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Feb

23

Watching TV in Windows Vista with the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

Windows Media Center makes it really easy to watch TV on Windows Vista (Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate) with a built in Guide that lets you browse TV shows and movies and schedule recordings of your favorite ones. Many PCs today come with TV functionality built in via TV cards. But not all Windows Vista PCs come equipped with TV capability. Unlike a few years ago - adding TV functionality to your PC is very easy. Let me share my experience in adding TV functionality to one of my PCs.


The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB


AMD brings TV capability to your PC through their ATI TV Wonder products. Some of their products are PC cards that must be installed inside the actual PC - and others are USB devices that can simply be plugged in to a USB port. I picked up AMD’s ATI TV Wonder 600 USB TV tuner - which is Certified for Windows Vista. This small USB device lets you plug in a coaxial cable for TV capability or use an antenna for free over-the-air television - including over-the-air HDTV.


The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB has the following features:



I took some unboxing shots to share with you:


The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB Box Opening the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB Box The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB USB connection for ATI TV Wonder 600
Remote for the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB


Setting up TV functionality in Windows Media Center is really easy. If you have not used Windows Media Center before, when you launch Windows Media Center for the first time it will take you through a series of steps to set everything up.


 


If you have used Windows Media Center before and already did Windows Media Center’s initial setup - to set up TV all you need to do is go to Settings and TV and click on “Set Up TV Signal”. Windows Media Center will take you through a series of screens with options to set up everything you need for watching TV.


Picking up the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB TV tuner allowed me to easily add TV functionality to my main desktop PC. I had TV functionality in a matter of just a few minutes. Since the ATI TV Wonder 600 is a USB device, I can pack the device up and take it with me and use it on my laptop as well.


Hauppauge also offers products for bringing TV onto your PC and Windows Media Center.


I plan to dive deeper in several upcoming posts in using Windows Media Center and TV functionality.

Feb

21

Windows Live SkyDrive Launches Today

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

Today Windows Live SkyDrive leaves the “Beta” tag behind - introducing 5GB of storage for its users and becoming available in 35 new countries and regions. Read the Windows Live SkyDrive launch announcement from their team blog!



On top of being available to users in the United States, United Kingdom, and India, Windows Live SkyDrive is now available in the following 35 countries and regions:



Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Finland, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey.


With 5GB of storage, you can store quite a bit of your photos, music, Office documents and more. Did I mention that the 5GB of storage is also free?


For those who have been beta testing Windows Live SkyDrive - with today’s launch you can expect to see improvements with the backend that help improve performance on top of the increase to 5GB of storage from 1GB previously.


Here on the Windows Experience Blog, I use Windows Live SkyDrive to host the OPML files for my Microsoft Team Blogs page. Yes, the page may be a little out of date but a big update is coming very soon with a few more categories. You can download the OPML files and add them to your RSS feed reader directly from Windows Live SkyDrive. We also have a Public Folder setup on Windows Live SkyDrive for the Windows Vista Team Blog too.


You can head on over to skydrive.live.com and login with your Windows Live ID to use Windows Live SkyDrive today.

Feb

19

Update on Windows Vista SP1 Prerequisite KB937287

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

We’ve heard a few reports about problems customers may be experiencing as a result of KB937287, the servicing stack update I blogged about last week, and I wanted to provide a quick update for you. Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes.  


So far, we’ve been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue.


Customers who may be experiencing this issue can use system restore to correct it or contact 1-866-PC-Safety for help troubleshooting.  Additional guidance will be available via Microsoft’s free Update Support Center soon.

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