Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers

Computer Shopper has reviewed one of HP’s flagship media centers, the Pavilion Elite m9000t, albeit without a digital cable tuner. Is it me or have digital cable tuners fallen into obscurity?
Computer Shopper overall was impressed with the system. Looking at HP’s site, a pretty well-equipped system with a digital cable tuner and [...]

One advantage that Media Center PCs have over their Tivo and DVR brethren is the ability to remove commercials from television recordings. Lifextender is the latest plugin for Vista Media Center that does just that, automatically remove commercials. From Lifextender’s website:
Lifextender is pretty simple. It scans the directory that Media Center records TV to every [...]

The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD will include versions of the movie for portable devices and PCs, according to Warner Home video. From the Ars Technica article:
Although it’s not clear how exactly the technology will work—and Warner has not yet responded to our requests for comment—the easiest way for Warner to [...]

Not surprisingly, Sony has discontinued the sale of the Vaio VGX-XL3, which was a flawed but great looking media center with CableCard support. Presumably this is because of poor sales but I also think that the VGX-XL3 was already obsolete. Priced at almost $2,700, it only had one digital cable tuner and [...]

One thing about open source software: you never know how people will improve it. Take Media Portal for instance. I have tried it but ultimately went with BeyondTV to watch TV on my computer. That, however, might change though with the release of Xface Skin Version 1.0.
Xface is a new skin for [...]

Several companies announced this week upcoming releases of the second generation of media center Extenders. For $300, you can get an Extender that has a wireless Internet card and can play Divx files from your computer. While expensive, it is cheaper than an Xbox 360, especially if you need the wireless network connection.
Extenders make [...]

Ace Computers’ new LHD Viva is an all-in-one Media Center PC/LCD TV, similar to many Soney and HP offerings. It is an iMac competitor with features the iMac cannpt touch right now, namely Digital Cable Tuners.
The unit, which costs less than $2,000 is a HD Media Center with a built-in 22-inch TV. It [...]

Missingremote.com has a great article on how to add a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive to your media center computer. Computer drives for the next generation of DVDs have dropped and price and are actually somewhat reasonable. Based on the article this is what you need to watch the next generation of DVDs on [...]

OQO, the ultra-mobile computer manufacturer, has increased their Model 2’s CPU to Via’s 1.6 Ghz processor and added new hard drive options, which include:

an upgrade from 60 GB to 120 GB; or
a solid state 32 GB hard drive

OQO can be loaded with Vista Ultimate, which includes Vista’s Media Center. The processor upgrade is a [...]

Microsoft has announced an ad-supported Internet TV upgrade to Windows Vista Media Center to be released later this month. Engadget.com has the scoop:
Reportedly, Microsoft plans on unleashing Internet TV on or around September 27th, which will enable Media Center users to watch a variety of on-demand, ad-supported content free of charge. While details were kept [...]