Normally I wouldn’t get to excited about a new player app, but with the just announced alpha of Media Browser Theater claiming support for madVR, lav Filters and Reclock there is a lot of potential to marry a slick media browsing UI with the consumption chops to back it up. I haven’t had a chance to look at the code, […]
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For home theater PC (HTPC) enthusiasts the news that Intel was leaving the retail motherboard market cut deeply. After all, many of the features we have come to expect, like an Intel network interface card (NIC), consumer infrared (CIR), and outstanding stability along with innovations specific to our market, such as the custom solutions (aka HTPC) header, looked likely to […]
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For home theater PC (HTPC) enthusiasts, the 4th generation Intel Core “Haswell” family of processors has been greatly anticipated. Expectations have been set both for its GPU performance, and that the long-standing issue with refresh rate accuracy will finally be put to rest. Unfortunately time with the new integrated processor graphics (IPG) was limited to just a few hours, but […]
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With a 17 watt integrated processor graphics (IPG) in a four-by-four inch chassis, Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC) is of obvious interest to home theater PC (HTPC) enthusiasts. This footprint and low-power consumption, coupled with Intel HD 4000 graphics, promises to deliver an incredibly capable client system. It is small enough to hide away, or place discretely next to […]
Read moreUsing a HTPC isn’t always the easiest way to watch content, but nothing combines the flexibility, capability and potential into a single consumption point like it does. Those that demand the highest quality often rail against the complexity required, and to be fair they have a point, but it’s there and few products demonstrate this like the high quality video […]
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When I’m building a dedicated XBMC box, I often turn to the “embeddded” OpenELEC distro because of its drop-dead simple installation process and just-works feature set. And now with XBMC 12 is out, bringing a modern audio pipeline and Live TV to the platform, it’s a great time to upgrade or check out the HTPC software. If you need a […]
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Every so often I see a question about how we generated the detailed display information used in our HTPC reviews. It’s not hard to setup, but I figured that it was time to document the process in a single, easy to find place. Let’s get started. Necessary Software: DirectX Runtime MPC-HC (I prefer the zip installer-less, version) LAV Filters (optional) […]
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I saw a few new applications and some cool technology demos at ArcSoft’s booth the most interesting was naturally TotalMedia Theatre 6 (TMT6) for Windows 8 “Metro” UI. Unlike CyberLink’s touch focused player, this player is x86 with ArcSoft waiting to see if RT reaches critical mass before investing in ARM ports of their codec/container technology. There is a version […]
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It’s always interesting to stop by CyberLink’s suite at CES, they have good demos and I like to know what they’re working on in our space. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot that we’re allowed to talk about publicly (yet) so for now it’s just some pictures (on the next page) of their “Metro” version of PowerDVD Mobile for Windows […]
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When I first saw reports of Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC) it seemed like the perfect little HTPC, although the price (~$400) was a bit off-putting. As it turns out, not only will it be getting Intel HD 4000 (madVR, yum) and an ULV IVB but will only cost $300-320. More importantly it will be easy to get one […]
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