Home automation (HA) covers a wide spectrum of capabilities and devices, spanning the gap from placing a light timer on the fish tank to a complex system that manages many of the mundane aspects of lighting, HVAC and scheduled activities in the house or business. Historically these highly integrated systems, capable of things like automatically dimming the lights when watching […]
Read more
It’s been a while since we last talked about IVB, and for good reason as none of the more interesting HTPC chips were available at launch (or trickled out of OEM status later on). That has chanced, at least in part with HD 2500 Core i3’s available from Newegg and Amazon right now. If you’re holding out for the HD […]
Read more
Powerline networking has a reputation for promising capable “hardwired” networking solutions, but historically often fell short when it came to delivery. Having tried a few iterations of the alternative-to-Ethernet over power wires in the past, in my personal experience this reputation has also proved well deserved. Of course with each new generation, the technology evolves and is therefore worth another […]
Read more
We lauded ArcSoft when it added automatic refresh rate switching to a beta version of TotalMedia 5 as they moved us closer to the standalone player experience, and while the feature has been fleshed out significantly since then (it’s optional now) there’s one thing that they’ve never really gotten completely right with the implementation – the frequency selected for 24p […]
Read moreLinux XBMC users of Pulse-Eight’s HDMI CEC adapter have enjoyed an advantage over their Windows counterparts, in that it offered better support for waking the PC. Fortunately with the just released spin of libCEC (now on 1.8) and associated firmware this slight should be righted – I’ll let you know as soon as I can test it out :). While […]
Read more
Renters, or anyone living in an older house, are painfully familiar with the problems associated with installing a proper surround sound system. There have been wireless systems around for a while, but most are targeted at the HTIB buyer and still require wired audio runs for the left, center & right main speakers – which isn’t always possible. If you […]
Read more
When it comes to server sized chasiss, very few do it as well as Fractal Design. Offering cases with oodles of space, good cooling, and a focus on quiet operation the focus on quality design and engineering is obvious. Building off the proven Define R3, the wider Define R4 looks to be mostly an effort in refinement. Click through to […]
Read more
As part of a recent effort to consolidate all of our backbone networking kit into a structured wiring panel, it was necessary to add a switch to the mix. Never having played with a “Green Ethernet” device (D-Link DGS-1008G) it seemed like a good idea to pick one up and find out how green it was in comparison to two […]
Read more
It’s been a while since we’ve checked the Echo’s pulse, so today’s news that the beta invitations went out today and will be starting up in September is welcome news. With no news on the fate of SageTV and Microsoft’s indifference towards Media Center in Windows 8, it’s awesome to have a touch of hope for those of us who […]
Read more
Boasting clean lines, the right look, and solid construction for Mini-ITX based systems the Wesena ITX5 all-aluminum enclosure offers capabilities very similar to the ITX7; by removing optical drive support in a slightly lower cost ($80) package. Building a name for quality takes time and attention to feedback, so it was fantastic to examine the generational differences between the two […]
Read more