Media Player Box for my TV

[SirPeale]

So I've been wanting a PC to keep hooked to my TV to watch media files - ie movie clips, music, etc.  Would XP media center edition be good for this?

Also, the drive in the PC I have for this application isn't very large, so I'd like to be able to use my home PC as the server, and the TV machine as a client.  Anyone know of a good how-to on this?

[ChadTower]

That PC may not be fast enough to run XP reliably... and you're going to need a good amount of ram for a PIII.  You're WAY better off with an XBMC Xbox.  Sell the PC for a few bucks on Craigslist and snag a used Xbox to softmod.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Hey Peale

I've recently just used my carpc for this function while my cars having work done on it.

I was using the carpc frontend software as the interface and using the wiimote to control the pc aswell as the wii and it works nicely

I am using a 600mhz mini ITX and it runs fine with XP and playing divx files altho some are choppy (they are fine on the 1.2ghz mini itx) and its been working great but i did try working with VLC (Video Lan) and using the PC to communicate with my main pc to stream the tv shows/movies over the wifi using VLC's streaming technology and it worked great (i am using a 802.11g wifi connection and it's fine but does drop off bits n pieces if the signal is around 60% or lower so if your got a A/B connected dont bother)

There are heap of ways to do it the system i have runs on a total of 30watts and is small (there are mini HTPC/Set top Cases for the mini itx range)

I would try streaming with VLC onto the PC first to see how it goes

My pc is a 600mhz with 256mb of ram and a d-link 802.11G adapter

[SirPeale]

That PC may not be fast enough to run XP reliably... and you're going to need a good amount of ram for a PIII.  You're WAY better off with an XBMC Xbox.  Sell the PC for a few bucks on Craigslist and snag a used Xbox to softmod.

It's currently running 98SE.  I played several video files and they all run fine.  I'll have to see how they look under XP on the same box.  Need to find another hard drive to test this out with, though.

[ChadTower]

98SE is about as good as you'll get a full Windows install in terms of resources... XP is the bus stop chick.  You're looking at 512meg of RAM to get it running reasonably.  If you're going to get this running as a media client then an linux app is probably best.  Haven't tried it myself but take a look at VideoLAN.

[clanggedin]

You could get a mac mini and run FrontRow.

[crashwg]

I second the XBMC suggestion.  You can get a used XBOX on craigslist or something for like $50, mod it for free (just did my first softmod last night! yay!) and do everything you're looking for and then some.  You won't be sorry.

[SirPeale]

Yes, but I already have this PC (which has proven to me it can play videos just fine).  It was free, works, and did I mention free?  I'm currently putting my cash towards Christmas presents, so even $50 for a used XBox is out of the question.  So let's concentrate on the hardware I already own.

Came with a video card with S-Video out (which really is no big deal, except I didn't have one previously), a Soundblaster LIVE! card, DVD-ROM.

I can always put more RAM in it.  When I found it it had none.  I just stuck 64M in there because it was the first SIMM I found.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Peale

All you need is VLC to be running on your home server and on the Media PC connected to your TV

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html

You can have it all setup on the TV Pc where it just recieves the streams from the main computer and the main computer just loads up a avi/mpeg/dvd/dvd iso etc and broadcasts it.

You can leave it as is with win98 if you like no need to change anything

I havent streamed like this for ages but there are 3 ways to load a file from the TV Pc you have telnet, HTML and Commandline

You can setup a whole HTML Intranet with all the movies/tv shows and all u have to do is click a link then VLC loads up an goes to fullscreen.

There are many options

Here is a How-to
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ch05.html

If you need any specific help with it just post back here

[ChadTower]

Videolan doesn't officially support 98... that would make me to go linux if they support that.  Going to linux would definitely fix his ram shortage.

I would think getting the amount of ram XP needs would cost the same as a used Xbox unless he has a cheap source.

[HaRuMaN]

Hmm...  I have VLC player on both my PC and laptop, I didn't know you could use those to stream...  interesting.

[Dustin Mustangs]

Skip the pc by the TV and get a media mvp.  The software that comes with it is nice, but there are a number of third party apps that are way better.  Add a tuner card on the server and you'll also have full dvr capabilities.  That's really what the 3rd party apps are based around, but they will also do all the other stuff you mentioned.  I'm running this setup and love it!!  You can also set this up in multiple locations by getting more mvp's. 

