Author: Andrew Van Til

For anyone looking to put some serious BHP in a small form factor (SFF) HTPC or WHS J&W has the board for you.  Cooling it will be a tough, but sometimes a good challenge makes it more fun.   J&W, the company that hides under the MINIX brand, has surprised us with one quite unique and feature packed ITX motherboard. […]

PluckyHD of Sage Movie Wall fame (and soon Sage My Movies – which just might be my favorite UI import) just released a theme and main menu customization to get back some of the dynamic menu goodness that V6 had. I haven’t had a chance to install it yet, but the video looks really cool.     Plucky’s Menu Mod […]

For those who love XBMC’s attractive HTPC UI but have HD Audio in their videos and the hardware to match, Damien from MediaSmartServer.net has the guide for you.   One of the most important features  I look for when looking at a front end is the ability and ease to bitstream HD audio (DTS-MA and TrueHD) from my Blu Ray […]

The wait for SageTV V7 should be over soon as Brent is reporting that the public beta starts tomorrow.  The change log is long so it’s definitly worth a full look.  Highlights include a new UI and BDMV/ISO support on the PC.   Probably on the most-requested list for SageTV developers is a re-write of the user interface.  The SageTV […]

Any article with "WTF" in the title has to be good. When it’s the HD Guru looking at what a display has to go through to get THX certified, and what that means – even better.   THX certification assures buyers a high quality high definition display. TV makers can’t pass the rigid specifications by using low quality LCD or […]

Rumors of a native Media Center driver for the HD PVR have been circulating since before Fiji.  As we all know that never happened – talking about the driver here, Fiji just shouldn’t have happened ;).  Looks like it might not be vapor after all because GeekTonic is reporting that Windows 7 Media Center users won’t have to rely on […]

Driver updates aren’t news that often, but AMD/ATI video cards have consistently taken a PR beating in the community when it comes to H.264/AVC profile L5.1 support.  Looks like AMD finally added the feature to Catalyst 10.4 for all the l33t bittorrenters and x264 archivers out there.   ATI Catalyst – Video enhancements H.264 Level 5.1 support ATI Catalyst can […]

The guys over at The Digital Media Zone sure like to talk.  Looks like Adam (Entertainment 2.0) and James (Seen in 3D) have started up another podcast – this time about movies.  I’ll let them explain the details:   Welcome to the first episode of The Movie Podcast. This show is for all of your content junkies out there. Each […]

Jere Jones is giving away a Ceton InfiniTV 4 (yes, the quad tuner Cable Card tuner).  Details on how to win are posted in his forum.    You could win a Ceton InfiniTV 4 cable card tuner in the month of April! How to enter: 1) Buy a copy of ShowAnalyzer via PayPal and enter the word "ceton" in the […]