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Tuesday, September 30, 2008 9:16 PM

Zune Installation in my Boxster

Following the recent success in using a Zune for the kids to watch movies in the family vehicle , I decided it was time to update the music system in my car. I was a very happy customer of a Kenwood Keg which had been professionally installed in my Boxster
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Sunday, September 21, 2008 2:36 PM

Book Review: Essential C# 3.0

I haven’t posted a book review here before, but that’s because no-one has sent me a pre-release draft manuscript to review before! So here it is, a review of Essential C# 3.0 by Mark Michaelis. To skip to the chase, I like this book a lot. My personal
Posted by andypennell | 0 Comments
Saturday, August 23, 2008 3:56 PM

Converting Zune playlists into Windows Media Player playlists

For some inexplicable reason Zune playlists (ZPL) are different from Windows Media Player playlists (WPL). I foolishly made a Zune playlist and wanted to burn a data CD with it, but the Zune Burn feature only makes audio CDs. I tried loading the ZPL into
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Sunday, July 13, 2008 4:31 PM

Using a Zune 80GB as a Car Video Player

Following on the theme of trying to make it easier for my kids to watch movies in the car but without the hassle of the pesky shiny discs, I decided to try using a Zune 80GB as a car video player. This is clearly outside its design parameters, because
Posted by andypennell | 5 Comments
Thursday, July 10, 2008 5:18 PM

Tricks and Tips for using the VMR9

A few months ago I did some work involving the VMR9, and I hit several brick walls. Many of these brick walls I hit about six months previously when working on a PC application for HD DVD playback (no, there were no plans to ship it, even then), but I
Posted by andypennell | 6 Comments
Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:15 PM

Who doesn't take credit/debit cards in 2008? Washington State Licensing, that's who

Normally I renew my car tabs online with a credit or debit card, but that wasn't possible this week so I visited an actual License Office. Much to my amazement there was a sign stating "We do not accept Debit or Credit cards". When my turn came to speak
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Monday, June 09, 2008 9:53 PM

Playing Ripped DVDs with Media Center Extenders

At last I have succeeded in getting ripped DVDs to play from my Xbox 360's Media Center Extender, and here is how I did it. First off let me explain my goals: I want to be able to play my kid's DVDs via my home network, so they can avoid trashing the
Posted by andypennell | 15 Comments
Friday, March 07, 2008 4:06 PM

What did you do in the Format War, Daddy?

My kids are 2 and 4 yrs old so have little concept of what Daddy does, though they do know the words DVD, Xbox, and Lightsaber. However in a decade or so they might be able to understand what Daddy did in the format war, so here’s how I plan on explaining
Posted by andypennell | 11 Comments
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:33 AM

Why HD DVD Really Lost The Format War

It's all my fault. I'm terribly sorry. Something critical happened in October 2007 that I forgot to add to yesterday's Diary posting . Before CES 2007 I was going to do it, but I was worried that something bad might happen at CES so I didn't. After the
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008 4:51 PM

Diary of a High Definition Format War

Here are my personal highlights (and lowlights) of the format war, from down in the trenches of the HD DVD team at Microsoft. To make it a bit clearer, here is a graph of the peaks and troughs of the last three years: April 2005: I join the Profession
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Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:57 AM

Come see HDi at the Sundance Film Festival

If you are attending the Sundance Film Festival, please drop by the Microsoft House on Main Street and say Hi to representatives of the HDi team and see some cool demos and movie screenings. I'll be there myself from the 24th to the 26th, and someone
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008 11:52 AM

Using the Media Center Remote from Windows

To save you the pain that I had recently, of trying to hook up simple support for the MCE remote control in your app, here is the important info that I found incredibly hard to locate via MSDN search: A C# article called "Using Alternate Input Devices
Posted by andypennell | 2 Comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 9:39 AM

Xbox 360 HD DVD Version List

Here I will try and document the various releases of the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, in reverse chronological order. Major releases are in bold (a major release either has new features or has a boat-load of changes, minor releases are pure bug fixes). To
Posted by andypennell | 41 Comments
Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:58 AM

Now Available: HD DVD Emulator for Xbox 360

As of this morning the product I have been focused on for much the last year or so has at last been released: the Xbox 360 HD DVD Emulator . This is based on the Xbox HD DVD player, but designed for content authors to test and debug their titles without
Posted by andypennell | 4 Comments
Thursday, November 15, 2007 1:31 PM

Vote for HD DVD

Its November and its time to place your vote. No, not for US Presidential candidates, but for the optical high definition format you want to be the winner in the format war, which of course for me means HD DVD. This holiday season might be the last chance
Posted by andypennell | 9 Comments
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