Here are some links:

Media MVP:  http://hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_mediamvp.html

Sage TV (not free 3rd party app):  http://www.sagetv.com/

GBPVR (free 3rd party app): http://www.gbpvr.com/

[ChadTower]

He did say he wants to do it with hardware he has on hand... that's a $100 product... he could do two XBMC Xboxes for that price.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Hmm...  I have VLC player on both my PC and laptop, I didn't know you could use those to stream...  interesting.

Yep i use to stream TV to the laptop in the backyard connected to a projector for hot summer nights watching tv on the wall it was nice

[NiN^_^NiN]

Videolan doesn't officially support 98... that would make me to go linux if they support that.  Going to linux would definitely fix his ram shortage.

I would think getting the amount of ram XP needs would cost the same as a used Xbox unless he has a cheap source.

It's not offically supported but i believe it can stream altho im not sure it wont harm him in downloading and trying but you are correct it fully doesn't work.

Im sure there is a linux on a floopy that is used just for streaming with VLC

[gonzo90017]

If you're going the linux route try Geexbox download the generator version and create your own live cd. So no need to find another drive. I haven't streamed anything to it yet but I have abou 100 movies in xvid format and they all play fine. My system is a 400mhz celeron with 128mb ram. It does exactly what you wan't to do.

[stace]

These are pretty good.

http://kjglobal.co.uk/acatalog/The_Mvix_Wireless_HD_Media_Drive.html

[SirPeale]

I don't think I'm looking to stream anything.  I Think what I want to do is have my home PC set up with a drive set to share, and the media PC to use that drive.  I can then access the files as if it were local.

The home PC is 20 feet away from my TV.  I can use CAT5 with no problems.

[SirPeale]

I would think getting the amount of ram XP needs would cost the same as a used Xbox unless he has a cheap source.

I've got lots of RAM laying around.  Luckily it takes regular DIMMs.

[ChadTower]

I've got lots of RAM laying around.  Luckily it takes regular DIMMs.

Good deal.

You're probably actually better off trying streaming - I'm not sure just running something like Media Player with an 800meg file over the network is going to work all that well.  By all means try it out and let us know how it goes but there's very likely a reason all this streaming software is out there rather than people just opening up a DivX movie over the network.

[boykster]

Good deal.

You're probably actually better off trying streaming - I'm not sure just running something like Media Player with an 800meg file over the network is going to work all that well.  By all means try it out and let us know how it goes but there's very likely a reason all this streaming software is out there rather than people just opening up a DivX movie over the network.

Actually, it works pretty well.  I play ripped DVD images across my lan all the time with zero problems.  If the pc you put together has enough horsepower to decode and render the video, then you're good to go.  Heck, over standard 100Mbit I can play a ripped HD-DVD or Bluray movie with no glitches; I have gigE now so I have plenty of headroom.

Mediaplayer should have no problems opening a media title that sits in a file share on another computer.

[stace]

I do the same.

I have 2 terabytes of diskspace allocated across 4 HD's connected straight into a switch.  All using standard cat5e.  All hidden under the stairs.

I then have a modded xbox in the family room and a few other media players dotted around the house allowing me to access any of my movie/music/photo collection without having to get off my fat arse 

Stace

[SirPeale]

I have a wireless router.  Can I use this to connect to my  home PC?

[SirPeale]

Now I've done it...I somehow managed to kill the connectivity on my main PC.  Now my 'net access is thru the darn computer I found on the road! 

I don't know how I did it, but I can't get it to reconnect.

[SirPeale]

Some kind of weird router problem.  Connected the PC right to my DSL modem and it connected right away.  Working on the router now.

[ChadTower]

Make sure your IP on the road PC isn't conflicting with the IP of anything else in the house... particularly the router itself.  Also make sure the road PC isn't trying to be a DHCP server... that will kill your actual DHCP server.

[SirPeale]

Nope...here's what happened.

Since I'm trying to use a wireless router, and didn't want too many "hitchhikers" so to speak, I reduced the number of machines connected at any time to '2'.  I disconnected my home PC for...oh, about a minute.  That's when the trouble started.  Took me a good hour to figure out that someone in my neighborhood with a wireless card had connected to it, therefore filling up the spot I had just vacated.

Still can't get the PCs to talk to each other yet.

[BMW Z1]

You can’t beat an Xbox running XBMC; it is the best true solution you’ll ever get.

