be sharable.

Obviously, though, Microsoft isn’t going to support anything beyond what it has explicitly stated. For content like DivX and XviD, streaming support is really dependent on the client. If the client is a Vista-based machine with the rights codecs installed, then it should work fine. Clients like the Xbox 360 don’t support DivX though and can’t be made to, and other compatible hardware-based clients will have the same limitation. (You can work around this using one of the various methods of transcoding DivX video into Windows Media Video upon playback, though. Check out Transcode 360 and Easy DivX to Xbox360 streaming.)

Setting up media sharing is extremely easy. Go into the Network and Sharing Center (right-click on the networking icon in the system tray), expand the Media Sharing section under Sharing and Discovery, and click Change. Tick “Share my media” and then OK.

The Media Sharing page gives you a choice of available devices to share media to. The default option is “Other users of this PC”, which may or may not be relevant. Once media sharing is enabled and other device come online, the computer will detect them and prompt you to configure sharing.

Click on the Settings button and you can configure exactly how you want media sharing to work.

By default, other devices will see the content shared out under your username – you can also specify what types of files are to be shared (but not file types), and you can filter out content based on its star rating and/or parental rating. These settings can also be applied per device – once a device has been authorised to share media, highlight it and click Customize, and the same options available, which will overwrite the default settings for that device.

Once media sharing is up and running, the computer now appears twice on the network – once as the actual Windows-based host, and also as a Windows networked media device. This is what other computers and devices will see on the network.

From an authorised Vista-based client, simply right-click and select “Open Media Player”. Media Player on the local machine launches, with content visible from the network device. And it’s that easy.

The one downside with media sharing on Vista is that it’s completely reliant on MP11, which means you have to catalogue your digital content in Media Player’s library first. This affects how the content is viewed on the network – the library is populated and organised using metadata, so if you’re like me and have organised your music into logical folder and filenames with little attention paid to metadata, the library could end up looking like the alley behind a dodgy pub. And that’s how it will appear to every client on the network, which is no good at all. To make navigating through the collection anything less than a hair-pulling litany of frustration, you’ll have to put some work into applying decent metadata and making the library look at least half-organised.

But all-in-all, media sharing on Vista is simple and fairly bullet-proof. And a nice touch is how comprehensive the documentation is. It follows suit with a lot of Vista’s documentation, which explains not only how to do something, but what the implications are. The media sharing documentation explains all about network security, streaming through a firewall and all sorts of other funky stuff. Kudos to Microsoft for putting the effort into making their products understandable and accessible – they’ve come a LONG way from XP’s Help and Support application.

Microsoft today put truth into the long-whispered speculation that it would offer discounts on Vista and Office 2007 to those who buy a new PC before those products themselves hit the streets — and for a while after.

Did we say ‘discount’? Maybe that should be ‘almost giving it away’ based on the deals being offered by Toshiba, who were the first of Microsoft’s hardware pals to run the red pen through Vista’s official price tag.

From tomorrow, buyers of Vista-ready Toshiba notebooks preloaded with XP Professional or XP Tablet Edition — which is just about all of ‘em — will qualify for an upgrade to Vista Business for a meagre $27 ’shipping and handling’ cost. The uber-OS itself, over five years in the baking, is free.

Laptops such as the Qosmio series which run Windows XP Media Centre qualify for a similarly gratis version of Vista Home Premium.

Budget-bin Toshiba laptops running XP Home Edition can be bumped up to Vista Home Basic for $99 or Vista Home Premium for $129.

Other PC vendors are expected to make similar announcements in the coming days under what Microsoft has labelled the Express Upgrade to Windows Vista program. This in turn is part of the Microsoft Technology Guarantee for Windows Vista and Office 2007. We could abbreviate that to MTGWVO2K7, but that’d be just silly (and really not much of an abbreviation, come to think of it). Instead, think of it as “systems now, software later”.

The ‘now’ bit is as of Thursday October 26. The ‘later’ bit — well, how much later? Microsoft still hasn’t stuck a pin in the calendar and marked a firm release date for its next-gen OS and Office suite. But at least we know it’ll be sometime before the discount program expires on March 15, 2007.

(The most recent timetable indicates that volume license business customers will get access to Vista sometime next month, while consumers should see shiny boxes sitting on retail shelves towards the end of January).

This sales sweetener is far from unexpected. PC makers, retailers and analysts all made plenty of noise (mostly high-pitched whining, mixed with throaty grumbles of discontent and the odd shrill forecast of utter apocalyptic doom) when Microsoft declared earlier this year that it would not to ship its XP replacement to OEMs in time to pre-load systems before the usual Christmas spending spree.

The promotion slots neatly into the recent Vista-ready campaign which added yet another sticker to desktops and laptops, this one ear-marking the machine as being capable of running Vista or Vista Premium.

