MacroTube is a plugin for Windows Media Center that enables watching YouTube, DailyMotion and MSN Soapbox videos. This enables enjoying videos from these website on a Media Center TV. MacroTube retains all functionalities provided by supported video streaming websites like YouTube and DailyMotion. Other than searching and streaming videos, you can even sort them by rating, category (entertainment, comedy, education, etc), date and relevance.

After installing MacroTube, launch Windows Media Center and go to the Extras section from where you can select and launch MacroTube among the list of available extras.

You can select a video streaming website to watch videos from. Only three video services are available for now – YouTube, DailyMotion or Soapbox.

Videos can be sorted by either category, rating, date, or relevance. This not only serves as an easy video sorting utility, but also retains one of the major functionality to find videos, i.e. a custom search.

This search result is displayed with horizontally aligned thumbnails. You can access more videos by sliding the cursor horizontally and clicking at the end of the last video.

To begin streaming, click any video from the search result.

MacroTube works on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Versions for both 32-bit and 64-bit OS are available.

Download MacroTube

Media Center Mail is a plugin that enables viewing your emails from Windows Media Center. This provides the utility to view emails on your Media Center TV.

To get started, open Media Center Mail and enter a user account name from the Add Users option on the main menu. You can also add an image to represent the user.

Choose Add account for receiving e-mails from the User menu. This will allow you to associate an email account with the username you entered in the previous step.

You will require entering your Pop3 mail client configurations to connect your email account with Windows Media Center. If you are a Gmail user, you can get these configurations from GmailSettings.

Once the settings are complete, open Windows Media Center and select Extras.

Select the mail option to proceed further.

Before going to the next step, visit the developers website and get an activation code which will be required to connect your email account with Windows Media Center. To get your activation code, go to the Activation page, enter your name and email address.

Now enter your login credentials and activation code to connect your email account to the Media Center.

After a successful activation, you can start viewing your mail from Windows Media Center.

Media Center Mail works on both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Media Center Mail

If youve been using Windows Media Center to record live TV shows and dramas, you must have noticed that it doesnt support saving a recorded TV show in any popular media formats such as, MPG/AVI. So, it leaves users with no other option than to stick by with WTV format which is WMC native format for recorded programs. We have written about converting WTV format before but the command line tool was limited.MC-TVConverter is developed to address this very problem by allowing user to convert WTV recorded media files into WMV, MPG, AVI, FLV, DEMUX, and MP4 formats. Moreover, it has an ability to keep user-defined folder under consistent observation, looking for WTV files to convert them without requiring users input.

It supports simple drag & drop behavior to populate the list. You can also click Select Files button to browser through different locations to add files into the list. Beneath it, a folder can be specified where you save all the recorded TV shows files. Big play button refers to turning-on the folder watching feature.

Once youve put all the files in the list, select the target format from the drop-down menu to begin the conversion process. Along with WTV format, you can also convert DVR-MS and MPG media files into supported formats.

By default, it saves the converted files in original file directory, however, from settings you can choose a permanent output location. All other applications aspects including File renaming, Preferred language, Subtitle file saving, Context menu integration etc., can be controlled from main configuration window.

The application is highly recommended for users who frequently record TV shows using Window Media Center and want to play them on any other device. It supports both Windows Vista and Windows 7, testingwas carried out on Windows 7 x64 system.

Download MC-TVConverter

[via IntoWindows]

Last year in February, Nakodari reviewed SecondRun.tv a plugin for Windows Media Center to play videos from Hulu, ABC, and other networks directly. It seamlessly integrates with WMC, offering all the essentials to give a best video watching experience. Recently its author updated us with the release of latest version 2.0. A quick look into new version divulged us a few brilliant improvements, most prominent being an intuitive Channel Builder that enables you to create new channels in SecondRun.tv, it is also possible now to download channels that other users have made open in channel repository.

All the major bugs encountered in version 1.0 beta have been addressed and properly debugged in this version. One most prominent glitch in version 1.0 beta was that users could only watch Hulu videos in full screen, videos from all other supported networks couldnt be watched in full screen mode, all such problems have been sorted out in this latest iteration.

Note: SecondRun.tv is now a paid plugin that costs $3.99. We are giving away 10 licenses to our readers. More information is provided at the bottom of the article.

The installer package comes with a separate Channel Builder, you have to run both setup files to install the plug-in and channel builder respectively.

The Channel Builder offers a nice navigation pane at the left side where you can view all the added channels while options to search through different channels are given in the main window. It lets you add, submit and delete channels anytime you want. First, you need to download or add the channels that you wish to watch in Windows Media Center, it offers a list of downloadable channels ranging from channels for Kids, News, Entertainment, Technology, and so on.

Once channels are downloaded, click Run Guide Processor, it will start processing all the content of specified channels. Furthermore, you can queue-up channels in different days lists (list for each day is available at the bottom to insert a channel), so you can watch your favorite T.V shows, movies, news bulletin, dramas, etc at scheduled intervals.

Once Channel Builder is set up, launch Windows Media Center. You will find SecontRun.tv option beneath Extras in Windows Media Center. Click it to list down all the videos from selected video-sharing websites and networks, and start watching your favorite T.V shows, movies, etc.

The developer has worked very carefully to deploy the pre-defined list of channels, adding new channels and configuring them is hard and a bit dragging, since it doesnt integrate channels live feeds directly and a permission is also required to run Guide Processor for the newly added channel. On the product page, you’ll find a detailed video, showing a generic overview of configuring the plug-in through Channel Builder. The application works fine without showing any problems on our Windows 7 x86 system.

Download SecondRun.Tv Version 2.0

Giveaway

The giveaway will last for 24 hours. To win a license, you need to follow us at @addtips or join our Facebook Page, then tweet about this giveaway (or post it on your Facebook wall), and finally leave a comment with the link of your tweet or wall post. We will pick out 10 lucky winners!

Update: The giveaway is closed, all winners will be notified and receive the license via email.