The Windows Team Blog has the scoop on the newly released Ceton InfiniTV 4 digital cable tuner card, which Media Center enthusiasts have been waiting on for some time. Last November, changes to industry policy allowed for the installation of digital cable tuner cards to any Windows PC that supported them.

Now, thats a very real possibility with the new InfiniTV 4 card.

The card outperforms most cable companies DVRs by a longshot, allowing you to record up to four live channels of HDTV at once. It offers support for regular, HD and premium channels, too.

The card interoperates with Windows Media Center and its Extenders like the Xbox 360, allowing you to ditch the monthly DVR rental fee you pay to your cable company today. Instead, you install the card and then just stream live or recorded TV from the PC where its installed to the other PCs and TVs (via extenders) around the home.

The card is designed for desktop computers, not laptops, but will support slim entertainment PCs thanks to its PCI Express Low Profile form factor. The company says an external USB-attached version and other form factors are currently in the works for laptop users and those on other platforms.

The Ceton InfiniTV 4 card has a Suggested Retail Price of $399.00 and is available to pre-order today from Zones.com. Pre-ordered units will ship mid-2010. Over time, it will arrive in brick-and-mortar and online stores as well as in PCs built by OEMs.

To see if your PC supports the card, check out the system requirements here.

The popular Windows Media Center plugin, TunerFreeMCE, has been updated in a release the developer, Martin Millmore, is calling a major upgrade. The new plugin is now Windows 7-only, forgoing Vista support in order to allow for the numerous improvements it includes.

Vista users can continue to use the older version of the plugin, though. The developer says that two-thirds of the plugins users are on Windows 7, so he made the decision to make improvements the majority can enjoy.

So whats new in this release? Things users have been asking for, including:

• A new popup screen for managing the TV programs, allowing you to play the program, set a timer recording to record other showings of the program if you have a TV tuner configured, and if the program supports it you can add it to a playlist or download it (the last two work for BBC WMV programs, but not flash).
• When playing flash content, sometimes the mouse didn’t click in the right place. Now you can mode the cursor round the screen with the remote by pressing the cursor keys, and OK to click. This allows you to play even the most troublesome programs.
• The interface is now touchscreen enabled, so if you have a touchscreen media center you can easily navigate through the screens.
• Plugins are now directly available within the application. When you go to preferences you will see a list of plugins. When you pick one, the system will take care of installing and updating it to keep you up to date with your favorite content.
• MSN has been removed. This is because there is now a native media center app to support MSN.
• Improved memory management – only one instance of TunerFreeMCE will be active at any one time

If youve never tried TunerFreeMCE before, I recommend checking it out. Its a great plugin for watching streaming Internet video on your PC and Media Center extender, including BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five for UK users and Hulu support for US users. Believe it or not, the plugin is actually free. However, donations are accepted.

(via Ian Dixon)

By now, you probably heard the news that Hulu has finally unveiled its new subscription-based service called Hulu Plus. But in case you missed the details, its worth mentioning that one of the ways youll be able to enjoy this service in the near future is via your Xbox 360. Thats right - Microsoft is partnering with Hulu to provide a native, customized experience for watching Hulu right from your Xbox. The full service wont be available until 2011, though. It will also require an Xbox LIVE Gold membership.

But I have a little secret for you: you dont have to wait until 2011 to watch Hulu on your Xbox. There are several ways Media Center users can gain access to Hulu right now. Its been awhile since I last tested these (posted here), but the one I liked the best was PlayOn, which still supports Hulu, Netflix, CBS, YouTube and more. Its kind of pricey though $39.99 for the first year and then $19.99 afterwards. But as a cancel your cable alternative, its an investment worth making since its yearly price is comparable to what many pay monthly for their cable TV.

Getting the latest film trailers inside Windows 7 Media Center seems like a perfect fit for something so focused on entertainment on the big screen. Unfortunately, its something thats also been mostly left out of the native Media Center product. A relatively new entry, Trailer Library, from MediaPCTycoon on The Green Button forums lets you stream movie trailers from Filmtrailers.com directly into Windows Media Center. Filmtrailers.com is primarily focused on the UK and European market however, so users in the States may want to take a look at other options such as My Trailers 2 or My Movies 3.

To install Trailer Library head over to the Green Button forums post and hit the download link to get the latest version. Install the plugin and open up Windows 7 Media Center. The plugin should appear in the Extras Library and can be launched from there.

