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Articles in the HTPC Category

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[12 Mar 2010 | Comments | 88 views]
Ceton Delays Quad CableCard Tuner

It’s been a long time since I can remember the Windows Media Center community being excited about a piece of hardware as it has about the Ceton quad CableCard tuner. The card was given an official release date of March 31st at CES. Unfortunately Ceton released a newsletter today with bad news in regards to the release date, but also with some good news.
Getting straight to the bad news, Ceton has pushed the release date to May 31st. No specific reasons were given for the delay.
There isn’t any single reason, …

Entertainment 2.0, Featured, HTPC, Podcasts »

[12 Mar 2010 | Comments | 120 views]
Entertainment 2.0-Episode 68: FINALLY!!!!!

First we want to apologize to those who join us live every week.  When we’re going to be having multiple people on with us, it helps to cut out the live stuff to conserve bandwidth.  Unfortunately it didn’t help much this week due to software errors.  But while the audio quality isn’t going to be what you’re used to, the content is superb. 
Josh and I are joined this week by Jose Ortiz of the TDL Mobile Show and AJ Peck, writer and sometimes co-host for The Home Server …

Entertainment 2.0, Featured, HTPC, Podcasts »

[5 Mar 2010 | Comments | 325 views]
Entertainment 2.0-Episode 67: The Plugin Show

Back for the first week of March and while news is slow, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the great plugins that are available both within the 10 foot interface, and that simply compliment Media Center.  Whether we’re talking about metadata retrieval, content management or adding new functions, the apps we cover during this show are just a sample of what’s out there.  You’ll find links to all the applications we discuss right below.
We didn’t have a whole lot of email this week and we’re hoping …

Featured, HTPC »

[26 Feb 2010 | Comments | 389 views]
WAF or “How my wife stopped fearing and learned to love the HTPC.”

Home Theater PCs (HTPC) offer a world of endless possibilities if you are willing to invest the time to get the settings the way you like them. Most people who are reading this now are the “tweakers.”.
We add logos to our guides, we change the colors of the backgrounds, we configure options and add-ons to make our experience more enjoyable.
That is unless you have the typical spouse who wants it to work, and when it does wonders why you had to “fix something that just wasn’t broken”.
I will go on …

Entertainment 2.0, HTPC, Podcasts »

[26 Feb 2010 | Comments | 279 views]
Entertainment 2.0-Episode 66: Attack of the Image Constraint Token

We’re back again folks and Josh made sure that it would be a rousing episode.  We of course take time to go through all the the listener email this week and we thank all of you.
Josh’s Hockey Minute returns this week and we find out that if you stopped watching hockey four years ago because of the strike, you should probably start again!
Both VMC with TV Pack and Windows 7 Media Center received updates this week and we’ve got you covered on what’s included.  Not really a whole lot …

Entertainment 2.0, HTPC, Podcasts »

[19 Feb 2010 | Comments | 414 views]
Entertainment 2.0-Episode 65: The Hockey Minute

Once again we return as ready as ever to answer your questions and mull the intricacies of Media Center.  We had a lot of fun on this week’s show and got some good information out to you, our listeners.
First up this week is Boxee and Windows Media Center Integration 1.0.  A new tool, this app will place a tile in Media Center linked to Boxee and through magic in the background will close Media Center and open Boxee when selected.  It does the process in reverse once you’re ready …

HTPC, How-To, media center »

[11 Feb 2010 | Comments | 278 views]
Remote Simplicity: Using a Zune Remote in Media Center

Some times you just want to keep things simple or gasp keep it “Apple” like. That is the case with this nice little gem of a find. A user over at Life Hacker found out that with a simple registry edit you can use alternative IR remote controls within Media Center and even Windows Media Player.
A while back I documented on how you can have two media center PC’s in the same room by editing the IR registry settings on one of the Media Center PC’s so that you could …

Content, HTPC »

[6 Feb 2010 | Comments | 449 views]
When is not stealing stealing? When you’re Boxee streaming NBC content, that’s when

Along with Windows Media Center, I also use Boxee on my HTPC to stream great content from the internet.  There’s a good bit of it out there and Boxee allows me to feed it to my TV.  The application does this untouched mind you.  Boxee doesn’t remove ads, doesn’t place their own ads over the content or edit the content itself in anyway.
Yet, according to Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC, Boxee is allowing me to steal Hulu content.  That’s right.  Even though I watch Hulu on my TV …

HTPC, How-To, media center »

[4 Feb 2010 | Comments | 353 views]
How To: Keep a Close Eye on Your Media Center

It’s no surprise to any of our regular readers how much I love Window 7 Media Center. That passion has probably crossed the line into obsession now though. If you’re like me, and for the sake of humanity, let’s hope not, you want to constantly know what your Media Center is doing. That’s where Ian Dixon’s (a fellow Media Center MVP) wonderful Media Center Health Monitor comes in.
Simply register for an account over at http://health.thedigitallifestyle.com, download the software, and you’ll be tracking the status of your Media Center to your …

HTPC »

[4 Feb 2010 | Comments | 229 views]
Avermedia Shipping Analog HD Capture Device in April

Recently Brent Evans had the opportunity to talk with Avermedia about their upcoming USB HD DVR. The new device, which will be shipping in April for $199.99, is set to compete with the Hauppauge HD-PVR. It is an analog HD capture device. This means that it accepts a component video input signal and then transfers that to your computer via USB. The main differences between this and the Hauppauge card are that this device does not include digital audio inputs, but it does have HDMI out for direct pass-through access …