Author Archives | Kevin
Kevin - who has written 184 posts on Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers.
MControl | Improving Media Center Home Automation
I am thinking of renovating my basement, preferably with a HD projector and a media center. I would love to add some home automation items, especially since it would be a good time to switch out electrical boxes. I have started doing research into which protocol I would want to use in terms [...]
Continue reading...How to Prioritize Tuners in Vista MCE
Friday, May 2, 2008
I have been looking for a way to prioritize my tuners in Vista Media Center. Why do I want dictate which tuner is used as the default? Mainly to avoid digital rights management. I currently use the HDHomerun as a QAM tuner to receive unencrypted HD channels on my computer. This [...]
Continue reading...Auzentech Driver Update | Improved Support for Dolby Digital Live
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
This week, Auzentech updated their X-FI Prelude drivers for improved Dolby Digital Live support. Why is this important? This proves that Auzentech is a company that is willing to increase the performance of their product through timely release of driver updates, something Creative is notoriously bad at doing. While somewhat pricey, the X-Fi Prelude [...]
Continue reading...Sony | Refurbished Digital Cable Tuners Now Available
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Sony made a splash in the media center world a couple of months ago being the first OEM to sell individual digital cable tuners, which are used to watch HD programming on premium cable channels. While you still need to have a computer with the special version of Vista that supported digital [...]
Continue reading...THX Display Set-up Guide | How Big a TV Should You Buy?
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Bigger is better, right? People buying shiny new TVs always struggle as to how big a TV you should buy. With the prices of HDTVs falling, people can afford to buy bigger and bigger TVs. To help everyone find the right size TV, THX has developed a quick process for calculating the optimum viewing distance [...]
Continue reading...Rip Blu-ray Movies 3 Different Ways
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Update 12/1/08: The best software for ripping Blu-ray movies, AnyDVD HD, is on sale at a 20% discount until December 31. Also, Slysoft will start charging an annual fee for updates for software purchased in 2009. Buy it here now to receive free lifetime upgrades before the new policy is put in place. So [...]
Continue reading...PowerDVD 8 Ultra now supports Dolby TrueHD
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Cyberlink has announced the release of PowerDVD 8 Ultra, which is the only viable option right now to watch Blu-ray (or HD-DVDs) on a computer since Windows XP or Vista does not have a native ability to play Blu-ray movies. PowerDVD Ultra has been a maturing piece of software. Version 7 lacked HD audio codecs for [...]
Continue reading...MyMounter Plugin: Mount an ISO Image in Media Center
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
With Cyberlink’s PowerDVD Ultra no longer playing hard drive based HD movies from ripped HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs, the only way to watch such movies is to “mount” an ISO image of the disc and then watch it using PowerDVD. Not an easy thing to do while in Vista Media Center. MyMounter, brought to you [...]
Continue reading...Dolby Updates Home Theater PC Certification
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Dolby has announced a new certification for the home theater pc, called “Dolby Home Theater,” which includes Dolby Pro Logic II decoding to produce 7.1-, 6.1-, or 5.1-channel audio from a two-channel source. The certification also supports Dolby Digital Live, which converts any analog audio signal, as from a PC or game console, into [...]
Continue reading...List of Vista SP1 Media Center Fixes
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Vista Service Pack 1 fixes several items in Media Center. This Service Pack is more an incremental step in the evolution of Media Center and not the next leap in features. Besides a roll-up of hot fixes, SPI adds the following features: Adds support to enable new types of Windows Media Center Extenders, such as [...]
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Monday, May 5, 2008
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