Weekly Podcast Roundup November 12th

This week on the show I have Dustin Anderson from Vision Audio winners of the 2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Installer competition. Vision Audio installed a fantastic solution at a home in Texas with over 30 audio zone and 13 displays. Dustin will be explaining why they selected Windows Media Center and how talks about the components used in the installation.I catch up on email and look at the news items making the blogs.

A late show is better than no show. Life seemed to keep us from delivering the show on time this week but we managed to put something together nonetheless. Jon is still absent but makes a little cameo this week. With little time to waste, we have a little freestyle delivery of stories starting with a major case of "Rick Rolling" and throwing in some new handset announcement and releases for good balance. We also have a nice giveaway this week courtesy of Sheldon: Google Wave invites! Want to know how to get one? You’ll have to listen to the show, but there is a cutoff to enter the drawing. You must post, e-mail, or catch us on Twitter by 11:59 PM EST on Saturday, November 14, 2009. That would be 8:59 PM PST and 7:59 AM (of Sunday, Nov. 15) GMT. Twitter and e-mail info can be found below. Enjoy the show!

Wow what a show this week. You wouldn’t know for looking at it, but there was a lot to cover and this show ended up being in contention for the longest on record. Which partly because we just couldn’t stop talking about Media Center’s new ability to record without DRM from CableCARD. But there was also plenty of talk about RVU, Managed Copy and DVRs in general. At one point we even took issue with claims by the chat room and really let ’em have it — but we doubt we got through to them. We could go on and one about the other topics, but really, you should just have a listen for yourself. It’ll be a good listen too as the man who loves every TV show, explains why he even watches shows he doesn’t like, yes really.

We have a special guest this week on Seen in HD. Adam Thursby, the normal co host on the show, was called away last minute but we were lucky enough to have scheduled Matt Paprocki from doblu.com to join us and he filled in admirably despite a slight case of bronchitis.

This time we dive right into how the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) handshaking works with HDMI. Before we get started, however, we provide an update/correction to some of the statements we made in our previous discussions on HDMI regarding the bandwidth it takes to support different resolutions and frame rates.

It’s time for our annual HDTV buying guide. Just like last year, we’re listing them by size instead of technology. Prices have dropped quite a bit in just 12 months, and there are some really exciting deals available right now. This year the prices for tier one manufacturers are even more affordable. Without further ado, here is the list for 2009:

Oh do we have fun this week! After moving through a ton of reader email and comments (THANK YOU!), Josh and Adam get into the question of fair use and recorded TV. How long should you be allowed to keep your recordings? Can you archive them forever or are you obligated to buy the DVD series once it’s available? We try to focus on these questions this week. (Notice I said we try. We stray a bit!)

HD Nation goes to Blu-Con! Martin Scorsese on Blu-Ray and Film Preservation, Experts On the Future of Bly-ray, Robert tests out Panasonic’s 3D technology.