If you’re one of the growing many who own a Xbox 360, you have the opportunity to allow Microsoft to extend the audio, video and picture media on your computer over your TV and home theatre. This is done with an almost one-click process via the software called Windows Media Connect (WMC); all it requires is you to be running a copy of Windows XP SP2.

Viewing your pictures and listening to your music collection via WMC is a snap; the one annoyance when it comes to viewing video has been the restriction to only being able to view movies in the Windows Media Video (WMV) format. Finally, a solution:

TVersity: WMV transcoding for the Xbox 360 is here

Here is an early preview for the on the fly WMV transcoding feature for the 360. Since we have other stuff that needs to make it into the next release and since this is not yet ready we are releasing a patch.

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Start TVersity, go to the 360 and browse your computer for videos. You should now see all the videos shared via TVersity plus all the online video URLs and assuming your directshow has the filters needed to decode these videos they should all play on the 360.

Transcoding isn’t a perfect solution – simply building in support for codecs like DivX and XviD would be preferable – but hey, might as well put that high-powered PC of mine to use in transcoding over to the WMV codec for the Xbox 360 to see.

A common problem for residents of apartment buildings is that of hanging pictures or paintings of moderate weight when the wall backing is concrete.

The best solution to this issue is accomplished with four items that should run you about $10. Let’s list them off.

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Sunday evening, Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry Hryb’s (aka Major Nelson) podcast featured a lengthly comparison of the next-generation disc formats, HD-DVD and Bluray. Appearing as his guests and topical experts were Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of the Consumer Media Technology Group at Microsoft, and Kevin Collins, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft.

Fair disclaimer: Microsoft today is firmly in the pro HD-DVD camp, but as Amir points out during the discussion, MS maintained neutrality in the format war for about two years before committing to HD-DVD in September of 2005. Also note that I will also be reprinting the points made during the podcast verbatim – meaning they’re not my words, but theirs – don’t shoot the messenger.

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Being employed at a company with a distinct focus on mobile computing, I’ve recently had the opportunity to play around with the i-mate JAMin and the Qtek 8310 smartphone, one of the few phones out in North America on the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform. Very few complaints so far, other than a somewhat inaccurate joystick and a persisting issue where the use of a headset results in sounding far away to whoever’s on the other end of a phone call.

TenGO: Speeding up PocketPC text input
Operationally, I’ve had some concerns that are largely the result of my own impatience and poor handwriting. On the user input side of the story, I haven’t a chance in hell of getting my writing recognized by any device that uses a touchscreen/stylus interface. That leaves me the less than speedy option of a tiny on-screen keyboard.

A free program called TenGO, however, has taken this option and heavily optimized it. The twenty-six letters of the alphabet remain laid out in QWERTY form on-screen, but the innovation of T9 text prediction is pulled into play to reduce those twenty-six corresponding separate keys into just six. Check out the on-site video for a pretty amazing demo.

Opera Mini 2.0: Speedier than IE
Despite what FireFox users will tell you, Internet Explorer remains the faster – but more security issue ridden – browser of the pair. The Opera browser has for a long time presented a dark horse option whose primary goal has been to be the fastest graphical browser available. Opera Mini 2.0, for its part, leaves Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile 5.0 in the dust; I know what I’ll be using from my mobile browsing from now on.

Google Maps: Finally on Windows Mobile 5.0
Google Maps likely needs absolutely no introduction, but I have found its fast download time (on Rogers’ EDGE data network) and touchscreen-oriented interface to be superior to the BlackBerry app I’ve become familiar with.

SeatGuru is an interesting site which has a breakdown of the insides of every airliner that the major carriers use – noting the best seats on the plane, which ones to avoid, which seats have power ports and even where in the plane it is that food and refreshments are served first.

Air Canada and Westjet both have exhaustive entries on SeatGuru. Useful little website.

National Post columnist Andrew Coyne breaks it down:

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All along on MediaBlog, I’ve prized our podcasting tools highly in support of a trend I can see becoming very popular and vibrant as time rolls on. Not really having much time to produce original podcasts myself, I’ve been treating my own podcast as an area to post audio/video that’s hard to find elsewhere.

The snag I keep running into: How to convert the various formats that videos come in into something that’s iTunes- and iPod-compatible? For those not in the know, Apple’s technical spec for podcasts has a pretty narrow definition of what audio and video formats are permissible – obviously, just their own. So often there’s a need to convert video in particular to the .mov, .mp4, or .m4v formats.

