Manual
 

MCE RSS Reader consists of 2 parts:

  • A regular Windows XP application which you can use to configure MCE RSS Reader, and which is responsible for refreshing the contents the feeds you defined.
  • An add-in for the Media Center application which you can use to read newsitems within MCE.

 

Setting up MCE RSS Reader

Before you can read newsitems you first have to configure MCE RSS Reader.
You can do so by pressing the Windows Start button, surfing to the menu Accessories / Media Center and clicking the icon called "MCE RSS Reader Server".

Now a small icon appears in the system tray of the Windows taskbar:

When you double click this icon, the configuration window of MCE RSS Reader will appear:

In this window you see an overview of the RSS/RDF feeds whose newsitems you'll be able to read within MCE.
Use the buttons in the toolbar to add, edit or remove feeds and to save you configuration:

Press this button to save any modifications you made to the overview of feeds.
Use this button to add a new feed.

When you press this button, the following window will appear:

Using this window, you can specify the following parameters of the feed:

  • The name
  • The URL
    If you fill out only the URL and press the button to the left of the URL field, the name of the feed will be retrieved automatically.
  • The maximum number of items you want to keep in the newsitem history
  • The maximum number of days you want items to be kept in the newsitem history
  • The interval at which the content of the feed should be refreshed
  • Whether enclosures of the feed (e.g. vodcasts or podcasts) should be downloaded to your PC
    (for more information, scroll to the bottom of this page)

When you press the OK button, MCE RSS Reader validates if the URL you entered points to a valid RSS feed. This may take a few seconds.

See the Links page for information about interesting RSS feeds you could add to your configuration.
Press this button to edit the properties of the selected feed.
By pressing this button, the selected feeds are removed from the overview.
When you press this button, the newsitem history for each of the selected feeds will be cleared.
(don't forget to press the "Save" button!)

 

Reading newsitems

You can read the newsitems within the Media Center application.
To do so, you:

  • go to the Start page of MCE
  • select the "More programs" option
  • and click the program called "RSS Reader"

Now you'll see an overview of RSS feeds you defined.
By selecting one of the feeds, you can read the newsitems for that feed, listen to its podcasts or watch its vodcasts (video blogs).

 

Downloading enclosures

When Windows Media Center has to play media files straight from the internet, it only supports a limited number of formats. But when it has to play a file stored locally on your PC, it can handle a lot more formats; at least, if you've installed the required codecs.

If you e.g. have included a vodcast in your configuration which makes use of the MPEG-4 or QuickTime format, MCE cannot play the videos of such a vodcast, since it natively does not support these file formats. So, what to do?

Follow these steps:

  • Open the MCE RSS Reader Configuration window, click the "File" menu and the option called "Settings".
    In the window that opens up, select the folder to which MCE RSS Reader should download media files enclosed in any of your RSS feeds.
  • Then double-click the RSS feeds in the Configuration window in which media files are enclosed, and in its properties window click the checkbox called "Download enclosures" to make sure that MCE RSS Reader downloads any media files enclosed in the feed.
  • Now that you've configured MCE RSS Reader correctly, make sure to install the required codecs.
    I recommend the following ones:
    • FFDshow
      for the following video formats: XVid, DivX (3, 4 and 5), MS MPEG 4 (1, 2 and 3), 3IV, 3IVX, RMP4, DM4V, H.263, H.264, X.264, MJPEG, HuffYUV, CorePNG and MPNG
      and the following audio formats: Vorbis, AAC and FLAC
      (make sure you only use FFDshow for the file formats mentioned above!)
    • QuickTime Alternative
      for QuickTime video and audio files
    • Real Alternative
      for RealMedia video and audio files
  • Finally, make sure Windows recognizes and interprets the file extensions of all these media formats correctly.
    To do so, download this ZIP file, open it, double click "Add file formats.reg" and press the "Yes" button.
  • Now you should be able to play almost any media file within MCE!
  • If that is still not the case (like in my situation), go to another PC on which you've installed Nero Burning Rom.
    From that PC, copy the folder called "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead" to the same folder on your MCE PC.
    Then start a command prompt on your MCE PC and enter the following commands:
    • cd "\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter"
    • regsvr32 NDParser.ax

    That should do the trick.