Remote Potato is an iOS app that allows Windows Media Center users to scheduled recordings, view pictures, and even stream music or videos from your PC to your iPhone. Now the developer is preparing to launch an iPad app. It’s expected to hit the App Store on July 12th.

Windows Media Center is Microsoft’s 10-foot interface for controlling a PC. It’s built into most consumer versions of Windows 7 and it includes photo, video, and music features including the ability to view and record live television broadcasts if you have a TV tuner on your computer.

Remote Potato HD will let you view a program guide or browse for media on your computer. The app connects to your PC over a home network, but you can also use it when you’re away from the home to stream music or movies over 3G or WiFi. Several video quality options are available so you can adjust the stream depending on your connection. You can also download media to your iPad for offline access.

The app also supports AirPlay so you can stream media to an Apple TV. That way you can have Windows Media Center running on one PC in your house, but use an iPad with Remote Potato HD to send media to a TV with a $99 Apple TV set top box.

You can check out a demo video after the break.

The iPhone and iPod touch version is already available for $6.99 in the App Store. The iPad app should be available in a few days.

via The Digital Lifestyle

Remote Potato Windows Media Center companion app coming soon to the iPad is a post from: mobiputing

You can use the AirPlay feature in iOS to stream music, photos, or video from an iOS device to a TV connected to an Apple TV box. But what if you’re a Windows Media Center user instead? Now there’s an app for that.

Developer Thomas Pleasance has released a plugin for Windows Media Center which adds support for AirPlay. You’ll need to install Apple’s Bonjour app for Windows first, and to make sure that you’re running a version of Windows that includes Windows Media Center (Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate should do the trick). But overall the installation process couldn’t be much easier. Just run the app, and you’re all set.

To use AirPlay for Windows Media Center, just open the media center app on your PC and then bring up some content you want to stream on your mobile device, hit the AirPlay button, and tell iOS where you’d like to send the video. You can then play, pause, skip or rewind using your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a remote control.

After the break you can check out a video showing how I can stream a YouTube video to my desktop PC running Windows 7 Home Premium using the new free plugin.

via The Digital Lifestyle

Stream from your iPhone to your TV with AirPlay for Windows Media Center is a post from: mobiputing

Microsoft bundles Windows Media Center software with the Windows 7 operating system, allowing you to use your computer like a TiVo or Roku box and access music, movies, and photos from the comfort of your couch — assuming you have a remote control or wireless keyboard. Microsoft also offers some pretty powerful media software in the Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. You’d think it would be a no-brainer for Microsoft to include the option to use your phone as a media center remote control. But instead it falls to third party developers to offer that sort of functionality.

That’s just what developer Bradley Mauk has done. His Media Center Remote app showed up in the Windows Phone Marketplace yesterday.You can purchase it for £2.49, or about $4 or take a free trial for a spin.

The app lets you navigate through your music, movies, and photos on a computer on your home network running a small server application. You can also access your now playing list to play, pause, or rewind media. The app also lets you control Netflix Watch Instantly videos.

You can also use the Meddia Center Remote app to open or close your DVD drive, search for media, or even convert speech to text so you can tell your media center PC what to do using your voice.

via The Digital Lifestyle

Media Center Remote for Windows Phone 7 is a post from: mobiputing

You know what probably would have been a no-brainer for Microsoft? Building a Windows Media Center remote control app into Windows Phone 7, allowing you to use your phone to control audio and video playback on your PC. But Microsoft doesn’t really seem to be paying much attention to Windows Media Center these days, so I’m not really surprised the company didn’t bother baking it into the new mobile OS. Fortunately third party developers are there to pick up the torch.

Remotive is one of the first remote control apps I’ve seen for Windows Phone 7, and it’s designed to let you control Windows Media Center on a PC running Windows 7 or Vista. Just download and install the Remotive Server on your PC, pay $1.99 to grab the Remotive App for Windows Phone 7 from the Marketplace, and you should be good to go.

Right now it looks like the app simply controls playback of your music library. You can browse the library by album or artist and play or pause media. Future updates should ad search and volume control functions. There’s no word at the moment on whether the developer plans to add video support.

If you don’t feel like spending $1.99, there is a free trial available, but it will only list the first 50 albums or artists in your collection.

via Windows Phone Thoughts

Use your WP7 phone as a media center remote with Remotive is a post from: mobiputing

Windows Media Center is a 10-foot interface for a PC that lets you control your music, movies, photos, and other media from the comfort of your couch — provided your PC is plugged into your TV and you have a Media Center remote control. But here’s a little secret: Windows 7 Home Premium and Ultimate both come with Windows Media Center functionality baked in, whether you plug in a remote, TV tuner, or HDTV or not. And if you don’t feel like investing in extra hardware to take full advantage of Windows Media Center, you can just use your Windows Mobile phone or PDA like a remote control.

xda-developers forum member oishiiunko whipped up an application for Windows Mobile 6.0 and up that lets you navigate menus, control media playback, and control the volume using your phone.

The app is called Windows Media Center Mobile Remote Control, and what it lacks in creative naming is makes up for in simple functionality. You can play and pause media, hit the next or previous buttons, and there’s a position seek feature as well. There’s haptic feedback for supported touchscreens, which means you should feel a little vibration when you press a button — making it easier to confirm that you’ve pressed a key without looking at your fingers.

Right now only QVGA devices are supported, but the app is still a work in progress.

In order to use the app, you’ll need to install VMC Controller on your PC, install the mobile app on your phone or PDA, connect to your PC over WiFi or an ActiveSync connection, fire up the mobile app, hit the connect button, and enter the IP address for your computer. All told, a dedicated remote control is probably easier to use. But that wouldn’t be as cool… or as cheap. Windows Media Center Mobile Remote Control is available as a free download from the xda-developers forum.

via xda-developers

Turn your Windows Mobile phone into a Windows Media Center remote control is a post from: mobiputing

The iTunes App Store is filled with applications that let you control desktop media players from your phone. There are remotes for iTunes, Boxee, VLC, and other apps. And then there’s RemoteX — a single application that functions as a remote for all of those apps, plus 9 more.

RemoteX is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7, and requires you to download a small server utility on your PC.

Then you fire up the RemoteX app on your iPhone or iPod touch, connect to your desktop (which should automatically show up in the list of servers), and choose the media player you want to handle. The remote control functions change for each app. For instance, the VLC controller has FullScreen and DVD butons, while the Winamp controller has an Equalizer and Playlist button.

All of the remote controls feature basic playback controls, such as play/pause, fast forward/rewind, and skip.

Here’s the list of applications that RemoteX works with: Windows Media Player 11, Winamp, VLC, KMPlayer, Pot Player, XBMC, GOMPlayer, Media Player Classic Home Cinema, AIMP2, Windows Media Center, and iTunes.

RemoteX is available for download from the App Store in multiple flavors. The full version costs $1.99 and has a few features that appear to be missing from the free RemoteX Lite including the ability to turn off, reboot, or hibernate your PC by pressing a button on your iPhone.

Update: It looks like RemoteX Lite has been discontinued. The full version of RemoteX now costs $1.99. There are also $0.99 versions for controlling single applications such as Windows Media Center, GOM Player, KMPlayer, or XBMC.

I shot a brief video overview of RemoteX Lite in action, which you can check out after the break.

RemoteX: Remote control 12 PC media players from an iPhone is a post from: mobiputing