I hard modded mine years ago, also has a 250GB HD for backing up my games, I stream all my movies from my PC wireless, and it plays everything you chuck at it.

Miles better than those dedicated media boxes that never seem to play everything properly, or pi55ing about using a computers as a front end player.

[stace]

I also use modded xboxs but the Media Player I mentioned above does pretty much play anything you could want it to.   


Peale,

Sounds like you are broadcasting your wireless router's 'ssid' without any security.

If I were you, I'd change everything that connects to your network to static ip, for a home sized nw, its easy to manage and less troublesome to troubleshoot should you need to.  Hide your SSID, as long as YOU know it there is NO need to broadcast it.  You should also setup security, if you don't want to then I would set your router to only allow specific mac address' to connect.

The fact that you will have stopped broadcasting your ssid and only allow authorised hardware to connect to your router should stop people connecting.  Before you do all of that (should you choose to do so) change your ssid.  Its all well and good hiding it but if your neighbours already know it they are on the right road to connectivity.


.....and don't forget to change your routers admin password.

I've worked with networks for around 15yrs and have configured mine at home in the way mentioned and have not been hacked/attacked since doing so.

Just my two penneth.

Hope this helps
Stace 



edited to make sense 

[ChadTower]

Those steps will stop pretty much all nonmalicious people for sure.  The fact that your neighbor was able to connect that fast definitely means you're not using any security other than that client connections limit...

[shmokes]

I used to leave my internet (but not PC) open for public use, but I had to cut it off cos somebody was abusing it.  Someone was not just connecting to it, but bittorrenting and not limiting his uploads and downloads to something reasonable and my internet started crawling.  I can't be bothered to act like a network administrator and monitor things and just block only bad users.  It's not like I was getting paid.  So I had to cut it off.  It made me sad to do it, cos I really like the idea of everyone sharing their internet access.  How nice would it be if you could just pull out your laptop or PDA anytime, anywhere, and be pretty sure that you could probably pick up a WiFi signal?  C'est la vie.

[ChadTower]

I used to leave my internet (but not PC) open for public use, but I had to cut it off cos somebody was abusing it.  Someone was not just connecting to it, but bittorrenting and not limiting his uploads and downloads to something reasonable and my internet started crawling.  I can't be bothered to act like a network administrator and monitor things and just block only bad users.  It's not like I was getting paid.  So I had to cut it off.  It made me sad to do it, cos I really like the idea of everyone sharing their internet access.  How nice would it be if you could just pull out your laptop or PDA anytime, anywhere, and be pretty sure that you could probably pick up a WiFi signal?  C'est la vie.

You do know that you are liable for all net activity through your contracted connection?  If that person had chosen to use your connection to do something really illegal, like distribute child porn, or send out threatening emails to public officials, it would have been your ass in a sling, not his, until you could specifically prove both that it was a third party and exactly who it was.

[SirPeale]

I've purposely left it open.  As long as they're not abusing the 'privilege'  I'll leave it open.

Now...back to the task at hand...

You can’t beat an Xbox running XBMC; it is the best true solution you’ll ever get.

Again, I'm not interested.  Let's go with what I've got.  I've got a Windows 98 machine I want to read files off my Windows XP machine.  They're both plugged into a wireless router.  Can I get them to talk thru this?   And how?

You do know that you are liable for all net activity through your contracted connection?  If that person had chosen to use your connection to do something really illegal, like distribute child porn, or send out threatening emails to public officials, it would have been your ass in a sling, not his, until you could specifically prove both that it was a third party and exactly who it was.

Actually, having an unsecured wireless link lends a lot to the "I didn't do it" defense.  But I don't wish to discuss this in this thread.  Moving right along...

[SirPeale]

I'm not sure how it happened, but all my directories that I set as share directories suddenly showed up in "Network Neighborhood".  Yay!

[SirPeale]

Hooked it to my TV, works great.  Took me an hour to find the cable to hook the soundcard to the TV, but it's working great.

What I need now is some kind of front end to pick video files from, instead of going thru Network Neighborhood and selecting it via explorer.  Any hints?

[ChadTower]

What type of interface do you have for the PC itself?  Standard keyboard/mouse, or are you hoping to reduce that to something simpler?

