Ok ladies & gentlemen…as has been implied by our fearless leader, I have in my possession some fabulous extender devices: The D-Link DSM-330 Connected device, and the upcoming HP Media Center Connect Extender (c’mon, you didn’t think I would do a webinar without seeing the thing, did you?). So…with that being said, I’m taking each one through its paces, and […]
Read moreIt is amazing what can happen over the weekend. Get some yard work done, and of course have lots of time to evaluate and re-evaluate what direction I want to take for this whole digital home aspect. I am somewhat tied to the Microsoft platform because of my investment into CableCards. I would like to say QAM and OTA could […]
Read moreIn Lord Of The Rings epic fashion, I started on my journey to rip and catalog my DVD/Blu-ray library. The first step in this process is to decide which format you want your DVDs to be ripped in. There are several methods to do this and here are a few of the more common methods. 1. Rip an exact ISO […]
Read moreSome people take the phrase build log just a bit to seriously. I may be one of those people. Though in my case I was building with sheets of plywood rather than logs. The start to this round of building was installing a built-in desk to give me the desk space I want for working on various projects including testing […]
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It was a fine spring day. The sun was shining all day. The family got to spend a lot of time together. The little one is now asleep and it’s time to unwind. I grab myself a Dr. Pepper, and my wife and I sit down for a nice relaxing evening of tv shows. I reach for the remote and […]
Read moreI guess a good sign for my build log is that I do not have a whole lot to report :). Everything is working smoothly, especially with the latest firmware update to the ATi digital cable tuners. I have yet to experience a problem. Since we last spoke, I did dip my toes into the Blu-ray waters by installing a […]
Read moreAs we announced here a couple of weeks ago, a new version of Mythtv was recently released. Now that I’ve been toying with it for a couple of weeks, I thought I would share my initial impressions. One of the big new features that was included with this release is the ability to create multiple storage groups. I am guessing […]
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Recently I’ve been pondering more and more what makes a good HDTV set. I pulled out my excellent Oppo 981HD and found that I should recalibrate my TV, however my quite basic 3 year old LCD TV is not able to save essential things like contrast and brightness per input. It groups the inputs. All the standard definition (composite, s-video, component #1) inputs […]
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One of the oft-promoted, but rarely used portions of Vista’s Media Center is their Online Spotlight applications. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s because it’s fairly well hidden. From the Media Center start menu, it’s under Online Media, and then Explore. Kinda jumps out at you, eh? But given the history of it, along with even […]
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Here are a few of my thoughts on improving Vista Media Center. 1. Some sort of digital distribution that ties nicely into Media Center. After using a 3rd Party Netflix plugin, it is very clear to me, and no doubt to anyone who has used that same plugin, that digital distribution is here and damn great. I guess the obvious […]
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