HTPCentric

If you follow Tim or me on Twitter, you know we, along with a few others, have been pushing this out for a few days now.  Today comes the episode I’ve been waiting to record, and I hope you’ve been waiting to hear for awhile now.

This week’s show brings together 5 HTPC users to debate the finer points of Media Center and SageTV.  Joining Tim and I are Brent Evans of Geektonic, Josh Pollard, Entertainment 2.0 co-host and Cheap Geek blogger and Josh Shenkle of mnmaven.com.  With Josh Pollard moderating, we go through some of the features of each system.

Not much for show notes this week but I wanted to post two of the links we discussed during the show.  These are related to plugins related to each software:

• Media Center plugin list
• SageTV plugin list

Thank you to Brent, Josh and ummm Josh for joining us this week.  It was a lot of fun and I hope this is something we can do again in the future!

Click here to download Episode 4.

Or listen live here:

Have you ever used another HTPC solution?  If so, which one and what did you think?  Comment and let us know!

You’ve heard Tim and I go back and forth about SageTV vs. Windows Media Center.  Believe me when I tell you that we’re not the only people out there who are passionate about which HTPC software they use or the reasons behind it.

On Friday, March 13th, you’ll get to hear it hashed out for real as Tim and I are joined by Josh Pollard, co-host of Entertainment 2.0, Brent Evans of Geektonic and Josh, the Minnesota Maven in a two-on-two grudge match between software.

With Tim and Brent taking up the cause for SageTV and Josh and I taking up for Media Center, Josh Pollard be stuck in the middle trying to moderate.  While I don’t think anyone will change their mind about which software they use, You’ll get a chance to hear people with a lot of knowledge on the subject help you make a decision.

Again, the show will be posted on Friday, March 13th.  We look forward to hearing your questions and comments.

We’re back!  It’s been awhile since we’ve had the chance to get together and push out an episode of the show but we wanted to get one out this week.  Sometimes real life has to interfere unfortunately.

On this episode of the show we take time to talk a bit about other HTPC software options.  Specifically BeyondTV and MythTV.  While Tim has some experience with BeyondTV, it’s been awhile now and neither of us have ever used Myth. 

The main focus of the show today however is SageTV plugins.  These are apps created by the community to help extend and and expand your SageTV experience.  Since this is Tim’s forte, I let him take the reigns for the show to feature some of the better ones.

Notes:

• Sage Web User Interface
• Comskip Monitor
• DVRMSToolbox
• SageMC STV
• Media Scraper

Thanks for listening to this week’s show!  We should have a special episode for you on Friday and I look forward not only to recording it but hearing what the community has to say.  You can follow Adam and Tim on Twitter or email the show to reach us.

Click Here to download Episode 3

Let me start this off by apologizing to any readers and listeners out there.  I know there hasn’t been anything to read on HTPCentric for awhile now.  That should be changing soon.

Both Tim and I have been extremely busy as of late.  As much as I’d like this to be my full time job, it simply isn’t going to pay the bills.  As such, we’ve had to take a bit of a break while we handle some work/family business. 

We are working on getting a new episode of the podcast out soon.  Keep your feedreaders pointed here and you’ll get it as soon as it’s available!

Thanks for reading and listening!

EngadgetHD is reporting today that the SageTV HD-200 extender can now stream Blu-Ray files from your SageTV PC.

From the post:

Fans of SageTV will love this one — out now in the latest beta release of the software is HD Theater streamer playback of ripped Blu-ray discs. There’s no support for the interactive features, but based on what we’ve seen from BD-Live so far, you won’t be missing much; what you are able to do is point the HD Theater at the ripped BDMV folder on your SageTV PC and enjoy multiple audio tracks and chapter support, with subtitles promised somewhere down the road.

This should make at least two people I know very happy!  That is if they have any ripped Blu-Ray disks.

More to come on SageTV soon!