For European users you can select your locale from the Settings menu at the top of the screen. Simply select Settings, mark the radio box next to your location and select the Continue button. This should change the source of the trailers being downloaded from Filmtrailers.com and give you a more localized selection (as well as your native language in the details).

Inside the main interface select from three options: Latest Trailers, In Cinemas and Coming Soon to narrow down the results. Then in the main strip displaying movie covers select the title to get trailers for and somewhat counter-intuitively youll need to press down to select from the available trailers for the title. Though it may have been more intuitive to simply have a small listing of the available trailers as opposed to this strip method it does get the job done.

Another small drawback to the current interface is the inability to select the description and scroll down to read any text that may get cut off. It also tends to be somewhat repetitive and unnecessary for movies with only a single trailer available. Though despite these few shortcomings Trailer Library is very effective at getting movie trailers into the Media Center interface. Users will be hard pressed to do much better than this, especially those looking for European listings. Hopefully well continue to see further development of this plugin in the future.

Kylo, the TV-friendly web browser, isnt brand-new, but a recent update should peak the interest of Windows Media Center enthusiasts: Kylo is now available via Media Center plugin.

With the launch of the Kylo Browser Beta 0.7, a new plugin for Media Center lets you browse the web via your HDTV after launching the browser from within Media Center. Whats even better is that you can easily close it and return to Media Center when youre done surfing the web. Thats a big plus.

The browser requires no hardware keyboard for text entry an onscreen keyboard does the job. It also lets you zoom, pan and bookmark sites. Onscreen targets, fonts and the cursor are made larger for better viewing too.

One thing it wont do: play Hulu videos. This worked at first but Hulu quickly blocked it. But for light TV-based web surfing, it does the job.

As always, note the beta label and proceed at your own risk!

So youve sprung for one of those fancy new ATI GPUs and downloaded the newest drivers but youve got black bars all around the screen? I thought so, its a common problem recently and with ATI having some of the best GPUs on the market currently for HTPC playback with their onboard HDMI sound output and sheer video processor power it comes up quite often. The issue arises from the GPUs scaling of the image versus any native scaling being done by the monitor resulting in whats called overscan (or underscan). While Nvidias Forceware driver set makes it relatively easy for the end user to adjust this setting from the Nvidia Control Panel, ATI have done an excellent job of burying them as deeply as possible in the Catalyst Control Center.

To find ATIs Overscan/Underscan and GPU scaling options follow these steps:

Open ATI Control Center and bring down the Graphics menu and select the Desktops and Displays option.

Next select the display which isnt showing the proper scaling near the bottom of the screen in the small toolbar of displays. Right-click the display and select the Configure option.

From this screen you can enable or disable the built-in GPU scaling functions of the card as well as choose from a few modes which might better suit your display.

To adjust Overscan/Underscan, select the Scaling Options tab and select the checkbox to enable the feature. Then adjust the setting using the slider.

Thats all there is to it! Something that probably shouldve been quite a bit easier to find to begin with. If youve got any more tips or information on these or other ATI driver settings be sure to drop them in the comments below!

When I was in college (The College of William & Mary, Class of 2000) all I had to work with was a struggling Pentium II PC running Windows 95 that my Dad built—and I was really grateful for it.

Due to the popularity of our (fairly outdated) top five plugins post here at Hack7MC lets take a look at some of the new plugins that have come out since then and look at what is available now. Lets not limit it to purely plugins however instead focusing on the whole range of programs that make your Windows 7 Media Center run more smoothly. The Media Center is supposed to be a hub for the whole family, providing not only the latest entertainment but also information. Getting the latest weather and even the latest YouTube sensation have become critical to the Media Center experience. Lets take a look at some of the best plug-ins and programs for getting it done.

1. Media Center Master

Media Center Master gets the top spot because no matter what movie library plugin youre running it needs metadata, likely tons of it. The program features automatic metadata retrieval for your entire collection, simply point it in the right direction and Media Center Master does the rest. Under constant development as well as supported by a single man via the MCM forums the program has continued to expand from humble roots to support a number of metadata formats and options.

For users of the native Windows Media Center movie library simply pointing MCM at the same directories and letting it go to work is enough to fill out the complete metadata for most peoples entire collections. For those using alternatives you may want to run the program locally in the background and let it pick up new additions automatically using an incredibly accurate system for selecting the proper movie. Of course, there are a number of advanced options as well, especially for third-party plugin users, allowing users to download backdrops, posters, actor images and more with out raising a finger.

