Author Archives | Kevin
Kevin - who has written 46 posts on Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers.
Catalyst 10.4 Fixes EDID Issue for HTPCs
HTPCs are full of surprises, like the annoying EDID issue if you connect to a TV through a receiver. According to Wikipedia: Extended display identification data (EDID) is a data structure provided by a computer display to describe its capabilities to a graphics card. It is what enables a modern PC to know what kind [...]
Continue reading...Power Consumption Should Drive Your HTPC Build
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Perusing various media center websites and forums, I am struck by one thing: people make their HTPCs too powerful. Playing 1080p movies is a fairly easy task for most modern video cards. You do not need some crazy system to provide a smooth experience. All that extra processing power comes at a cost: higher [...]
Continue reading...Slysoft Announces Huge AnyDVD Sale
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Last year, Slysoft got a lot of criticism for changing to a subscription model for AnyDVD HD. The software is great and I use it all the time but it is expensive, especially with having to buy subscriptions. Slysoft does have frequent sales but they just announced a new sale that is way better [...]
Continue reading...MediaBrowser, MKVs, and Blu-ray Nirvana
Thursday, September 3, 2009
I finally made the plunge and bought an Epson projector for my basement and built a Windows 7 machine for use as a dedicated media center. First off, the projector looks fantastic. Very happy. Second, I have entered the world of converting blu-rays to MKVs. My initial impression: awesome. [...]
Continue reading...WunderRadio | Streaming Radio for iPhone
Thursday, July 9, 2009
When I bought my iPhone, I debated about getting the 8 GB model versus the 16 GB one. I ended up with the 8 GB even though I was nervous it would not be enough space for my music collection. Since owning my iPhone, my consumption of music has changed, making my concerns about [...]
Continue reading...Pandora Survives | Adds Monthly Usage Limit
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
It looks like Pandora is going to survive after all, albeit with some concessions due to royalty issues for online radio. From the Pandora blog: The revised royalties are quite high - higher in fact than any other form of radio. As a consequence, we will have to make an adjustment that will affect [...]
Continue reading...Cheap Blu-ray Movies | Buyer’s Guide
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Blu-ray movies are expensive, especially when you buy them from the big retail chains like Walmart, Target, or Best Buy. Personally, I think Amazon has the best prices on Blu-ray movies. You can find most new movies for $19.99, and sometimes cheaper. Just be aware that most of Amazon’s “sales” are [...]
Continue reading...Used Dell XPS 420: Cheapest Cablecard computer?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Dell recently discontinued their line of XPS 420 computers. Why is this interesting? The 420’s were the only computers to come standard with the version of Vista that supports digital cable tuners (i.e. it came with a digital cable product ID). I would suggest verifying with the seller that a digital cable product ID [...]
Continue reading...PowerDVD Ultra 9 First Impressions
Monday, March 2, 2009
So you want to watch Blu-ray movies on a computer? Then PowerDVD Ultra 9 is the program for you. The latest version of Cyberlink’s media player, at a cost of $99, is all about high definition movies and Blu-ray, plugging the hole left Vista’s lack of native Blu-ray support. PowerDVD Ultra 9 is a [...]
Continue reading...Review: Rocketfish Webcam
Friday, February 20, 2009
I was recently contacted by Best Buy’s PR folks to review a webcam under their in-house label, Rocketfish. The Rocketfish Webcam, retailing at $62.99, has all the expected features of a high-end camera, including a built-in microphone. Features include: * Up to 8.0-megapixel still image capture with software interpolation; video capture [...]
Continue reading...© 2010 Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers. Powered by Wordpress.
Friday, May 14, 2010
0 Comments