Blogs

I wanted to apologize for the delay in drawing the winners of our last two contests, but we had some site issues that it caused them. But worry not, we have drawn the winners!!!

• SageTV HD300 Extender winner is...PLUCKYHD
• CyberLink PowerDVD 11 winner is...CASTYL

Congratulations to both of you and thank you to all who participated!

Reminder to the winners, you have 48 hours to respond to the e-mail (or this thread) to accept your winnings and provide your information.

Thanks!

I finally managed to find some time to sit down and watch the first two episodes of Game of Thrones.  As it has already been renewed for a second season, my hopes were pretty high.  Full disclosure:  I have never read any of George R. R. Martin's books, upon which this series is based, so I have zero familiarity with the story.  Let me say, right off the bat, that I absolutely am enjoying the show thus far.  As with my previous review, I am going to avoid spoilers to the best of my ability.  My intent with these reviews is to get people interested enough to want to check out the show or avoid it at all costs.  Once again, I will begin with a show summary, this time from Wikipedia:

Game of Thrones chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the kingdom's seven noble families for control of the Iron Throne; as the series opens, additional threats from the snow and ice covered region north of Westeros and from the eastern continent across a narrow sea are simultaneously beginning to rise.

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

Not sure who all out there has seen our Spring/Summer TV guide we put together last week but head over there to see if your favorate tv shows are on the list (if not hit us up so we can get it added). Anyways I just noticed that American Choppers: Senior Vs. Junior second season premeires tonight.

It is one of those "guilty pleasure" shows that I still watch. So if you are like me, make sure you set your DVR tonight. Until then head over to our guide listing and see what other guilty pleasure shows are out there for you.

Inspired from our friend Brent over at Geek Tonic, I have put together a 2011 Spring/Summer TV Guide Listing. The spreadsheet shows all new tv shows, all finales, mini series, made for TV movies, anything that might peak your viewing intrests.

The guide is ever evolving and updated, if we missed something leave a comment and we will try and get it updated as soon as possible. We are aslo working on links to reviews of new shows as well as those SageTV users working on linking tv shows to your local Sage server.

We plan on making this a regular seasonal post so please let us know what you think.

Related Articles

• Game of Thrones on HBO

• 2011 - 2012 Network TV renewals and cancelations

• Camelot on Starz

The wife and I just finished watching the two episode premier of Starz's original series Camelot this past weekend and, before I accidentally read any other reviews or forget what I saw, I thought I would share my own thoughts.  Before delving into my own opinion (which will NOT contain any spoilers!), here is what Starz has to say about their show:

In the wake of King Uther’s sudden death, chaos threatens to engulf Britain.  When the sorcerer Merlin has visions of a dark future, he installs the young and impetuous Arthur, Uther’s unknown son and heir, who has been raised from birth as a commoner. But Arthur’s cold and ambitious half sister Morgan will fight him to the bitter end, summoning unnatural forces to claim the crown in this epic battle  of control. These are dark times indeed for the new king, with Guinevere being the only shining light in Arthur’s harsh world. Faced with profound moral decisions, and the challenge of uniting a kingdom broken by war and steeped in deception, Arthur will be tested beyond imagination. Forget everything you think you know…this is the story of Camelot that has never been told before.

Click the "Read more" link to continue...

Thanks for participating, this contest has ENDED!!

We once again have a great prize to give away. Please note, we've modified the entries a little bit, so please read carefully how to enter below!

This time up, courtesy of the fine folks at Amulet Devices, their Voice Enabled Remote Control for Windows Media Center!

With an MSRP of $149 and continuing to have their software improved, Amulet Devices have developed the best way to control your Windows Media Center HTPC--simply pick up the remote, speak the command and voila!

We took an in-depth look at the Amulet Devices Remote Control and really loved how easy it was to use.

In exchange of extreme universal devices functionality and a touch screen Amulet provide you instead with voice controls to help you navigate--basically what touch screen buttons would do anyways. The big key here is whether the programmable buttons on the Amulet device are sufficient for your needs. In my case my setup was simple--a TV, AVR, HTPC and Xbox360...the Amulet will more than satisfy the universal needs while also providing me the ever crowd pleasing voice commands. Honestly, I could even see music aficionado opting to own both a universal remote like the Harmony and purchasing the Amulet if only for its dominance with managing music libraries. 

I was just relaxing in my hotel in Dallas and remembered I had one final copy of Arcsoft's Total Media Theatre 3 left at my house, so I wanted to try something a little different. So we're going to be giving away the copy with entries only through Facebook! So head on over to Facebook.com/MissingRemote and enter. (Sorry to our non-facebook users, but don't worry we have some big prizes still to come here for you!)

Similar to the NASA TV for Media Center I released earlier today, Starz Live for Media Center builds upon the discovery of others.

Earlier in the year TheGreenButton forum member geetarzan posted an easy method to watch Starz Live in Media Center.  After my release of NASA TV for Media Center I received a request from mcewinter asking if I could do the same thing for Starz Live.  Ask and thou shall receive...well for easy stuff that is

THIS CONTEST HAS ENDED!! WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON!!

If you missed out on our previous giveaways fear not, we have another from Arcsoft, giving away ONE copy of their awesome Blu-ray playback software for Windows, Total Media Theater 3 Platinum!

This fantastic Blu-ray playback software allows you to play high definition movies from Blu-ray disc and even stored on your hard drive. We haven't done a review of this latest software, but our editor Matt did a thorough job on a previous version if you want to get a refresher course. This has a suggested retail price of $90. If you've been waiting to jump aboard the Blu-ray bandwagon, maybe this can be your chance to do so for free!!

Just a quick screenshot to show "proof" of Live TV using a Ceton InfiniTV over Remote Desktop via RemoteFX.

What is interesting about the screenshot, at least to me, is that I took it of a RemoteFX Remote Desktop Protocol (rdp) session from another RDP session that was connected via VPN over the WAN.

I'll be following up with a full overview of RemoteFX.  If you listened to today's podcast you we talked about it a little bit.  I do not believe it is a valid architecture for HTPC usage, at least not yet, but it is extremely cool technology.  It is just too expensive, both in hardware and software, to be used.  It most cases it makes more sense to get a low power Intel Core i3-2100T or AMD Zacate (if it proves a valid HTPC choice), you'll save money and energy consumption.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, I'll try to answer each in my RemoteFX follow up.  I'll go over what hardware I am using and what I am using it for.

THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING, THIS CONTEST HAS ENDED!!

ENTER TO WIN:  

PATRIOT BOX OFFICE (PBO CORE) MEDIA PLAYER

We had a short break after a non-stop string of prizes, but fear not as we still have lots more to come!

Today’s prize is a fantastic media streamer courtesy of Patriot Memory, the Patriot Box Office HD player. We reviewed this little guy earlier this year and found it to be a very solid and capable player with an MSRP of $99--read below for instructions on how to win

PBO Core has an enhanced User Interface which is more visually pleasing, while also proving to be easier to use and navigate. Functionality has been enhanced with the addition of Internet Media Services (IMS), greater compatibility with HDTV’s, ability to play data from external optical USB devices and album artwork during audio playback. The addition of IMS provides a variety of streaming and internet enabled services such as video RSS feeds, streaming podcasts, online photo albums, live stock info, weather, news and more! The latest firmware which provides these features and improved user interface is available now and is backwards compatible with all Patriot Box Office media players on the market.