Though not technically a plugin, Media Center Master goes a long way toward putting a finishing polish on your Windows Media Center setup no matter which movie library used. Nothing makes a Media Center look more unsightly than an incomplete set of metadata in your movie library while showing off to the friends. Make sure youve got yours up to date automatically with this handy little program and you wont regret it. The latest downloadable version of Media Center Master is available from mediacentermaster.com. Need help getting started with Media Center Master? Weve got a couple of short guides to using MCM here at Automatic Metadata Retrieval with Media Center Master and Master Metadata with Media Center Master.

2. My Channel Logos

Part program and part plugin, My Channel Logos secures the second spot for its ability to sublimely enhance the look of Windows 7 Media Centers TV Guide listings. Adding white or full color logos to Media Centers TV lineup greatly improves the usability of the guide itself especially when considering the sometimes cryptic call signs

Many Windows 7 Media Center users will have a point where they need to backup important information and settings for their Media Center machine. Information such as custom TV listings, recording schedules and certain plugin and meta data can take a fair amount of time to setup. Certainly no one enjoys missing a favorite show due to a reformat followed by forgetting to reset the schedule for that show. Ian Dixon, of The Digital Lifestyle and Made for Media Center, may just have the solution. mcBackup 3.0 can not only backup your setup but it can even be scheduled to do so regularly and for free.

To get started download mcBackup 3.0 from Made for Media Center and install. Youll need to sign-up as a member of the site before being able to download the program, there is no confirmation email. Once downloaded and installed, run the program from the start menu under TheDigitalLifestyle.com > mcBackup 3.0.

Under the Backup and Restore Now tab you can select the type of data to backup: schedule, lineup, recorded TV, extra. To do an immediate backup just check the boxes for the data to backup and hit the Backup Now button. Once a backup has been created you can restore the latest backup using the Restore Now button. However, the restore option should only be used on fresh started Media Center setups. Running the restore on an already setup Media Center will likely mess up your listings and such requiring a clearing of the data and then restoring once more.

On the next tab, Backup Location, you are able to set the location where backup images should be saved. These are the folders youll need to copy to a safe location if doing a full clean install. For listings and recording schedule backups Id even recommend having the default save location be a USB drive. This keeps your backup separate from the actual Media Centers system drive should it cease operating properly.

Also available is the option to backup another folder, important plugin data or even just large downloaded caches such as MediaBrowsers ImagesByName folder make good candidates.

Coming to the Schedule tab we have one of the more important features of mcBackup. Here we can setup a schedule to regularly backup frequently changing things such as the recording schedule. Being something that typically changes often, its an especially good idea to regularly backup the recording schedule.

Simply enable the scheduler then select the days and the time youd like backups to be created. Either restart the program or enable the service using the link on the Home tab of the program. This home tab will report the status of the backup service whenever needed as well as the option to start or stop the service.

Now as long as youve set the backup to a safe location you should have a recent backup of your scheduling and lineup data whenever you need it.

The program works incredibly well in the background requiring virtually no intervention from the user beyond the initial setup. Simply set it up and forget it, just the way regular backups should be done. Thanks to Ian Dixon for making both the program and Made for Media Center. Stick around Hack7MC for future updates and a review of the Made for Media Center platform for Windows 7 Media Center.

Want to Subscribe to Hack7MC?

Today weve got a special surprise set of downloads available. First, the popular Brokeh theme has been updated with a modified background to make reading text on the screen slightly easier. The theme has also been converted into a Media Center Studio theme package. This should make it much easier to install for everyone. Finally, weve got four additional themes that have been converted to MC Studio packages. Additionally, Theme7MC.com will be redirecting to this page for a short period while the site is folded into Hack7MC official.

You can find download links for the five themes in the first pack available below. Download them individually by selecting them below or download the entire pack by selecting the package link.

To install the themes download them to your local Media Center machine. If downloading the entire pack extract them to the hard drive. Next, be sure to have a copy of Media Center Studio installed. Under the Themes menu tab select the Import Theme button and select the theme file to import.

Once imported into Media Center Studio select the theme from the Themes tab below and press the Apply button.

Hopefully this makes it much easier to distribute themes to users and eliminates much of the complications of the old way of applying the themes. If youd like more information on making your own Media Center themes start here or check out our recent article on changing your media center background. Thanks for trying out our themes and be sure to leave any comments below.