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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The Radeon HD 3470 is just up from the bottom of the line in the new Radeon HD 3000 series. ATI had press slides saying the 3470 is great for HD and passes the HD HQV tests. So of course I wanted to see for myself. So how does this $70 card work? I’d say quite well. Please […]
Read moreI had the Media Center all gussied up and ready to go in anticipation of the CableCard install. After all of these months, I could hardly stand the anticipation :). Right out of the box, I knew it wasn’t going to be a painless experience. The tech only came out with one card to install and it was an M-Card […]
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There wasn’t enough accomplished over vacation to call it a full point release, so here we are at #4.5 of my build log. I will break it down into categories so it is easier to follow. CableCARD As luck would have it, my replacement ATI OCUR arrived 30 minutes before I left on vacation. Think of the torture knowing I had […]
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Digg To Share! I’ve seen an alarming amount of customers over at TheGreenButton and other communities, where people have spent their hard earned dollars on a Cable Card Media Center computer, get it all setup & ready to get installation, when they’re told by one/some/all of their Cable Company’s representatives that they will NOT do an installation on a computer! […]
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HTPC Update Late Saturday night, with nary a problem in sight, I set about making sure everything was in running order prior to the cable company coming to install CableCards on Monday. I broke out the keyboard and was really just playing about wondering what plugins I should start installing. I toured around the device manager to ensure everything was […]
Read moreI recently got in somewhat of a debate with a fellow MCE enthusiast over Softsled. I’ve held firm that I don’t believe Microsoft will ever do softsled, even though it’s something I would love and use. I thought I’d take the time to combine my position with my thinking (complete assumptions) as to why it’ll never happen. I’m sure some […]
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I had some time over the weekend to play with Logitech’s diNovo Edge. For a complete review, please read Mike’s review. His analysis of the keyboard is a lot more indepth then I will be. Mike had pretty strong opinion about the touch pad. Perhaps I am a bit more lenient but I did not find it that bad. However, […]
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