The Lossless Audio Blog is reporting that FLAC lossless audio files can now be played in Windows Media Center 2005.  This is great news, because every music player I own now supports FLAC, the format I use to encode all of my music files.  So I can listen to my FLAC music files at my PC using dbPowerAmp or one of many players, around the house on my Sonos, in my car with my PhatNoise PhatBox, and now in my home theater with Windows Media Center Edition 2005.  If I had an iPod, the iPod Linux Project would allow my to play FLAC on my iPod as well.  I'm glad to see see such wide support for FLAC.  I won't buy any type of music player that doesn't support it from here on out.

Here is a brief summary of how the the process is supposed to work:

• Install Illiminable Ogg Directshow Filter
• Install WMP Tag Support Extender (version 9.9.1 or later)
  
• Go to Tools -> Options -> File Types and make sure Free Lossless Audio Codec is selected
• Double click a FLAC file in Windows Explorer and make sure it opens into Windows Media Player, if not associate it with Windows Media Player
• Set the plug-in to "Auto-Refresh on Start" and "Auto-Refresh on Add". To do this, I started Windows Media Player, went to Tools menu -> Plug-ins -> Options, selected Background, selected WMPTagSupportExtender Plug-in, clicked Properties, and then finally checked the two auto-refresh boxes.
• Restart Windows Media Player
• You should see your FLAC library in Windows Media Player
• Switch to Windows Media Center; you should see your entire music library there as well
• If you don't see the FLAC files, try this:

• Clear the Windows Media PLAYER library (Media Center uses the same library)

• Manually rescan your entire music collection including the flac folders (wait, wait, wait. . .) Note: simply automatically watching the folder did not work for me.

There is a discussion on WMPTagSupport Extender at the HydrogenAudio forum.

I've been a Netflix subscriber since 2001 and rented from them starting in 1999. When I received an e-mail about a Netflix class action lawsuit, I knew immediately what prompted it. They promised unlimited rentals but they wouldn't ship out new DVDs until several days after the movie was returned to them, thus artificially limiting the number of movies you could rent in a month. They would claim issues with the US Postal Service, but I found it strange that the USPS would hold on to every Netflix movie sent to them for several days before delivering it. Of course, this was not the case and Netflix was falsely advertising their service.

I was a bit surprised by the settlement though. Only one month of rentals at one tier above your current plan. So I received the potential to watch an extra one or two movies, a $4 value based on their pricing, in exchange for them cheating me out of a couple of DVD rentals each month for the past 2 or so years. That just didn't seem fair to me. So I did some searching and came across NetflixSettlementSucks.com. I'm not the only one upset about the settlement and the settlement was more unfair than I imagined. The 1-month-free-upgrade had be canceled by the customer after the first months or they would starting paying more each months. Also, the lawyers would be paid $2.5 million for the "great benefit" bestowed upon the poor customer. Great settlement for Netflix and the lawyers; not so great for the customers. But according to NetflixSettlementSucks.com, the offer is being revisited.

During 2005, I switched from a "2-at-a-time unlimited" plan to a "2-at-a-time max of 4 per month" plan. When I switched, I found it weird that if I sent in a movie on Monday, I would have a new movie of Thursday at the latest (providing I hadn't already used my 4 rentals that month). Obviously, Netflix did not delay shipments with this plan because I could never rent more than 4 each month anyway. This was definitely not the case with the "unlimited" plan; a movie shipped on Monday wouldn't be replaced until Tuesday of the following week. So, I guess I solved this problem myself by switching to a plan that states that the number of rentals is limited. However, I do feel that I should receive 1 free rental for each month I was on the unlimited plan, because it that is the minimum number of rentals I missed-out on each month.

The weaknees blog is reporting that the DirecTV  HR10-250 will get the 6.2 software upgrade.  This was supposedly communicated at CES, though not officially.  I hope that this is true, because I really want folders, the speed optimizations, and basic network adapter support (to get around VoIP modem issues).  The HD-capable HR10-250 is currently the best TiVo unit available and  it deserves a newer and more modern version of the TiVo software.  My fingers are crossed.