When the orginal Mac Mini was announced back in 2005, it immediately became my model of what an HTPC should look like. I’ve completed two HTPC upgrades since then, and each time I have tried my darndest to justify the extra expense to go with a Mac Mini instead of my usual homebrew. Not as fun, but way sexy. This year’s models […]
Read moreA bit of a teaser subject line, but Computer World has an interesting article comparing the cost of DRAM to NAND. Seeing that MLC NAND has crossed the .50/GB barrier, how much longer till we see a 1TB SSD for $100. Anyone out there brave enough to predict a date? Mike: Could make for a good MissingRemote contest!
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In the past year several companies have avoided the “media player” conversation instead opting to focus their efforts on wirelessly streaming their HDMI signal from their laptop directly to their HD televsisions. What Veebeam and Brite-View have done well, each with their own pros and cons, is now where Warpia is attempting to compete with their StreamHD SWP120A unit. Leveraging […]
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The Roku 2 has not been a secret for a while now thanks to the FCC, but it would appear that it is now completely in the open. Roku has finally made the official announcement about their new lineup of media streamers. The new Roku boxes are not major upgrades, but do bring some interesting new features and some new […]
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If you’ve been drooling over the feature rich Z68 platform from Intel but were waiting for a smaller board, Zotac’s got you covered. As far as I know this is the only mini-itx board available today. Take one look at the company’s Z68ITX, and it’s easy to see why. This motherboard is small enough to fit inside shoebox-sized enclosures yet […]
Read moreNot a bad week of releases with a fair number of old films released on BD, such as the classic Boyz N the Hood and Amelie, sprinkled in with some new comedies such as Peep World and Take Me Home Tonight–which was decently amusing assuming you can stand Topher Grace for that long. Oh, and if you haven’t had enough […]
Read moreI’ve always been interested in Orb Networks as they used to provide a free “Slingbox” app for your HTPC which allowed you to stream live or recorded TV shows from your home to where ever you are. Unfortunately, it didn’t like to share the TV tuner with Media Center (nor could it deal with the CableCard tuner) but it did […]
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I have never been a huge YouTube user, but every so often I come across something worth checking out and sharing with the family. For general YouTube browsing in Windows Media Center, I have generally relied on MacroTube, but one feature it lacks is the ability to login into your Google account and access your Watch Later playlist. I recently upgraded our […]
Read morePaul Thurrott takes a look back at Windows XP Media Center. Looks at the highs and lows of Windows Media Center and what all the different updates brought and where we are today. This retrospective focuses on the XP versions of Windows Media Center as well as related products of that era, including Media Center Extenders and Portable Media Center. […]
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Often a good wireless keyboard/mouse all-in-one separates a good home theater PC (HTPC) experience from frustration. Unsung when functioning properly and abused otherwise, it is critical to select a device with good range and a feature set that matches the expected use–which if it includes anything more than casual typing a larger keyboard is the way to go. With up […]
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