While unlikely to put a rocket up pre-Christmas PC sales, at least it prevents them being stymied by consumer uncertainty over Vista. Of course, buyers who want that new PC now will later have to go through the process of upgrading from Windows XP to Vista. Those who can wait until early next year will not only get Vista pre-loaded but, as is always the case, get more PC for their money.

The upgrade discounts are also intended to defray concerns over the high sticker prices of Vista and to a lesser extent Office.
According to an article in eweek, Microsoft will also supply Office 2007 upgrades to customers who buy PCs pre-installed with Office 2003 for the cost of shipping and handling.

Digitimes is reporting that contract manufacturers in Asia have confirmed that 500,000 notebooks with AMD Turion processors will be available through Dell beginning next month. Dell, always known for low prices, will try to win over the value crowd with a sub-$500, 15-inch laptop. A 17-inch model will follow next year.

Aiming to leapfrog archrival Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices will deliver a wide range of merged x86 CPUs with on-board graphics accelerators starting in late 2008. The Fusion chips aim to increase performance-per-Watt for applications such as 3D graphics, digital media and technical computing.

Websites like “www.forgetsony.tk” have already popped up pleading with the gaming community to send Sony a message. This message is boycott Sony.

AMD/ATI is crazy enough to promote Intel PCs on its new green site. Someone just removed the direct link at www.ati.com where AMD endorsed the “Best Gaming PC” 2006 powered with Core 2 Duo, an Intel CPU.

Sony reveals it has bought PSP handhelds from a firm it has taken legal action against.

Video concerning why gamers should care about the Cell Processor.

Def Jam: Icon developer also has a licensed title and a fighting game based on a new IP in the works for Xbox 360 and PS3.

In announcing the inauguration of development house EA Chicago’s new downtown Chi-town digs, Electronic Arts today also ran down the projects the developer has on its plate at the moment.

The 150-developer studio is currently working on a trio of titles for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360: the previously announced Def Jam: Icon, a licensed title, and a fighting game based on a new intellectual property. To accommodate the demands of the projects, EA plans to add another 100 developers to the studio next year. Interested applicants can check out the open positions at the publisher’s official Web site.

Reports from Louisiana already have retailers already hocking accessories for Nintendo’s next-gen console, which goes on sale November 19.

In under a month, the Nintendo Wii will be available across America. However, it now appears that retailers are already setting up retail displays for the next-gen console, which itself won’t be available until Sunday, November 19.

According to a series of online reports, the local Target in Layfayette, Louisiana, has already launched displays offering Wii merchandise. Called “endcaps” in retailer parlance, the display offers a variety of accessories for the next-gen console, including colored sleeves for the so-called “Wiimote” controller in red, blue, green, and black. Also on display are booklets for Wii game discs, which will be the same size and shape as regular DVDs, even though the console does not offer DVD playback like the Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, or PlayStation 3 do.

Number-two publisher’s July-September quarter sales are below previous years–but come in above analyst expectations, prompting after-hours stock spike.

Though its official earnings call isn’t scheduled until November 6, Activision today reported its sales for its second fiscal quarter, which ended on September 30. Revenue for the quarter was $188.2 million, a 15 percent decline from the $222.5 million the company reaped during the same three-month period in 2005.

However, the $188.2 million was significantly above the $130 million quarterly earnings estimate Activision, which falls only behind Electronic Arts in the largest third-party publisher rankings, issued earlier in the year. It did not single out a specific title for praise, but did say that “strong performance of the company’s product portfolio, improving market conditions and the strength of the company’s distribution and affiliate businesses” prompted the revised figures.

For its full financial year, which ends June 30, 2007, the company now predicts that it will take in $1.15 billion, a marked increase from its previous prediction of $1.08 billion full-year-income. However, a survey of analysts by the Associated Press was less optimistic, forecasting a 12-month haul of just $1.09 billion in revenue.

Though Activision’s stock ended the day down $0.56 (3.78 percent) at $14.27 on the NASDAQ exchange, it rebounded in after hours trading. As of press time, the company’s share price had risen an impressive $1.10 (7.71 percent) to $15.37.

The leading OEMs have unveiled their Vista upgrade plans, and so far Dell is the only vendor planning to charge some customers who buy certain PCs this holiday season for the move.

Dell has decided to charge a $45 fee to upgrade from Windows XP Home to Vista Basic, but the upgrade from Windows XP Media Center Edition to Vista Premium and from Windows XP Pro to Vista Premium will only incur a shipping and handling fee.

A Gateway spokesperson said that all eMachines and Gateway PCs are eligible for a free upgrade to Windows Vista, starting Oct. 26.

North American consumers who buy a new HP Pavilion or Compaq Presario desktop or notebook PC, or HP Digital Entertainment Center, with a qualifying Windows XP operating system that is designated “Windows Vista Capable” during the promotional period, will also be eligible for a free upgrade to Vista.