Today’s story is a lesson in patience. Lothar’s Rule #1: Don’t get too attached to any particular electronics. Just when things start working smoothly for you, life (or your wife, if you really screwed up) will slap you in the face. Frontend In our last episode, (has it really been a couple months?) I described the steps I had to […]
Read moreIn this day and age, you would expect it would be very easy to get HDTV on your HTPC. However, options for the DIY’er are still pretty limited. If you live in a good area, broadcast HDTV will work, but lets not mention all of the problems that can be had when trying to get broadcast TV. Plus, that still […]
Read moreToday’s tip not many people know…is on the topic of CableCard systems for Media Center. You’ve seen them, you want them, you drool over the quality of them. So here’s something you might not know. DVRMS-Toolbox’s amazing, wonderful, jaw-dropping Commercial Skip functionality WILL NOT WORK with them. That’s right, that wonderful thing called DRM that’s put into the tuners prevents […]
Read moreFor you Windows Media Center users, did you know… If you click the EXIT button on your remote when you have a TV Recording selected, it will automatically ask you if you wish to Delete the recording?!?!? This saves a bunch of time if you need to delete a large number of shows and don’t want to take up as […]
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It wasn’t that long ago, we HTPC users were left out out of the high definition loop, sure we could get over the air HDTV, but that was it. Slowly HDCP enabled video cards became a common item. Vista and CableCARD support allowed people with the right PC to finally get premium HD content, and HD DVD and Blu-ray playback […]
Read moreIf you’ve been around for a while, you know that I’m a big supporter of Mythtv. Everything about it is free (until September, when Zap2It stops offering free program guide info, but that’s neither here nor there). The OS is free, Mythtv itself is free. It’s just really nice. However, we’re going to depart from that for this build because […]
Read moreSo let’s make this quick and easy, this little box has HDMI and is ready to have a Blu-ray or HD DVD drive added to it. For a little bit more you can get whichever flavor of video card, AMD/ATI or NVIDIA, you’d like to ensure smooth MPEG-4 AVC [H.264] playback from the latest batch of HD DVD/Blu-ray releases. Read on for […]
Read moreSo in my ideal world, I would have a massive Vista box setup as a server in my closet or basement, somewhere I wouldn’t have to see or hear it, nor would I have to worry about anyone messing with it. Then in each bedroom or living room, I would set up Media Center Extender devices, or even small clients […]
Read moreMy current HTPC has begun to stagnate a little. While it still runs great, I haven’t made any significant advances with it in the last year. Forever on my mind is a HTPC build that I would put together if I weren’t living off of student loans. In my current situation, I have only the one large tv that has […]
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We are almost 6 months into Vista being released to the public, and if you look around forums across the web, users are still not exactly sold on upgrading. There are many reasons that could be attributed to this: cost of Vista, not supported hardware, etc. But, I think the #1 reason is that people just don’t see the worth […]
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