Lately, everyone has been writing cool plugins for Windows Live Writer using the Windows Live Writer SDK. There is already a community creating useful plugins that can enhance the application's usefulness.
Such plugins are;
The possibilities are endless.
Similar to the iTunes Blogging plugin or the WIndows Media Player Blogging plugin for displaying the music that you're currently listening to, I decided to write a plugin for displaying the TV shows that I'm currently recording and planning to record soon.
Now, just to give you a bit brief of history, I have been using Snapstream's BeyondTV since approx. 2002. My PVR configuration includes a P4 2.4GHz with 2GB RAM, two (2) Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE dual tuner cards, and over 1TB of disk space. All of which I use to record all my family's favorite TV shows. This is over 300 hours worth of recording time, mind you.
If you have not used BeyondTV before, I strongly encourage you to check it out. The price is very reasonable and is much better than Microsoft Media Center. One really nice feature is its BeyondTV Link software that lets you watch movies from any PC that can communicate with your server. I use this feature on my laptop, etc., when I'm in another room.
To get started, you will need to do the following:
- You will need to download and install Windows Live Writer.
- If you do not have it installed already, you will also need to download and install the .NET 1.1 Redistributable Package.
Once you have downloaded all the pre-requisites, you will need to download the BeyondTV plugin. Once downloaded, extract the .ZIP file into your Live Writer plugin directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Windows Live Writer\Plugins\).
If you do not have BeyondTV server installed and running on the same PC as Live Writer, then you need to double-click the registry.reg within the .ZIP file to create a settings key within the registry.
The registry location is: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\BTVPlugin\Settings
Valid keys are:
Server - The TCP/IP address of your BeyondTV server.
Port - The port number of your BeyondTV server. (default is 8129)
License - Your BeyondTV license file. As of BeyondTV version 4, this is not longer required in order to logon to BeyondTV remotely.
Password - Your BeyondTV WebAdmin's password. If you have changed it, then you will need to define it here. (default is blank)
Once you have verified all of the above, you may launch Live Writer.
From the "Insert" menu, you should have a "BeyondTV Recordings" selection.
There is also a sidebar that contains a link as well:
The output from the selection will look similar to:
BeyondTV Active Recordings: Project Runway
BeyondTV Upcoming Recordings: Project Runway, Survivor: Cook Islands, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy
In the future, I plan on making further modifications to this plugin. Feel free to e-mail me at dmohorn@myblog4fun.com if you have any questions, comments, or bug reports.
BeyondTV Recording Plugin for Windows Live Writer Download