Internet video has pretty much been the sUck since Al Gore was nice enough to invent the internet for us. Yeah, we've got YouTube and all of it's cousins, but getting quality video of Hollywood-produced media has been hit or miss. Of all the most unlikely to lead the fray into bringing this all together, is NBC Universal, who recently publicly released their new venture, HULU. Browse around hulu.com and you'll find tons of content (all of course ad supported), but they have tv shows and movies that you've long forgotten about, plus ones you've been waiting to see. The biggest surprise in all of this is that it's free, especially considering the amount of content they have. I haven't used it much, but the site is laid out pretty well, and the videos load up fast and look pretty good. Also, they're working on expanding their HD offerings, which will further push the need for HTPCs in the living room.
Sorry this post is so poorly written, but I'm tired and don't feel like even proof-reading. If you have an issue with it, report it to these guys.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Live Your Life In Harmony
As anyone who has more than just a tv knows, remotes sUck. Don't get me wrong, they're great to have for convenience, but they seem to add up, and even when they are "universal", they are greatly lacking in what component-specific functions they can control for all of your devices.
Enter in the fine people at Logitech, as for years now they've been putting the Harmony line of remotes. I myself have a 880, but would love to trade it in for a One. When you get a Harmony remote, you go online, create an account, then download the remote management software. Once installed on your pc, you utilize the software to input all of your components by model name/number, and the Harmony software pulls in all the remote codes for it. Then you define the actions you would like to perform, labeled as "Activities", such as "Watch a DVD" or "Play Wii". The remote takes all the guess-work out of managing multiple components and inputs, the kind which seem to make women turn into raving psychopaths. And yes, that was meant to offend, as many women in my life have threatened to break my home theater equipment because they couldn't figure out the Input Select sequence. For all you men out there, heed this warning when it comes to women and all things electronic belonging to you.
So once you set up all the functions of your new remote, you simply plug it into the pc via USB, click update, and viola! The software will even keep your remote up to date with newest firmware revisions and such, so it makes it completely dummy-proof. I'm not sure how I lived without one before, because I would rather take a beating than be without it now. Case in point, I just got a new tv, and in less than 5 mins, I had my 880 running it just like it was made for it.
Oh, and attached below is an overly horrible picture I took of my new tv while watching The Big Bang Theory, it's hard to distinguish with my camera's flash set to the intensity of the sun, but this baby is freaking awesome in HD, especially when you're on the couch only 10ft away.
Enter in the fine people at Logitech, as for years now they've been putting the Harmony line of remotes. I myself have a 880, but would love to trade it in for a One. When you get a Harmony remote, you go online, create an account, then download the remote management software. Once installed on your pc, you utilize the software to input all of your components by model name/number, and the Harmony software pulls in all the remote codes for it. Then you define the actions you would like to perform, labeled as "Activities", such as "Watch a DVD" or "Play Wii". The remote takes all the guess-work out of managing multiple components and inputs, the kind which seem to make women turn into raving psychopaths. And yes, that was meant to offend, as many women in my life have threatened to break my home theater equipment because they couldn't figure out the Input Select sequence. For all you men out there, heed this warning when it comes to women and all things electronic belonging to you.
So once you set up all the functions of your new remote, you simply plug it into the pc via USB, click update, and viola! The software will even keep your remote up to date with newest firmware revisions and such, so it makes it completely dummy-proof. I'm not sure how I lived without one before, because I would rather take a beating than be without it now. Case in point, I just got a new tv, and in less than 5 mins, I had my 880 running it just like it was made for it.
Oh, and attached below is an overly horrible picture I took of my new tv while watching The Big Bang Theory, it's hard to distinguish with my camera's flash set to the intensity of the sun, but this baby is freaking awesome in HD, especially when you're on the couch only 10ft away.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
If only I had good content on my PC
This is a short post, but one filled with geek joy nonetheless. Orb has been around for quite some time, and I've used it as far back as 2005, IIRC, trying to stream the ACC Tournament so I could watch it at work. While that was mostly a miserable failure on my part, it was a cool experiment, and I occasionally would mess around with Orb some more from time to time.
Just to fill you in so you don't have to click on any of the links above, once you have a pc with Orb installed and running, you can then access your content from anywhere on the net. Except behind company firewalls like mine, because they are the sUck. You can view your pics, stream music and videos, and even watch tv with supported tuners. To top it all off, you can even use the Orb interface to schedule recordings with your tuner, which makes it somewhat like a Tivo in terms of web control.
