Intel isn’t the only CPU manufacturer launching new platforms. VIA recently announced the VE-900 Mini-ITX motherboard geared toward low-powered media PCs. VIA doesn’t get alot of attention these days, but they have been focused on small integrated systems for a while now. The Nano X2 processor and VX 900 media processor that team up on the VE-900 board probably wouldn’t […]
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Those crazy engineers over at Intel are at it again. They have officially launched the followup to Sandy Bridge, the Sandy Bridge-E, along with the new X79 chipset to support it. Sandy Bridge-E looks set to bring some nice performance increases, at least at the high end. Of course, these new Sandy Bridge-E processors aren’t likely to make their way […]
Read moreSo far in this process of bringing my MythTV setup up-to-date I have upgraded my primary backend to 0.24 (but put the old hard drive back in so that it is compatible with the rest of the house running 0.21 still) and my primary frontend to 0.24 (but put in the old hard drive so people can still watch TV). […]
Read moreI think that the next most important system for me to get up and running is going to be the main frontend. Again I’ve decided to load CentOS 6 onto a separate hard drive that I’ve got sitting around. Where did I get all of these extra drives, anyway? Again, installation was fairly straight forward following the same Mythtv installation […]
Read moreAs recently noted, I have decided to document my MythTV upgrade. To start things off, I will be upgrading my main MythTV server. The current system is running MythTV 0.21 on Fedora Core 7. The current version of MythTV is 0.24 at the time of this writing. This time around I will be building the backend around CentOS. The most […]
Read moreEarlier this summer my MythTV server died. After spending a bit of time getting the basics back up and running I’ve decided that it was time to also get things up to date again. Thus far my plans have been limited to only software upgrades but I may do some hardware upgrading along the way as well. With this in […]
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It doesn’t happen often, but I don’t currently have any Nvidia GPUs in my house and so I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing the problem of WMC throwing a black screen during playback. If you have been experiencing black screen issues during playback on your Nvidia equipped HTPC, it might be a good idea to download Nvidia’s 285.79 drivers. […]
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Grooveshark has undertaken a major overhaul of their website and service to bring social elements to the forefront. The company says their first goal is to facilitate the creation of connections between music fans with increased social interactions. The next step will be to connect artists to fans. The revamped site includes artist pages that provide links to upcoming events […]
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Google has a digital music locker in beta, but rumors have been swirling for a while that Google has been working to put together a music service to compete with iTunes. It looks like Google is prepared to finally reveal their efforts. Google has sent out an invitation for November 16 referencing the Spinal Tap joke about loudspeakers that turn […]
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Over the last couple of years, as I have striven to build smaller and quieter HTPCs, I have come to appreciate the size and acoustic advantages of 2.5″ laptop hard drives. The smaller drive platters result in better performance at lower spindle speeds. The only thing you give up to a desktop drive is storage capacity, and even that advantage […]
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