Multimedia-PCs » microsoft

Video: Windows 8 Features

Jeremy Jones — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:08:27 +0000

Microsoft announced Windows 8 yesterday and shared a lot of the details about the new OS. Lifehacker was nice enough to take that keynote and make it eight minutes long with just the stuff you want to hear about. I have embedded the video below. Windows 8 definitely has some very cool features.

Video: I’m a PC and I’m Gonna Kill Him

Jeremy Jones — Wed, 18 May 2011 02:32:58 +0000

Microsoft has started another I’m a PC ad campaign. The video below is the first new video and I wanted to point it out. They setup a computer store in her house and she gets to buy a new computer. The worse part is the last line: “I’m a PC and I’m Gonna Kill Him”. That line can mean two different things. She isn’t happy that he had Microsoft setup a store in her house. Or that she isn’t happy he made her buy a PC. Either way they should have dropped the I’m a PC ad campaign and went with something else. I’m sure this is just the first of many they have lined up.

Microsoft Kinect Teardown

Jeremy Jones — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 02:44:21 +0000

ifixit did a teardown of the new Microsoft Kinect sensor. There is some interesting information in the teardown like 2 sensors that monitor depth and 1 sensor that does facial recognition. There are also 4 microphones inside. That’s impressive for such a small device. Still wish Kinect would have been wireless. But that might be another accessory down the road.

Office 2011 for Mac Available for Volume Licensing

Jeremy Jones — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 03:22:06 +0000

I got an email today that Office 2011 is available for companies that use volume licensing. I downloaded it immediately and installed it. So far I’m very impressed with the new version. More at MadeForMac

Silverlight Getting SRS Surround Sound

Jeremy Jones — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:33:51 +0000

Good news for Silverlight streaming is it will be getting SRS Surround Sound. The best case for this is Netflix streaming. I don’t stream on my laptop or handhelds, I stream from devices connected to my TV. I have been wanting 5.1 surround sound for awhile. Something always seemed a little off streaming HD video and only getting stereo sound. Seems like this is the next step as streaming content evolves.

Press Release:

SRS FIRST TO COUPLE 5.1 SURROUND SOUND TO MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT AND IIS SMOOTH STREAMING ECOSYSTEMS WITH A COMPLETE TOOLKIT
SRS 5.1 Empowers Content Creators to Enhance Multimedia with Surround Sound Encoding That’s Playable Across TVs, PCs and Mobile Devices

SANTA ANA, Calif., September 9, 2010 – SRS Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRSL), the industry leader in surround sound, audio and voice technologies, announced today that it is making available complete SRS surround sound encoding and decoding technology to users of Microsoft Silverlight, a powerful development platform for creating rich media and business applications for the Web, desktop and mobile devices.

“This is an exciting moment for SRS and we’re thrilled to expand this collaboration with Microsoft to now bring surround sound capability to Silverlight and its millions of users,” said Allen H. Gharapetian, Vice President of Marketing for SRS Labs. “Every day, more and more consumers are streaming TV shows and movies over the Web to their PCs, TVs, and mobile phones, and now, with the availability of SRS 5.1 surround for Silverlight, the collective online multimedia experience will become more vivid and immersive.”

Microsoft and SRS’ collaboration dates back to May 2000 when SRS WOW became a standard feature within Windows Media Player. Today, as part of a larger effort to deliver immersive surround sound to the rapidly growing number of consumers streaming content to their PCs, TVs and mobile phones, SRS has advanced the streaming multimedia experience to the next level by coupling its SRS 5.1 technology with a complete Microsoft-centric toolkit that effortlessly adds bit efficient, exceptional quality surround sound to content created in Silverlight.

SRS 5.1 is designed to provide content creators with the tools to create and deliver true, high-quality streamed surround sound encoded content across the three-screens, TVs, PCs and mobile devices. SRS 5.1 is the only surround format available now in Microsoft Silverlight that is coupled with a complete toolkit. This SRS package functions as a managed code add-on for content creators and developers making surround sound decoding in Silverlight applications easy and seamless. Because millions of TVs, A/V receivers, PCs and mobile phones today feature one or more SRS audio solutions such as Circle Surround, TheaterSound, StudioSound HD, and TruSurround, every one of these CE devices are natively equipped with the capability to decode SRS 5.1 surround encoded content, resulting in a “surround everywhere” entertainment experience.

