Events

Get yours news fix with the Sky News app for Windows Phone

Andrew Edney

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Jun 18, 2012

Get yours news fix with the Sky News app for Windows Phone

We have mentioned both the Android and iOS versions of the Sky News app previously, but did you know there is also a Windows Phone app available for all your news junkies out there?

This is how Sky describes the app:

Watch live tv. Read the latest stories from the newsroom; UK and World News, Politics, Showbiz, and Business – in text or as video. Other features include a weather forecast, and the ability to send breaking news stories directly into the Sky newsroom.

The Sky News app is free from the Windows Marketplace.

The LG Optimus L5 smartphone makes its global debut

Andrew Edney

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Jun 18, 2012

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The LG Optimus L5 smartphone makes its global debut

The LG Optimus L5, one of LG’s stylish, high fashion L-Series smartphones, will make its global debut in key European markets this month. The device will be available in the U.K., Germany and France, followed by markets in CIS, Middle East and Asia before crossing the ocean over to Central America and South America.

True to L-Style’s elegant design philosophy, the LG Optimus L5 is a seamless merger of style and technology. Dressed in a sensuously slim body measuring only 9.5mm, the smartphone comes packed with intuitive and intelligent features such as dual SIM capabilities (in Asia, CIS, Middle East, Central and South America only) and NFC “Tag & Play” (in Europe and North America) for mobile commerce and peer-to-peer sharing.

Running on the Google’s latest Ice Cream Sandwich Android operating system, the LG Optimus L5 offers the best-in-class 4.0-inch display for a roomy and error-free mobile experience. The new user interface also lets you get more done with fewer finger taps. The Optimus L5 boasts LG’s new User Experience (UX) with QuickMemoTM which allows users the ability to instantly jot memos or notes from any screen without having to open a separate application.

“The LG Optimus L5 is a very balanced smartphone that offers a great combination of design, display, performance, battery life and price that many will find very attractive,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company.

“This device, along with other products in our L-Series portfolio, will especially appeal to fashion forward users everywhere.”

Key Specifications:

– Chipset: MSM7225A (Cortex A5 800MHz)
– Memory: (up to) 4GB Internal Storage / Micro SD support (up to 32GB)
– Display: 4.0-inch HVGA
– Camera: Rear 5.0 MP AF with LED Flash
– OS: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
– Battery: 1,500mAh
– Size: 118.3 x 66.5 x 9.5 (mm)

More info when we get it.

Sonos beta testing new controller applications and are looking for testers

Andrew Edney

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Jun 17, 2012

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Sonos beta testing new controller applications and are looking for testers

Would you like to help Sonos beta test some new controller applications? If the answer is yes, then read on!

Sonos is now beta testing new controller applications for iOS devices with Retina displays and Android Tablets.

Key features:

iOS Retina Display: The Sonos Controllers for iPhone and iPad have been updated with high-resolution graphics for retina displays.
Android Tablet: Improved Tablet experience in landscape orientation.

If you would like to receive early access to the beta version of these controllers, please go to the My Account section on the Sonos website. Once you have logged in with the email address you used to register your Sonos, you can click on Sonos Beta. You will see a program called iOS Retina Display and Android Tablet Beta which you can join. Once joined, please follow the provided instructions to upgrade your controllers.

Please note: Beta testing requires weekly software updates and participation is not guaranteed. Expect the unexpected. Remember, this is beta software. And tell us everything—the good and the bad—via the beta website.

Plex for iPhone and iPad updated to v2.4

Andrew Edney

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Jun 17, 2012

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The Plex application allows you to use your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch to browse and play your media (video, photos and music) using the Plex Media Server installed on your Mac or PC. The latest version, v2.4, has just been released in the App Store.

Description

Plex for iOS brings the power of Plex to your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. With Plex, you can stream your music, videos and photos from your home computers running Plex Media Server (available from http://www.plexapp.com/) and access content from a wide range of channels.

Channels are available for apps like Aperture, iTunes and iPhoto, or online services like YouTube, Vimeo and Revision3. There’s also a remote control feature for Plex Media Center.

Additionally, you can sign up for the myPlex service, which lets you connect to servers shared with you by your friends, queue videos from your web browser to watch later, and connect to your Plex Media Server at home wherever you are in the world via Wi-Fi or a celluar connection, with no configuration necessary!

Plex Media Server streams your media directly from your computer, so there’s no need to convert before viewing. Plex is smart, too – if your media isn’t already in a format your device can play, it’ll convert it on-the-fly.

Limitations:
• DRM-protected content (TV shows, movies and older music tracks from the iTunes store) is not supported.
• ISO images are not supported.
• VIDEO_TS folders are not supported.
• PGS subtitles are not supported.
• Audio formats iOS can’t play natively (e.g. FLAC) are not supported.

