Monday, January 09, 2006

More toys for my MCE

My Media Centre (Windows XP MCE edition) has been ticking along quite nicely for the last couple of months.... in fact so well that there are only a couple of issues... too many remotes and not enough space to store stuff.

To solve the problem with the remotes I've got a Logitech Harmony 880 - it's a very clever bit of hardware able to do a lot more than your average 'learning' remote... for instance, press one button to watch TV and it turns on the TV, Media Centre and AMP, sets the right channel on the TV and gets MCE to the right screen. Watching a recorded show or turning it all off again is just as easy. Initially the only real hiccup with setting up the remote was that the amp wasn't recognised (so a few extra seconds of learning) and the TV doesn't start up as quickly as the remote would like (so needed to tweak some settings to give it some more time)

The other new toy was storage... a pair of 7200rpm 300GB Maxtor 6L300SO SATA drives configured as a single Windows XP Dynamic drive - should keep the family happy for a short while at least ;)

There is only one little niggle remaining... not enough tuners (why do the networks deliberatly overlap the good shows?!)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is the Harmony 880 as good as it seems? I need a remote that my wife and kids can understand ...

Offbeatmammal said...

it's really easy to use. Setup via the website is a bit time consuming, but once you're done it's no drama.

the paint on one side is already wearing away and it's a bit fussy about positioning in the charging cradle so I can't give it an unreserved thumbs-up just yet (waiting for Logitech support to respond to my comments on those issues)

Anonymous said...

Great site and may use your services soon for some PHP MySQL work on a site.

I have a wireless Crestron Touchscreen and wouldnt give it up. Cheaper to buy off Ebay from the USA and easy to program and design if you are PC minded

Anonymous said...

Hi jeremy - what can I say - still playing with your toys?? have a MCE box myself now and happy with the setup. What can you terll me about the Vista versions that are the next step? How is the hardware compatibility testing going?

Anonymous said...

Rufan - I appreciate your blog's theme. How much did the logitech device cost you ?