Those who know me, know that I’m not a big fan of advertising. Of course “the why” isn’t nearly as simple as it would first appear however. The fundamental problem with advertising isn’t with the message per se, but the delivery – as an onerous chore, forced upon us in some sort of arcane moral obligation for “free” content. While […]
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I often find that that good networking kit is neglected when it comes to building an solid connected home theater, with low-end network interface cards (NIC), routers and wireless access points (AP) creating a sub-standard experience. It’s also an area where we haven’t done as much as we should to spread the word through guides and reviews – something that […]
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One of the more frustrating things about the market for media streamers is how little file support has progressed over the last couple years. Of course that’s not all bad, because generally most things work and there’s still a lot of work to do on the UI but it was refreshing to see an actual HDMI 1.4 (yes, they are […]
Read moreGiven the pre-CES hype I expected to love the OLED displays when I saw them up close, but that turned out to be a major disappointment. Oddly enough, I did find a “next gen” display technology that was quite interesting; at the Sony booth of all places. Comparing their Crystal LED to OLED isn’t exactly fair because the content being […]
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After sitting through Samsung’s CES press conference and seeing their newest displays I was expecting great things when we finally made it to the booth. Unfortunately, it was all about Smart TVs at Samsung; which is not to say that connected platforms aren’t important, just in my opinion less so than picture quality. While it’s impossible to really judge the […]
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When Ceton brought a four tuner CableCARD to the Windows Media Center community, they breathed new life into a product languishing from neglect. Not content to only do this, or be entirely dependent on the continued presence of Media Center in subsequent releases of Windows; they have created a “turnkey” competitor to TiVo (and hopefully an exit strategy for SageTV […]
Read moreBoxee didn’t have anything dramatic to show this year, but it was great to take a look at the new UI for 1.5, see the EPG, and watch some Live TV on it. It was also nice to raise the possibility of Copy-Freely Digital Cable Tuner support and PVR functionality with them. While clearly they weren’t going to give up […]
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Anyone who’s read our reviews of the Dune HD media streamers, know that they provide an excellent local media playback experience but there are some gaps around 3D Blu-ray and video processing where it would be great to see some improvement. Fortunately both of these will be addressed when the Dune HD Pro (click through for a gallery and further […]
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Full size HTPC builders can rejoice, because at SilverStone; big is still in fashion. They recently updated their lineup of Full-ATX chassis with the GD07 and GD08. Both offer space for multiple 3.5″ hard drives and full length GPUs. Other highlights include: They will update USB 3.0 products to the latest Renesas chip later this year Offer a four SATA […]
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Checking out Onkyo’s 2012 audio video receiver (AVR) with InstaPrevue and Mobile High-definition Link (MHL) was one of the things I was looking forward to the most at CES, and I wasn’t disappointed. Not only was InstaPrevue a slick way to view and select inputs (third picture in the gallery), but given how it seems to work I would be […]
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