Tip Of The Day: Catching Up On TV & Movies

If you are like me, you have a problem. A very serious problem! You simply have too much TV recorded and not enough time to watch it. Ahhh the woes of owning a well setup Media Center PC. Here are a few tips that can help.

Portable Video Player

A portable player such as a Zune or iPod can be very useful when trying to catch up on your TV shows. I went with the Zune because of the easy syncing between SD channel recordings and the Zune itself. However, there are tools available to convert any video to the proper portable format for your PMP of choice. This useful during long trips or even at the gym.

Personally, I sync TV shows via the Zune software. As well, I rip DVDs to WMV using Cucusoft’s ripper. It allows you to rip DVDs and convert files to virtually any format and container. Of course, I also use my Zune to catch up on various podcasts as well.

Placeshifting 

Whether you are on the road or in your office, placeshifting your content can be a great way to catch up on TV shows. However, don’t blame me if you are fired for watching TV at work. I recommend this during lunch hour :). 

Here are the options I am aware of to placeshift your content.

SageTV – Native placeshifting client developed by SageTV

Orb – Free to use software

Hava – Uses a box to placeshift HD or SD content. Can be used on phones

Sling – Same concept as Hava

Vista Media Center – Uses a third party plugin called WebGuide

Check out Mike’s Placeshifting guide here : 

Laptop

Along the same vein as portable media players, laptops can provide a good way to catch up on movies and TV shows. Simply copying and pasting the movies onto you laptop hard drive can work, or use the DVD burning feature found in most PVR packages to burn your favorite TV shows.

Commercial Skipping

To shave precious minutes of your TV viewing, you can cut commercials. This can be a real time saver when you consider the hours of TV you watch in a given week.

Just The Highlights Please!

A sports fanatic might find Cyberlink’s MagicSports useful to breeze though highlights of all the games that were on. After all, ESPN doesn’t always show all the good stuff. Check out Mike’s review here . 

How do you catch up on you TV shows? A marathon TV watching session on Saturday night? Perhaps a Netflix Watch Nows apalooza? Let us know in the comments.