What’s New in Version 2.4

∙ NEW: Social features! You can now add friends to your myPlex account, recommend media to each other, and post directly to your Facebook timeline. Tap account settings and go to the friends tab to send out friend invites.
∙ NEW: Ability to clear cached images.
∙ NEW: The app can be launched via the plexapp:// URL scheme.
∙ NEW: Media can be deleted from the app (must be enabled on the server, requires PMS 0.9.6.1 or newer).
∙ NEW: Automatic video quality adjustment has been restored, allowing the app to select the most appropriate video quality for the current available bandwidth, up to a user-defined maximum.
∙ NEW: Attempt to automatically select audio & subtitle streams for all parts when playing stacked media.
∙ NEW: Networked logging option (in advanced settings). Sends iOS and PMS logs to a centralized server in the cloud when enabled, to aid with support.
∙ NEW: A new look for settings.

∙ FIX: Channels section was invisible when no channels are installed on the server.
∙ FIX: TV season posters were low resolution on iPad.
∙ FIX: Remote control requests include the correct authentication tokens allowing the feature to work via myPlex connections.
∙ FIX: Marking progress when not signed in to myPlex was broken.
∙ FIX: More reliable reloading of home screen data.
∙ FIX: Images flickered while loading.
∙ FIX: Certain remote buttons weren’t working properly after rotating the device.
∙ FIX: Wide flag images could get cropped on iPhone.
∙ FIX: The movie player sometimes switched to portrait orientation when starting a video.
∙ FIX: myPlex scrobbling was broken.
∙ FIX: Search wasn’t working when not connected to a server.
∙ FIX: The on-hold menu wasn’t working when the default playback action was set to “Always Ask”.
∙ FIX: A couple of crashes on iPhone 3G.

∙ UPDATE: Translations for Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The cost for the app is £2.99.

Download from the Apple App Store

StableBit DrivePool for Windows Home Server 2011 Beta 1.0.2.6278 released

Andrew Edney

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Jun 16, 2012

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StableBit DrivePool for Windows Home Server 2011 Beta 1.0.2.6278 released

There has been another beta build from CoveCube! StableBit DrivePool development marches on – now its version 1.0.2.6278.

Here is how CoveCube describes this application:

Combine all your hard drives into one big storage pool (except the system drive with the OS).
Add and remove drives from the pool at any time without re-partitioning or manually moving folders.
Create duplicated folders on the storage drive pool that are protected against single drive failure. If a drive fails on which a duplicated file was stored, the contents of that file will remain readable even without the drive.
All your data is stored in standard NTFS files. You can always access your files even if the Windows Home Server completely crashes or this add-in can’t be used.

This beta version’s change log:

1.0.2.6278

* Sometimes VDS was being queried too often.

* After removing a drive, sometimes a full duplication pass was scheduled. This is not necessary unless you specified to duplicate later in the remove wizard.

* When DrivePool creates new partitions, it will now properly align them on sector / cylinder boundaries. This was a problem when formatting advanced format disks and was caused by a bug in one of the Windows APIs (IVdsPack::CreateVolume).

* Added option to switch the unit type of the file distribution bars on the folder detail panel. 3 unit types: * By Bytes * By Disk Usage Percent * By Percent of Shared Files Not shown for folders stored on a single disk.

DVBLogic releases DVBLink v4.5 Release Candidate 2

Andrew Edney

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Jun 16, 2012

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DVBLink TVSource, DVBLink Connect! Server and DVBLink EPG Loader for Digiguide v4.5 are now at release candidate 2 stage!

Release Candidate 2 of DVBLink products v4.5 is available!

What is new/fixed from RC1:

General

– Added: removed limitation on child lock pin code length

DVBLink TVSource

– Fixed: unrecognized eit character sets 21 and 31

– Fixed: no signal on high freq transponders using Terratec S7

– Added: PCTV 460e 1.0 diseqc and Unicable support

– Fixed: “Internal error” dialog upon selection of channel CA system

DVBLink Connect! Server

– Fixed: Error displaying a schedule for not existing channel

DVBLink AnalogTV

– Added: Argentina to the list of supported countries

DVBLink for Dreambox

– Fixed: 3 minutes delay during system start-up also blocking aother services

Notes:

– This version is not binary compatible with version 2.x, 3.x and 4.0/4.1. You will have to uninstall them completely before installing this version. Do not forget to make a backup!

– 1geek1tool products are not supported (yet) in this version

– v4.5 products use new licensing engine. This means that at the moment only trial activation is possible (e.g. your licenses for already purchased DVBLink products cannot be used with this version while it is in beta phase).

– The 4.5 update will be free of charge update for all v4 users. For v3 users the current paid upgrade rules apply. Learn more and download from here

Airtunes coming to XBMC for Windows

Andrew Edney

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Jun 16, 2012

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The guys over at XBMC have posted that Airtunes is coming to XBMC for Windows.