[SirPeale]

Right now it's a keyboard/mouse.  I want to get a remote of some kind so I can do chapters if I'm watching DVDs, or fast-forward thru non-chaptered video files.  It's be nice to use it to select videos to watch as well.

[ChadTower]

I bet there are some good remote friendly front ends out there for this... you'll just have to set up your server share in a manner that works well with the front end.  Lots of Media PCs out there and they have to be using something.

[bfauska]

If your hardware doesn't have native IR support, do some searching about the USB-uirt.  It is a great way to add IR remote ability to any PC, and you can use remotes you already have or pick up at a thrift store.

[SirPeale]

Thanks.  I saw a header for it on the motherboard, I'll look into both solutions.

Now...what about a decent front end?

[bfauska]

The search for a frontend in the HTPC is more complex than here so be ready for some research to find the best one for your needs. I used to be fairly into Xlobby, I just sort of lost momentum and interest on my home theater a while ago and they started to get ready to go commercial.  It may still be worth looking into, otherwise you could take a look at the HTPC section of the avsforums.

Xlobby takes a good deal of work to set-up but there is still a free version available I think.  The HTPC forum may be daunting, but it should be good info.  Any of the front ends have good forums themselves, but in order to choose one you have to start somewhere.

[shmokes]

You do know that you are liable for all net activity through your contracted connection?  If that person had chosen to use your connection to do something really illegal, like distribute child porn, or send out threatening emails to public officials, it would have been your ass in a sling, not his, until you could specifically prove both that it was a third party and exactly who it was.

I don't think that's really true.  I wouldn't be liable until I proved it wasn't me, so much as I might be suspected until they failed to prove that it was.  I can see it causing a great big inconvenience in a worst-case scenario where someone was downloading child porn or something, but what are the chances of that happening, really?  And in the end they would subject all my hard drives to data forensics, would find that they couldn't turn up a single instance of child porn, and that would be that.  It would be VERY inconvenient and stressful, but it'd all be over and then I'm sure I'd never let anyone else ever use my internet connection. 

But  I just can't be bothered to allow something like that to have a great deal of influence over my daily behavior.  It's the same reason I refuse to watch the news.  I think television news has turned into something very unhealthy.  It causes people to be afraid of life.  I live in a quiet neighborhood -- Coral Gables, FL.  I had ONE trick-or-treater this year.  ONE!  And it was my next-door neighbor!  Depressing.  People are convinced that the world they see on the 10:00 news is something real, rather than a manufactured product that contains lots of sex and violence for the same reason anything on TV does -- because it sells.

[boykster]

Whether or not you are legally liable or not, your service provider has every right to drop you for abuse of service.  If someone is using your wifi and violates your TOS with your provider, they have every right to cancel your account.  Trust me, I know, it almost happened to me.

As for HTPC frontends, there are tons of options.  I use Mainlobby/DVDLobby but its highly tweaked (custom backend and IR interface).  Your mobo may have an IRDA header, but that's not going to get you much in the way of IR input for control.  You'll need an IR interface that is supported by the frontend you choose as well as supports consumer IR remotes.  usb-uirt is definately a good choice.

Its a big can of worms you're opening here, but it's fun to mess with and can be cheap if put a lot of sweat equity into it.

[ChadTower]

I don't think that's really true.  I wouldn't be liable until I proved it wasn't me, so much as I might be suspected until they failed to prove that it was.  I can see it causing a great big inconvenience in a worst-case scenario where someone was downloading child porn or something, but what are the chances of that happening, really?  And in the end they would subject all my hard drives to data forensics, would find that they couldn't turn up a single instance of child porn, and that would be that.  It would be VERY inconvenient and stressful, but it'd all be over and then I'm sure I'd never let anyone else ever use my internet connection.

A person shady enough to use your internet connection to cover their pedophilia would also be shady enough to drop "evidence" onto your hard drive.  There have been a couple of cases of this in the past but for the life of me I can't find reference to them right now.  Few people who would run open wireless would set up client firewalls to prevent that from happening.

[shmokes]

My wifi access was on DMZ . . . an intruder was probably not going to be getting through y firewall and dropping anything on my hard drive.  And I was never worried about the terms of service of my ISP being violated.  Clearly, once my connection was being abused I had my own reasons to cut them off irrespective of the ISP's interests.

