One of my favourite application for Windows Media Center is Big Screen Headlines, this is an RSS reader for Vista Media Center and Nial has just released v2 of the application. Big Screen Headlines 2 is a total re-write of the app, it is not just a RSS reader as it will also play embedded content like podcasts and videos. It’s a great look application (as are all of Nial’s apps) and it’s a great way to get web content on to the TV via an Extender.
You can download a free trial from bigscreenglobal.com and I will be giving a few copies away starting from next weeks [TMCS]
Oh and [TMCS] is a present, so you can listen to the show directly from Media Center!
Apart from the core functionality provided by v1 (such as RSS Browsing and Content viewing, IE7 Subscriber Feed System support, Parsing of RSS HTML content to Media Center friendly text) – some of the major enhancements in v2 include :
– new main menu system – with direct access to all your content via the left/right sliding panels (which reveal several menu items when selected) – and direct viewing of ‘latest’ updated items and feeds without further menus. The main menu system is similar to that found on Big Screen Weather v2 – however has been enhanced to better support and accommodate mouse/touch control.
– loads of new presets with substantially updated video and audio section of new Web Media designed for Media Center (WMV Video etc).
– Enhanced Parsing of RSS based blogs / HTML Content (with Inline Image support – allowing you to view images contained with the content) – Enhanced support for latest variants of RSS 2 Media (and other new formats such as OPML 2) with ability to drill down on multiple content attachments (where made available) – and comments feeds. When browsing items – additional content such as item and feed thumbnails are also displayed.
– Supports and recognizes and watch a whole range of new content types (where 3rd party codec support is available) – and even caters for the additional codecs on the new PIKA 2.0 Extenders (by allowing you to watch MPEG4, H264, DivX based content). For media center PC’s – you can install additional Directshow compliant video filters and add support for numerous popular codecs (such as Apple Quicktime, Flash FLV Video, DivX/XVid, MPEG4 etc).
– Highly customizable viewing/browsing experience for RSS Feeds, presets and Articles with sorting, filtering, text size control and view styles. Your settings are also automatically saved (per user).
– Full Media Center Extender Support – with auto device detection/configuration for PIKA 2 (Linksys, DLink etc) extenders + XBox 360’s – with customizable display/usage options (such as filtering out codecs etc). Display options can also be adjusted – such as disabling background animations for slower/lower powered machines) manually.
– Includes the Feed Synchronization Tool (which runs as a scheduled task) – which preprocesses and summarizes your Subscribed feeds (incorporating any recent updates made) – so they are ready for instant viewing when you load Headlines 2. The synchronized feeds (and any auto downloaded enclosures) are also then made available to extender users via the synchronization tool. The synchronization tool also creates ‘best of’ style feeds internally so you can quickly view lists of ‘latest’ items from the main menu – without substantial processing time (by media type or online/offline status).
– User Interface is available in 5 languages : English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.
Headlines v2 also features the new Activation/Trial/Unlock system found on the other v2 products (Weather v2 and Photos v2) – and allows you to upsize your existing trial to a full version if you decide to buy it.
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the application. Big Screen Headlines 2 is a total re-write of the app, it is not just a RSS reader as it will also play embedded content like podcasts and videos. It’s a great look application (as are all of Nial’s apps) and it’s a great way to get web content on to the TV via an Extender.
PingBack from http://sigeeksout.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/on10net-cover-winmo-61/
a good read.