Andrew Van Til's blog

Netflix has provided over the top (OTT) video streaming via its "Watch Instantly" service for quite sometime, but until yesterday there was little to fundamentally differentiate that service (besides convenience, and the need for high-speed Internet) from a trip to the video store or the mailbox. Introducing original programming changed that - moving the company in a more interesting, welcome, and potentially disruptive direction.

It just took a couple tweaks to get SageDCT working with the Hauppauge and SiliconDust Digital Cable Tuners previewed last week.  With all the testing we've been doing to evaluate the tuners in their "native" environment (Windows Media Center) there hasn't been much time to really guarantee 100% support in SageTV, but it does work and with the Prime starting to show up on your doorsteps I thought it best to keep the torch burning by releasing this tonight.

In our first look at ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre 5 (TMT5), we found the updated version a huge step forward; however, there were a few outstanding issues we highlighted that were stopping TMT5 from attaining feature parity with stand-alone players and media streamers available on the market.  Since that time, CyberLink has responded with an updated revision of their popular PowerDVD (PDVD) software, bringing it closer to the level of polish and overall user experience offered by TMT5.  In that context, we’ve been given the green light to share some exciting news about an update that should be going into public BETA within the next few days.

I haven't had a chance to go through AMD's driver release notes to find out when they snuck frame sequential 3D Blu-ray support in for their 5 series cards, but I can can confirm that it works, at least for the 5550.  This page indicates that the whole lineup is supported, starting with the 5450.  So if you have a modern AMD GPU and a HDMI 1.4 HDTV looks like you're good to go - too bad there's not more content.

UPDATE:

Had an interesting conversation with Shane Parfitt today that brought up some information that wasn't on the 3DBD support page.  Probably the most important, is that MVC decoding is not handled by the GPU on 5xxx cards, which means that a competent CPU is required to get decent playback.  The second, and something that many have suspected because AMD released 67xx which are essentially rebranded 5 series, is that the UVD2 HWA decoder can actually handle MVC but would require an updated video BIOS to support the feature in hardware (something that probably won't happen).

While I'd love to have full support for my 5550, it's hard to be upset about a "found money" feature - of course now we'll have a good reason to bug AMD about getting some 6xxx GPUs in for review

Since it's Valentines Day I have to make this quick so just the highlights.

• Boxee's Netflix uses the new HTML5 Netflix application
• HD is available
• Multi-channel audio tracks are listed (Dolby Digital Plus!), but don't play - see the screenshot gallery for the error.
• Subtitles are listed and work
• DVD titles are listed in the results (but I wish they weren't)

Let me know if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Two weeks ago I teased SageTV users with a screenshot of a Copy-Freely CableCARD content recording.  As tough as it might have been to wait; it's now over and I think SageDCT is stable enough to share with everyone.

For those who don't have the hardware, but are interested in seeing SageDCT in action.  I made a short video demonstrating how quickly channel changes are executed.

Enjoy

Those waiting for SageTV to get Copy Freely Digital Cable Tuner (aka CableCARD) support will just need to wait a litle bit longer.  I sent out a few copies of SageDCT to a private beta group earlier this evening

I love my Harmony One, so when the battery wouldn't hold a charge for more than a couple days it was an easy decision to order a replacement.  When the new battery arrived, I was shocked to find that that the original had swollen so much that the plastic was starting to crack and needle-nose pliers were required to pry it from remote.  Fortunately the remote wasn't damaged at all and it could be anecdotal, but I imagine that bad things would have happened to the battery hadn't been replaced when it was. 

So if you have a Harmony with a rechargeable battery it's worth taking a peek every so often to make sure that it's not about to explode.

PluckyHD has done some amazing things with SageTV, the most popular being Sage Movie Wall.  Instead of converting the wall for Sage V7, he's been working on a port of MyMovies for Sage V7 conveniently called Sage MyMovies (SMM).  The private beta has been running for a couple months now and what he has accomplished not only gives V7 users a fantastic replacement for the stock video library but also highlights what the new animation and rendering system in V7 is capable of. 

Now SMM isn't quite ready for a public beta (probably not until the end of July), but Plucky has decided it's time to share some screen shots and a video that will give all the Sagies out there something to look forward to.

I love soccer – watching, playing even coaching is fun most of the time :).  So when Comcast announced that they would be carrying ESPN 3D in time for the World Cup I was very excited.  But even though ESPN 3D went live on Friday June 11th for South Africa v. Mexico I still haven’t watched a game.

Like rocket cars, moon vacations and watchable online video we all know that solid-state drives (SSD) are the future.  Of course it will be a long time before any of us can afford to replace that 2TB drive with one, but with prices for smaller SSD finally approaching a reasonable level it makes sense to start thinking about how to fit one into the HTPC (especially a client).

The recent update to the Haali Media Splitter (enabling Dolby TrueHD in DTS-MA MKV) got me thinking about revisiting our guide to getting lossless audio off the PC.  When an interesting discussion got started about the benefits of bit streaming v. LPCM over at AVS Forum it was time to do some testing.

To setup the test I muxed TrueHD, DTS-MA and FLAC (converted from the TrueHD track using eac3to) tracks into separate mka files and played them back in GraphStudio using ffdshow for bit streaming TrueHD/DTS-MA and decoding TrueHD/FLAC and the ArcSoft Audio Decoder to decode the DTS-MA track (ffdshow can't decode DTS-MA yet) while tracking power usage and CPU utilization.  Check out the results below.

To be honest the results were somewhat surprising.  I had expected bit streaming to always be the most efficient way to push audio off the PC.  While we can see that it is marginally more efficient than real-time decoding TrueHD and DTS-MA during playback, at least when it comes to ffdshow and TrueHD converting to FLAC before muxing the MKV is the better option for CPU performance.

Given the numbers achieved bit streaming BD using PowerDVD and Total Media Theater on the platform (0-5%) and what ffdshow is capable of with DTS-MA I expect that there is some room for improvement, so we will have to revisit this topic again.

A recent Engadget HD podcast got me thinking about the new and returning shows I like, and don't like.  To not be totally derivative a middle category has been added; so glad storage is cheap.  My list is below, share yours in the comments.

SSDs seem like a great way to reduce energy consumption, heat, and noise in a HTPC.  While it will be years before they can affordably replace the media/recording drive, swapping one in for the OS drive should be right around the corner.  80GB is about what I'd need to make the switch, but I'm still waiting for the price to come down a little before making the plunge, what about you?

We've added a quick little poll to the right side menu here on the MissingRemote.com frontpage. You may need to scroll down a bit to view. Let us know your answer and feel free to discuss in our forums!