Nobody knows TVs like the HD Guru® so it’s great to see him point the microscope at burn-in. Check out the myth busting, and find another reason to give your plasma a hug when you get home. HD Guru® continues to receive reader email asking whether modern plasma panels have “burn-in” problems. Given the amount of misinformation still spewed […]
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I have an older Ahanix D4 case housing my main HTPC, one of the main reasons I bought this case over some of the completion was that it was one of the few full ATX cases with a parallel port (LPT) based Vacuum Florescent Display (VFD) at the time. Recently the display started to fade and some pixels have gone […]
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Proper standby support is an essential part of the HTPC experience, something that can help transform the “PC” experience into one much closer to “CE”. While it’s not great when the HTPC in the living room wakes up for “no reason”, when the one in the bedroom does it in the middle of the night – it can be a […]
Read moreIt would take a very special media streamer to pry the HTPC out of my A/V stack. Based on the spec’s the PCH C200 could be the one to do it, if only it was also a SageTV extender 🙂 I’ve used the earlier version of the Popcorn Hour A-110 a little and have used the SageTV HD Theater […]
Read moreIt’s been a while since the last ShowAnalyzer update, but it looks like Jere’s made it worth the wait. Also worth noting for those who haven’t picked up a copy; there are only five more days left before the old pricing model (which includes lifetime updates) goes away. Version 1.0.33.732 Fixed missing scroll bars in settings dialog Fixed endless […]
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ASUS AT3N7A-I Motherboard Review Few platforms have been as anticipated by the small form factor (SFF) HTPC community as Nvidia’s ION. Combining the low power Atom CPU with a full featured mobile integrated graphics processor (IGP) capable of Blu-ray 1080p hardware decoding and multi-channel lossless audio seems like the perfect solution for those looking for a low power, but […]
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While video quality is important, I find that it’s the audio that really transforms a good movie into an immersive experience. As challenging as it can be to get flawless video playback working on the HTPC, enabling proper lossless multi-channel audio playback adds another layer of difficultly into the mix. In this guide we will discuss the different options available […]
Read moreAntiPack was intended as a starting point in that it only includes high quality hardware accelerated codecs for the most popular A/V formats, but does not support everything. If you need more, ffdshow should be next on your list. It provides the most full featured software video and audio decoder of any OSS or free DirectShow filter; because of this […]
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Intel DG45ID mATX Motherboard Intel has always been known for developing some of the most stable motherboards to accompany their processors. With the DG45ID introduction they offered a solution for HTPC enthusiasts who desired a full featured board with stability as a focus yet the special needs an HTPC motherboard needs–including small form factor, HDMI and DVI video and 7.1 […]
Read moreYesterday when we discussed how to make your HTPC use S3 standby I pointed out that my preference is use fairly aggressive idle timers on my client and server PCs, the downside to this approach is that it can cause some undesirable side effects. Today’s topic is how to workaround some interesting design shortcommings in two popular applications to keep […]
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