Steven Sinofsky and the Windows development team recently launched their development blog, Building Windows 8. Every entry has proven to be interesting reading, but today’s entry touched on the new element that most interests me as an HTPC enthusiast: the new Metro-inspired Start screen. The tile-based Start screen is being designed to work with touch, mouse, or keyboard and immediately stood […]
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Compared to just a few weeks ago, it is a great time to be in the market for a Digital Cable Tuner (DCT). We just took a look at devices from SiliconDust and Hauppauge and now it is Ceton’s turn because their newest tuner, the $299 InfiniTV 4 USB, arrived this afternoon. Obviously we have not had much time to […]
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While buying a pre-built HTPC isn’t nearly as much fun as building yourself, there are some advantages to it. Zotac has been rolling out a number of various shapes and sizes for the last few years aiming to find a place. Here utilizing the Nano platform which was previously far too underpowered to act as a legitimate HTPC client, the […]
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With the fast approaching football season Dish network has offered of a solution to the delima of whether to tailgate before the game or head to a bar first to catch at least some of the action of the other games. First hinted at back in May, the ten pound box automatically locates satellite positions, offering up HD content on the […]
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We spend a good deal of time covering digital cable tuners (DCT) because they are popular and quite possibly the easiest way to get premium content into the home theater PC (HTPC). They do have some downsides, however. For example, if the content the DCT records is copy-protected, it can only be played back within Windows Media Center and can’t […]
Read moreI can’t say this is very surprising as the numbers are relatively low. After all, outside those of you who commute or travel frequently for work, when are you not in front of a laptop or iPad. New comScore data about what users do with their smartphones notably glosses over the fact that just 9.3% of users watch TV or […]
Read moreWith the various streaming service offerings out there it’s tough to make heads or tails of which is best for you. Our friend Gabe has a handy dandy chart to make your life easier, with pros and cons and comparison of each. Amazon has significantly grown the size of their Prime Catalog from 5,000 to 8,000 titles. At launch, Amazon […]
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This sketch reflects the home theater related improvements I plan on making to my unfinished third floor. I’ve also elected to add Cat6 network drops to the four bedrooms on the second floor while I can still get behind the walls on the third floor. My reasoning behind this move is twofold. I wanted both the speed and reliability of […]
Read moreI can’t remember the last time we had so many releases in a week, it’s been a while. Still, not much really jumps out at me. A couple great TV series with Sons of Anarchy and House getting ready for their new seasons. Then there’s the new Children of Corn, what is that, number 25? A couple of good animated […]
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We learned from our recent chassis poll that a number of you are using tower or desktop style enclosures for your home theater PCs (HTPC); thus, we felt that we should expand our chassis reviews to include more products in these form factors. Today, we take a look at the SilverStone TJ08-E Micro-ATX tower chassis. The TJ08 Evolution is an […]
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