Happily, there’s a freeware utility out there that allows you to do this with nearly every video format. I’ve used the Jodix Free iPod Video Converter program to convert two videos with great success thus far. Best of all: It’s freeware.

A warning before we begin: The definition of “cheap” is relative – expect to end up near $1000 CDN after accessories and taxes are counted up. Then begins the hunt for bigger and better lenses. As always, caveat emptor.

The ‘prosumer’ digital SLR market is entering a more mature phase as of late. The first blockbuster SLR cameras aimed for beginners came out in August 2003 (the Canon EOS Digital Rebel) and January 2004 (Nikon D70). Since then, various worthy successors of the two heavyweights of the prosumer digital SLR market have been released, as well as a number of lesser-known but extremely viable competitor models (the Pentax *ist D springs to mind). As we all know, increased competition means bigger bargains for our hard-earned dollar.

What really tweaked the noses of bargain digital SLR shoppers this month was an offer by Canon Canada to take another $100 off the purchase price of the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT via mail-in rebate. Slightly complicating the reception of the rebate was the stipulation that the camera be purchased from an authorized Canon reseller. The following is what I consider to be the best cobbling together of low pricing and rebate eligibility.

1. Enter the eBay store for Canadian camera dealer Robinson’s Camera Centre.

2. Depending on your preference, bid on their offering of the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (350D) with or without the 18-55 EFS kit lens. With lens, expect a purchase price of $799.00 USD. Without lens, $680.00 USD. That translates into a Canadian purchase price of $910.86 CDN with the kit lens, or $775.20 CDN without. Add 7% for GST (no PST, as Robinson’s is located in Alberta) and a flat rate shipping fee of $30 for expedited delivery for the final purchase price of $1004.62 CDN, or $859.46 CDN.

Refrain from getting into a bidding war on the item. If you can’t win it at the initial offering prices listed above, wait for the next auction on the same item.

3. After winning and receiving the Digital Rebel XT, mail away for the $100 cash back rebate from Canon. This will drop your final purchase price to $904.62 CDN, or $759.46 CDN without the kit lens.

That’s everything – save for the memory card(s), carrying case and other lenses you will inevitably end up purchasing. The mail-in rebate’s final expiry date is the end of June 2006, so it might even be worth your while to stay on the lookout for even better deals on the Digital Rebel XT – but ensure that your place of purchase is an authorized Canon dealer to maintain eligibility on that rebate. Good luck!

Buy Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (XBOX 360) and XBOX Live for ONLY $79.99 and SAVE $70! ($45 Instant Savings, $25 Mail-in Rebate)

Mail-in rebate will be in the XBOX Live Packaging.

The game everyone’s raving about on the Xbox 360 and 12 months of Live for $10 more than you’d pay for purchasing Ghost Recon by itself? You can’t lose!

In one of the most overlooked stores in 2003, the Copyright Board of Canada ruled that downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks was a legal practice for Canadians. The legal rationale? We pay for those downloads through a tariff when we buy MP3 players, or blank digital media like CD-Rs and DVD-/+R discs.

In its decision Friday, the Copyright Board said uploading or distributing copyrighted works online appeared to be prohibited under current Canadian law. However, the country’s copyright law does allow making a copy for personal use and does not address the source of that copy or whether the original has to be an authorized or noninfringing version, the board said.

Under those laws, certain media are designated as appropriate for making personal copies of music, and producers pay a per-unit fee into a pool designed to compensate musicians and songwriters. Most audio tapes and CDs, and now MP3 players, are included in that category. Other mediums, such as DVDs, are not deemed appropriate for personal copying.

Since that time, the government and various groups like the Canadian version of the RIAA have been grumbling and working on chucking out the tariff system in order to return to making MP3 downloading an illegal practice. Now it looks like those efforts have been stymied: A variety of sources are reporting that, last week, the Copyright Board of Canada released its proposed tariff for 2007 for the private copying levy.

According to p2pnet.net, this tariff we’re paying (rather generously I might add, considering blank media is hardly always used for audio recording purposes) doesn’t cover copying music to an iPod or other MP3 player. I’m not sure what they’re basing that on, but it makes little sense: How can you place the tariff on MP3 players and simultaneously tell us we can’t actually use those players for what we just paid extra to do?