MS Windows Home Server

Win a Tranquil AVA RS5 “Special Edition” Media Server

The add-in My Movies and Windows Home Server manufacturer Tranquil PC are giving you a chance to win a Tranquil AVA RS5 “Special Edition” Media Server.

The Tranquil AVA RS5 is a full featured Windows Home Server, that can contain up to 5 hard drives, and can optionally be extended with an additional 5 drives using the SQA-Ex extension. The AVA RS5 contains an internal CD/DVD drive for disc copying, and ships with the AVA Media Software, which is an extended version of My Movies for Windows Home Server, allowing you to simply insert a CD or a DVD*, and automatically get it copied to the server, complete with embedded meta-data in one go.  There is also an optional Blu Ray version.

My Movies 2.54 and My Movies for Windows Home Server 1.05 Build 4 have just been released, and added is a new feature for Movie Backdrops. My Movies for Windows Home Server 1.05 Build 4 is also available in an enhanced version from Tranquil PC, under the name AVA Media.

Movie Backdrops (also referred to as Fan Art) is a full screen artwork used in movie frontends, to create a mood of the movie as an addition to the movie cover. The backdrops can be either an artwork created by material from the movie, such as press images, graphics and others, or it can be as simple as a screen cap or part of a screen cap in a place where it is able to create this mood of the movie. Using a My Movies user account, users can contribute movie backdrops or movie posters to our service and for each contributed backdrop or movie poster get a chance to win the AVA RS5. The competition will run from Monday, May 25 to Thursday, June 25, both days included.

More details on the competition and how to enter it is available from here.

* The AVA Rs5 copies only unprotected discs. Users in countries that allow circumventing disc copy protections when backing up their discs can install SlySoft AnyDVD or AnyDVD HD to remove these copy protections. You are yourself responsible for complying with local law when using disc copy functions.

Win a KeepVault for WHS Account

KeepVault for Windows Home Server is the online backup solution for our Home Servers which has been updated to version 3.0 for added performance amongst many other features.

To celebrate this good news the kind people behind KeepVault (Proxure) have agreed for us to give away some free accounts.

Monday through to Thursday we will be giving away a 40GB account per day, which are worth $48 each. But as well as this on Friday and Saturday there will be a chance to win one 100GB account which would normally cost you $99.

To win just leave a comment to this post stating why you would like to win one, but hurry as entry for today’s 40GB account will end today (25 May 2009) at 23:59 GMT (15:59 Pacific Time)

WHS Version 2 to Add Tuner Card Support ?

Ben Drawbaugh writes at engadgetHD "Is the future of Windows Media Center with Windows Home Server?"

Ben starts the discussion by stating:

Windows Home Server has become one of the best laptop companion accessories available today…We believe that the next version of WHS will also let you add tuner support and will not only let you record your shows and watch live TV on an Extender, but it will also let you watch TV on your Windows 7 laptop.

Ben then asks the question why hasn’t Microsoft done this already?

That answer is actually pretty obvious if you know that current version of WHS is built on Windows 2003 Server. It was released in the Fall of 2007, about five months before Windows Server 2008 and about a year after Windows Vista. Obviously there wasn’t any point in including the older Media Center code in WHS, and with Server 2008 still off in the future, it couldn’t use Vista’s Media Center code either (Vista and Server 2008 share the same code base).

The article continues with Ben’s view on how this may happen and he brings USB tuner cards, Live Mesh and the rumored Zune HD into the equation.

You can read the full article here.

The Home Server Show Podcast #42

The latest edition of The Home Server Show podcast is available which this week is co-hosted by Jim Collison who along with David McCabe talk about how WHS saved a Windows 7 upgrade amongst other things.

You can catch episode 42 here.