[ChadTower]

Putting it in the DMZ does make it harder to do that... so long as DMZ in this case means a separate piece of hardware and not the "soft DMZ" on the firewall itself (which is also assumed to be independent hardware here).  The soft DMZ on consumer routers is about as secure as an open window and really shouldn't be used for anything.

[boykster]

And I was never worried about the terms of service of my ISP being violated. 

Neither was I until I got a call from the security and abuse department of comcast....

[ChadTower]

Heh, a year ago I got a couple of letters from Comcast that basically said "We know you downloaded this item... knock it off".

[boykster]

I got nixed for violating the non-disclosed rolling soft monthly bandwidth cap    They claimed I downloaded over 300gigs of data during a 30 day period and if I did it again within 12mos that my account would be immediately cancelled with no recourse.

I blamed the kids down the street 

[J_K_M_A_N]

I got the email about a movie about a month ago from comcast. Damn kids  ! 

J_K_M_A_N

[SirPeale]

Back on topic!  Are there any free frontends?  Mainlobby costs like $100.

[boykster]

I think xlobby is free....

[NiN^_^NiN]

I would look at carpc frontends as an alternative

Frodoplayer is a good one so is Roadrunner

I personally did this ages ago when i first made a HTPC for video only

I created an Access Database which just linked to the files from the main PC and created the frontend in that which let me search for movies as i used the database part to display the DVD cover with runtime and description etc and had a play button for each and what that did was embed windows media player into the Access form and play the movie

There are ways to make access not look like access and even startup with your own logo

I had created more things with the access program like internet embedded into another form and music aswell as cooking recipes as it was sitting in the kitchen.

Anyway try mp3car.com forums and go to the software then frontend section you will find what you need

[bfauska]

Media Portal is open source.  It's fairly popular, seems versatile and they are about to start doing a whole new version (probably a tough time to start out a new software exploration, since it may all be changing.)

Xlobby is still available in a free version, they are about to go commercial. 

If your demands are as simple as you described in the original post, either of those with their free version should work and you would likely never have to upgrade to the pay version.

[SirPeale]

I've been playing with xlobby.  It's neat.  Few things, though...


1) it's very hard for the program to accurately find box covers to movies.  God forbid the title have the word 'The' in it. 

2) it plays my movies fine.  They're in a directory.  TV shows, OTOH, it just sort of sits there.  Can't/won't play anything.  Not sure why.  Tried clearing the DB and reloading...no dice.

[SirPeale]

XLobby doesn't want to seem to run, though it should.  Likely a strip-down and reinstall of Windows will do the trick. 

Media Portal only runs on XP and above.

Found a few hard drives yesterday, going to try an XP install to see how it fares.

[ChadTower]

Give a thought to using TinyXP, maybe... not sure how stripped down it really is, but if all you need is a player and XP itself, that may work with an older box short on resources.

Linux is probably much better for this purpose, though, if you can find a nice simple gui client player.

[SirPeale]

98 is running really well.  But XP will give me a snazzy FE.  *shrug* it'll all be up to experimentation.

[ChadTower]

Good progress... if you have two drives, install 98 on one and XP on the other, so that you can swap them back and forth without doing a time consuming reinstall if you decide to go back.

[SirPeale]

I just wish XPs footprint wasn't so big.  Most of the drives I've got are sub 1GHz.

[ChadTower]

TinyXP is like 400meg, I think, and requires very little RAM.  IIRC now I think it's the British version, though.

http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html

Give that a shot, maybe?

Why the aversion to Linux?  Modern installers make it really easy to get up and working.

[SirPeale]

I'll need a snazzy FE that's family friendly.  If there's a Linux one out there I'd give it a shot.  I was using Linux when it wasn't cool, I have no problems with it's use.

[SirPeale]

So I've been using my media player without any kind of front end as-is for a while now.  I've got a length of CAT-5E going under my rug connected to my main PC utilizing it as a pseudo-server.

I've had a copy of XP that I whittled down using nLite that I wanted to test on this.  I'd merged the drivers in so basically all I'd have to do (in theory) was just pop a new hard drive in (in case things went south I didn't want to screw with my original installation), pop the installation CD in, and walk away.

Well...as we all know, the best laid plans...

Two hard drives hooked up...neither one would be detected by the BIOS.  I have no idea why.  I tried different cables, different configurations (master/slave/CS) with no luck.  I know the drives work okay because I literally just pulled them from my existing PC.  So unfortunately I was forced to use the one in the PC already.