Recently, I rediscovered Orb, when I was trying to think of how to watch my collection of Frasier Season 2 divx downloads on my livingroom tv. Yeah, my nights ARE that exciting. Sidebar: uTorrent ROCKS!!!!!!!! The short of it is, I reinstalled Orb on my main pc, let it catalog all of my media, then used my Wii's Opera browser to stream it. Streaming media up the net to just pull it back down again 40ft away is kinda 'tarded, I know, but still, it's a cool thing to be able to do. I had it up and running in just under 10 mins, and was watching "Daphne's Room" and laughing like a stick figure on crack.
Oh, and to the PS3 fanboys that want to tell me how great the PS3 is because of it's ability to stream built-in, and how much the Wii sucks, and they are so great and almighty, listen to my friend Chris...oh, and watch him below too. You bastages.
If you're asking why I embedded the video above, well, because it's my blog, and I can.
Just to fill you in so you don't have to click on any of the links above, once you have a pc with Orb installed and running, you can then access your content from anywhere on the net. Except behind company firewalls like mine, because they are the sUck. You can view your pics, stream music and videos, and even watch tv with supported tuners. To top it all off, you can even use the Orb interface to schedule recordings with your tuner, which makes it somewhat like a Tivo in terms of web control.
Recently, I rediscovered Orb, when I was trying to think of how to watch my collection of Frasier Season 2 divx downloads on my livingroom tv. Yeah, my nights ARE that exciting. Sidebar: uTorrent ROCKS!!!!!!!! The short of it is, I reinstalled Orb on my main pc, let it catalog all of my media, then used my Wii's Opera browser to stream it. Streaming media up the net to just pull it back down again 40ft away is kinda 'tarded, I know, but still, it's a cool thing to be able to do. I had it up and running in just under 10 mins, and was watching "Daphne's Room" and laughing like a stick figure on crack.
Oh, and to the PS3 fanboys that want to tell me how great the PS3 is because of it's ability to stream built-in, and how much the Wii sucks, and they are so great and almighty, listen to my friend Chris...oh, and watch him below too. You bastages.
If you're asking why I embedded the video above, well, because it's my blog, and I can.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Buy 2 TVs or a House
Oh man, this is it, the TV I've been waiting for, the "I want it ALL" of home theater goodness, too bad it costs $texas. Rolling in at a staggering $77k per, Samsung has built a 82-inch tv with an integrated computer.
Meant for commercial applications and not the average consumer, this baby uses an AMD dual-core Athlon64, 4GB flash storage, 1/2 GB DDR2 RAM, ATI chipset, and Windows XPe to enable it to be a fully functional display capable of running small apps geared toward its viewing audience.
What gets me hyped is to see this even be produced, as it lends hope to these types of displays one day making it into the livingroom. It's not hard to fathom a 46" LCD sporting a single tuner and 5 HDMI inputs, coupled with USB/SD/MMC inputs, a fast processor, 4GB flash RAM, and 64GB flash storage using an embedded MCE OS. While the price today would still be close to $texas, by the time (2011?) it could be moved into mass production, I could see it down to a MSRP of $3500 or so. That could be well worth it to have a streamlined solution for having a media PC integrated into the home theater. The capability to utilize any and all direct internet viewing/downloading services (Netflix, iTunes, Unbox), built-in DVR capabilities (Tivo), and instant access to pictures, videos, etc loaded on external flash memory....it's too much, my head will explode.
All in all, I'm sure something else will come along between now and then, and I won't be able to afford that either. But until cool devices like this become available at every movie theater across the country, I'd rather stay at home and get all of my entertainment in one place, and it be freaking sweet to boot.
Meant for commercial applications and not the average consumer, this baby uses an AMD dual-core Athlon64, 4GB flash storage, 1/2 GB DDR2 RAM, ATI chipset, and Windows XPe to enable it to be a fully functional display capable of running small apps geared toward its viewing audience.
What gets me hyped is to see this even be produced, as it lends hope to these types of displays one day making it into the livingroom. It's not hard to fathom a 46" LCD sporting a single tuner and 5 HDMI inputs, coupled with USB/SD/MMC inputs, a fast processor, 4GB flash RAM, and 64GB flash storage using an embedded MCE OS. While the price today would still be close to $texas, by the time (2011?) it could be moved into mass production, I could see it down to a MSRP of $3500 or so. That could be well worth it to have a streamlined solution for having a media PC integrated into the home theater. The capability to utilize any and all direct internet viewing/downloading services (Netflix, iTunes, Unbox), built-in DVR capabilities (Tivo), and instant access to pictures, videos, etc loaded on external flash memory....it's too much, my head will explode.
All in all, I'm sure something else will come along between now and then, and I won't be able to afford that either. But until cool devices like this become available at every movie theater across the country, I'd rather stay at home and get all of my entertainment in one place, and it be freaking sweet to boot.
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