Tim and I talk a lot about Media Center and SageTV during the podcasts.  This happens because this is what we each use.  I don’t think it’s unfair to say that people will (and probably should) talk about things which they have knowledge.

Of course there is other HTPC software out there and since we don’t have the deep knowledge required to discuss it reliably, we’ll have to defer to someone who’s taken time to work with it.

John Clabaugh from Missing Remote has been a MythTV user for awhile now and has completed the second of two articles comparing Myth with SageTV.  The first article was written last year but John has now completed the set with the second article.

There’s a full comparison of each package including price, features and all the other information you’d want to know before making a decision about what runs your HTPC.

Click here for Part I

Click here for Part II

Me, I’m hooked on Media Center but both articles make for great reading.  Thanks to John for taking the time to write them up!

Thermaltake is getting ready to release two new HTPC cases.  They already have some nice products on the market and these two look to up the ante a bit.  Thermaltake is treating these cases like something pretty special and by looking, I can understand why.

The collection is called LUXA2, which actually has it’s own website, where you’ll find details on several of the offerings.  They start with the LM100 Mini and go all the way up to the LM300 Pro Touch, featuring a 7” touchscreen.

While we’ve seen these features in other cases, Thermaltake just seems to get it.  From site images, I find the cases elegant as well as functional as they look big enough to hold any components you’re looking to use.  The LM100 Mini is of course smaller and I have to assume designed to be used as an extender type of box.

While saving money is always an issue, I will say that these are the types of boxes I’d love to use to build a new HTPC.  I couldn’t find any pricing info, but one look says one of these cases will probably run you a few hundred dollars.

After taking a look at the site, I realized that it’s not just HTPC related but, let’s face it, if you enjoy HTPC, you’re probably an all around geek and who isn’t looking to save money these days on everything they buy?

Brent Evans has just opened Geek Tonic Deals.  A sister site to GeekTonic where he’ll be listing all of the geek tech that he finds at great prices online.  Covering mobile, networking and of course, PC components, I’m sure this is just the beginning.  From the few dealings I’ve had with Brent I can tell he’s dedicated to making sure his readers get the best info possible so you can expect frequent updates.  Here are just a few examples of what’s been posted so far:

Zoom H2 SD Handy Recorder $227

from Buy.com - Today’s Deals laptops, displays, lcd, memory, flash, tv’s, flat screen, gps, deals, computers

Zoom H2 Portable Handy Recorder comes with a mic clip adapter, tripod stand, USB cable, an AC Adapter and a 512MB SD card; built-in USB 2.0 interface for data storage and audio interface.

 

WBR-5400 MIMO Wireless Router $47.99

from Buy.com - Today’s Deals laptops, displays, lcd, memory, flash, tv’s, flat screen, gps, deals, computers

The LevelOne WBR-5400 MIMO Wireless Broadband Router consistently and quickly boosts WLAN throughput to meet the requirement for streaming video, VoIP application, gaming and large files sharing. It is equipped with multiple antennas to receive more than one signal simultaneously. If any of these signals should be blocked, it then keeps processing signals received from other antennas to maintain network connectivity therefore seriously reducing dead spots and extending range. …

  Head over and subscribe to the RSS feed to get the latest updates on where you can find low priced geek gear!

S3 Graphics announced this past week that it has released a new video card specifically for use in playing HD content, the Chrome 540GTX.  While it doesn’t look like this would be much good for gaming, if you’re building an HTPC rig, it might be a card to consider.  Sporting HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort, the card should allow you to hook your HTPC up to your monitor of choice and get the best HD picture possible.

Product Highlights:

Advanced Display Connectivity:  Display interfaces include the newly introduced DisplayPort, HDMI, dual-link DVI. Integrated digital display support with HDCP content protection allows users to connect to a multitude of monitors and displays for HD content viewing across a secure display path. Built-in HDMI transmitters with Dolby 7.1 digital surround sound and HD Audio controllers allow seamless audio/video HDMI connectivity.

Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 Support:  An S3 proprietary unified shader architecture supports the latest additions to DirectX® 10.1 allowing realistic 3D rendering and increased visual acuity through improved Anti-aliasing, Image/Texture improvements, higher precision formats, and programmable lighting effects. These improvements allow Chrome 540 GTX users to experience life-like rendering and image quality in supported DirectX® 10.1 applications.

ChromotionHD™ Video Technology:  Featuring a fully programmable video architecture with true HD quality 1080p playback for Blu-ray™ and HD-DVD™ content, the ChromotionHD™ engine supports the latest HD standards including H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, WMV-HD, and AVS, for a stunning movie experience. The video engine is also highly optimized with the decoding and post processing display pipeline that allows simultaneous acceleration of single and multiple video streams in HD format with vibrant colors and picture clarity.

S3 Graphics PowerWise™ Technology:  Sophisticated algorithms and power control mechanisms allow the Chrome 540 GTX to deliver the optimal balance between performance and power on-the-fly, to meet performance and application requirements for power efficient graphics computing on desktop and small form factor (SFF) PCs.

PCI Express®2.0:  The Chrome 540 GTX supports the latest advances to the PC component interconnect by offering users the ability to boost the graphics performance of their current systems with the high throughput PCI Express® 2.0 bus technology. The faster connection speed also allows users to take advantage of additional S3 Graphics technologies such as AcceleRAM™ which leverages system memory for image data storage.

The card is available to US customers for $69.95 directly from the S3 Graphics store.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how to get your content into your HTPC.  What’s the point of having a ton of hard drive space only to have to go looking for disks every time you want to watch a movie.  And, while it’s not always easy, you’ll find it’s worth it to get your movies where you can find and watch them with your remote.

That being said, I found two great write ups this week on how to rip DVDs to your drives and how to convert these files to a format your HTPC can make use of.  Each method varies in it’s difficulty as well as its output so I encourage you to read everything you can before spending money on software.

The first article comes from the Hacking Windows 7 Media Center blog.  This site has some great articles and showing you how to rip DVDs using BitRipper is one of them.  It looks to be an easy process and one that shouldn’t take too long.

From the article:

BitRipper’s interface is minimalistic, showing you just what you need to get the job done. It doesn’t skimp on anything important though. You can still fine tune your encoding to suit your particular needs, whether it be high quality non-compressed transfers or something a little more compact.

Once you’ve got your disk inserted and BitRipper has detected it, you can select the track you wish to copy off the disk from the drop down box. This can be convenient for multi-episode content such as TV series. Typically, single part disks will be the longest track listed.

This is only a short quote from the post.  Read the whole thing for all the great info contained!

I found the next article through one of the best HTPC sources on the web:  Geektonic.  ZetaVu has written a guest post detailing a few different applications you can use to re-encode your files to pretty much any format you want.

From the article:

Now I have a few different types of video files to work with. Beyondtv records either mpg2 files, mpg transport streams (.tp files) or H.264 transport streams from the HD PVR.  In addition, I capture DV (avi) files from my camcorder and convert those to mpg2 files for making dvds. I also showsqueeze files to Divx or ipod H.264 using Beyondtv (for archiving or loading on my ipod) and make Xvid files with Autogk for archiving. (I go back and forth between Divx and Xvid, depending on what I do with that file). That in mind, I look at other software to edit and link files together (mostly removing commercials) convert formats, repair issues with recordings, and in the case of my home movies; capture, edit, transitions and titles. The bulk of these applications are freeware or open source, but I’ve listed some pay applications that I use as well. I think 90% of what I do can be done with freeware, and almost all can also be done on Linux as well as Windows (one of my goals is to eventually migrate everything to Ubuntu).

ZetaVu has written many guests posts for Geektonic and knows what he’s about.  Click here to read the whole write up.

Video ripping and file conversion are things that almost anyone who uses and HTPC has to deal with at some point.  I thank these gentlemen for sharing their knowledge and experience with the community.