There is a really good blog article about Airtunes coming to XBMC, which you can read here.

To summarise the article:

The last item necessary to fully pull all versions of XBMC into par with AirPlay support has been added in the June dev cycle.

Very long story short, fully feature complete AirPlay is yet another major step forward in XBMC’s constant march forward to media dominance for all sorts of reasons. And, as always, I’m excited (and very wordy) about that future.

This is really cool, and I look forward to testing it out soon.

My Movies Collection Management for Windows Media Center 4.03 PR5 (Build 2) Released

Andrew Edney

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Jun 16, 2012

0

My Movies Collection Management for Windows Media Center 4.03 PR5 (Build 2) Released

As well as the news versions of My Movies 4.03 PR5 for Media Center and My Movies 2.11 PR5 for Windows Home Server 2011, Brian has also released version 4.03 PR5 (build 2) of the Collection Management component.

Here is the complete changelog:

Added: Option in “Movies” settings section in WMC to hide offline play options on playback if there are online play options.
Added: When you change episode paths, it now checks if other paths are changed as well.
Added: Sort saving for title list in the Collection Management dialog

Change: Various updates to the automatic refesh rate changing functionality.
Change: Added functionality for folder monitoring to recreate watchers if they get lost due to host reboots.
Change: Refresh rate is now reset when leaving My Movies.
Change: Some internal component parts where replaced with others for the UI in Collection Management.

Fix: MediaBrowser setting did not stick.
Fix: Minor fixes to better handle non-AACS Blu-ray’s
Fix: When adding a box set the latest added title will now be the selected one after the adding proces.
Fix: TV Series on Discs did not always have their episode coupled to owned episodes
Fix: Double click on an episode on the season listing under a disc title now jumps to the right episode.
Fix: MediaBrowser XML file was in some situations still encrypted.

Download My Movies 4 Collection Management Now

What do you think of My Movies?

Check out our review of My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 2.0 Pre Release 7

My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 Version 2.11 PR5 (Build 2) Released

Andrew Edney

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Jun 16, 2012

0

Brian has also released version 2.11 PR5 (Build 2) of My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011.

Windows Home Server 2011

My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 operates as database back-end for My Movies clients in multi-zone environments.

The My Movies for Windows Media Center or My Movies Collection Management products can be downloaded and installed on client PC’s to maintain movies in the database on My Movies for Windows Home Sever 2011.

My Movies may not be pre-installed on commercial products, nor in any way redistributed or provided to end-users by installers that is not part of our installer program.

Change Log:

Change: Updated Nimbie drivers for Nimbie NB21.

Fix: MediaBrowser setting did not stick.
Fix: MediaBrowser XML file was in some situations still encrypted.

Before installing a pre release version, you must make a backup of your database using the Collection Management program. There are no guarantee that a pre release version functions as expected, and it should therefore only be used for evaluation purposes. The database backup ensures that you can revert back to the latest stable version.

My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 2.11 Pre Release 5 can be used as server for My Movies 4.03 Pre Release 5 clients.

You can download the Windows Home Server 2011 edition here Check out our review of My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 2.0 Pre Release 7

My Movies for Windows Media Center 4.03 PR5 (Build 2) Released

Andrew Edney

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Jun 16, 2012

0

My Movies for Windows Media Center 4.03 PR5 (Build 2) Released

Brian has just released My Movies for Windows Media Center version 4.03 PR5 (Build 2).

Here is the change log:

Added: Option in “Movies” settings section in WMC to hide offline play options on playback if there are online play options.
Added: When you change episode paths, it now checks if other paths are changed as well.
Added: Sort saving for title list in the Collection Management dialog

Change: Various updates to the automatic refesh rate changing functionality.
Change: Added functionality for folder monitoring to recreate watchers if they get lost due to host reboots.
Change: Refresh rate is now reset when leaving My Movies.
Change: Some internal component parts where replaced with others for the UI in Collection Management.

Fix: MediaBrowser setting did not stick.
Fix: Minor fixes to better handle non-AACS Blu-ray’s
Fix: When adding a box set the latest added title will now be the selected one after the adding proces.
Fix: TV Series on Discs did not always have their episode coupled to owned episodes
Fix: Double click on an episode on the season listing under a disc title now jumps to the right episode.
Fix: MediaBrowser XML file was in some situations still encrypted.

Before installing a pre release version, you must make a backup of your database using the Collection Management program. There is no guarantee that a pre release version functions as expected, and it should only be used for evaluation purposes. The database backup ensures that you can revert back to the latest stable version.

My Movies 4.03 Pre Release 5 can be used as client for My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 2.11 Pre Release 5 or My Movies for Windows Home Server 2.00.

Download My Movies 4.03 PR5 now Check out our review of My Movies for Windows Home Server 2011 2.0 Pre Release 7