Popped in my nLite CD.  Got to the point where it's supposed to load the PCMCIA drivers...and it failed.  Since I'd removed them it balked.  Crap.  Started from scratch and made a new nLite CD.

Once Windows installed (which I had to help it along several times, despite having completed those particular sections in the nLite setup) I was having difficulties with video.  It was defaulting to 640x480x8 bit color.  The resolution was fine, but the color was not.  But every time I went to change it, the screen would blank and the computer would lock up.  Bah.

Thought it might be a driver issue.  Since the video card is just a Riva TNT2 card, I was using nVidia's generic drivers.  But it's an Asus AGP-3800, so I downloaded their "official" drivers.  No luck.  I tried it hooked up to a POS VGA monitor so I could see if there was anything going on I couldn't see on the TV.  Nope.

Finally had an idea: maybe XP just doesn't like this video card.  I had another AGP-3800 lying around.  Swapped it out...presto, perfect picture and the PC doesn't lock up!

Now for the front end...either xLobby or Media Portal.  Both require the use of the .NET framework, and I haven't been able to get it to install thus far.  I'm guessing it has to do with the lack of RAM (a whopping 80-ish megs).  I thought I had more RAM I could use in this beastie, but alas, I appear to be out.  I have a request on FreeCycle...hopefully someone will come thru.

[SirPeale]

Oh yes, the motherboard inside is an Asus P2B-F.

[ChadTower]

I have a request on FreeCycle...hopefully someone will come thru.

Asking for a specific component almost never works... but if you ask for a dead PC it  works pretty well.  RAM is rarely the reason a PC is dead.

[SirPeale]

I see sticks of RAM offered up occasionally. 

I've asked for dead PCs before, but no one's ever come thru.

[SirPeale]

Son of a...I find some RAM in a drawer I forgot about...install it...xLobby runs...for about five minutes.  Then I get a message "this version of xLobby has expired, please install the newest version."  Okay, sure.  Except it's not available without some kind of password.   

[Paladin]

I commend you on your choice of finding a low cost/free solution.  You're learning a lot about your computer and networking while you're getting it to work, which is always good.  I see that it's been 2 months and you're still not done.  I was impatient and bought a media player for around $200 last year.  I thought I'd chime in to let anyone reading this thread know that there are quick ways to do the same thing, even if they aren't free.

What I did was buy a DLink Media Lounge.  I hooked it up to the TV with the HDMI cable, and set up the built in wireless to my SSID and WEP security phrase.  My MAME cab has a P4 Celeron with 2 gigs RAM that's always on, and is connected to my network with CAT5.  It's got Windows Media Player 11 which natively streams - no setup necessary, and I didn't have to load the free streaming software that came with the Media Lounge.  All I do is turn on the media lounge via its remote, and it connects to my MAME PC.  I then choose what video, music or pictures I want and it plays on the TV.

Pretty much all I play are .avi .wmv and .mp3 files, but it plays them all fine.  I've never had a glitch using the wireless setup, but I admit that I haven't tried ripping a DVD to the machine and trying to play the VOB's.  If it didn't stream fast enough, I'm sure changing the connection to a wired one would solve that.

Like I said, I'm not trying to detract from what you're doing.  Saving money and recycling technology is great, I just wanted to share my solution.  I had my setup running in a few hours, and it was pretty much plug and play.  To me it was worth the money for the ease of setup.

[SirPeale]

Really haven't learned much on this project.  I've been doing this kind of stuff since I was eight.  I'm 34 now.

Most of the problems I've had to deal with have either been bottlenecks or financial difficulties.  Since I want to work with what I already have, these go hand-in-hand.

I've got xLobby working well now.  Problem is it's an expired version.  Solution: set the calendar a year back. 

I can't figure out how to get it to play my TV shows.  Movies were easy - point the dir at my movies folder, it organized them, gave them thumbnails, downloaded info about the movies.  I pointed the 'video files' towards my TV shows, but it doesn't play them.  Can't find the video files, I guess.  Still working on that.

[bfauska]

If you want your calander to be correct you can search for the old free version of XLobby, they have just recently added the expiration aspect as they move into the commercial version of the product. Obviously there are new features to the new software, but many people had the old version set up to work great for what you are looking to do. If you can't find a download of it anywhere and want it let me know and I'll send a zip or rar to you.