Some of the other major benefits of these encoding and decoding solutions include:

* Multichannel and front-rendered surround sound
* Smooth steering and full bandwidth for a seamless and immersive surround environment
* Backwards compatibility with legacy matrix decoders and stereo
* Surround streaming over bit rates as low as 96kbps

Since the release of Silverlight in 2007, its adoption has continued at a rapid pace with installations approaching 60 percent on all Internet-connected devices worldwide, an increase of nearly 15 percentage points in just four months. Now with inclusion of SRS 5.1 surround for content created in Silverlight, any PC or connected flat panel TV can decode SRS 5.1 audio for true multi-channel or front-rendered surround.SRS 5.1 effectively provides a top-quality, format agnostic, easy to deploy and manage end-to-end surround sound technology for content creation, transmission and consumption.

“Multichannel audio takes the premium media experiences offered by Silverlight to the next level,” said Brad Becker, director of Rich Client Platforms at Microsoft Corp. “Microsoft is pleased to see SRS bring its surround sound technology to Silverlight’s hundreds of millions of users by taking advantage of the powerful extensibility and interoperability that Silverlight and IIS Smooth Streaming provide.”

The tools and white paper for SRS 5.1 content creation with Silverlight are available now at www.srslabs.com/Silverlight. Meanwhile, a demonstration of SRS 5.1 will be available at IBC in Amsterdam, The Netherlands from September 10th to 14th at the Microsoft stand located in the Topaz Lounge.

Windows Home Server “Vail” Adds Mac Support

Jeremy Jones — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:03:55 +0000

The new version of Windows Home Server codenamed Vail supports Mac. This is great news for people like me that use both Windows and Mac at home. I have been building how-tos since 2008 on getting the current Windows Home Server to work with Mac. You can see version 1, 2 and 3. It’s obvious by the 10s of thousands of visitors to those pages and the numerous amounts of links, even on Microsofts site, that Mac support is something people wanted out of Windows Home Server.

· MAC Support:
o Onboarding experience similar as Windows
o Managed device in dashboard
o Launchpad for the mac
o Alert viewer for the mac
o Add in provider for the mac

Time machine support is through the Launchpad were you can configure Time Machine. I’m testing things out now. I’ll post more details after I play around a bit. Vail is public beta so if you have a 64bit machine you can test it out. You need to register at connect.microsoft.com

Windows Live Essentials Beta Available

Jeremy Jones — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:13:19 +0000

Microsoft released the beta of Windows Live Essentials. Lifehacker has a look at all the new social features built into the new version. It works with Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Gmail, WordPress and more. It’s nice that Microsoft is making it easy to get your creative work out to the world.

The New Xbox 360 and Kinect

Jeremy Jones — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:11:57 +0000

Microsoft had a pretty big day today. Lots of new things came out at E3. First they launched the new look of the Xbox 360 with slimmer size, bigger hard drive and wireless. It was time for them to refresh the look and I think it looks really good.

Second they announced Kinect, which was called project natal. I had mixed feelings about Kinect and how it would be different than a Wii setup. Well they showed that it’s more than just a motion control and might actually get me to buy an Xbox 360. Not only will Kinect allow you to control games but allows for video chat and voice control. The price isn’t bad either at $149 or $399 for the Elite bundle. The one issue that bothers me is the USB connection. With so many people hanging TVs I would have rather seen a wireless connection for Kinect. Unless I missed something it looks like it’s only USB.

Check out Engadget for all the info on todays news.

Sync iTunes Music with Microsoft KIN

Jeremy Jones — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:24:30 +0000

The KIN Media Sync by Mark/Space allows you to sync iTunes playlists with your KIN from your Mac. It also works with photos and videos as well. It will convert the videos to work with the KIN. I have used Mark/Space software in the past and it works very well. It’s nice to see them expanding to such a new device.

Video: Windows Media Center on Windows Embedded Standard 7

Jeremy Jones — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:30:34 +0000

I posted yesterday about Windows Embedded Standard 7 and how it includes Windows Media Center. The video below is a demo of Windows Media Center running. If you’re familiar with Windows Media Center there isn’t anything new. What the video shows is that you are going to get a full media center experience from an embedded device.

Multimedia-PCs » microsoft

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