April 30th, 2008 by Kevin
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Soundcards | No Comments »
April 26th, 2008 by Kevin
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Digital Cable Tuners | No Comments »
April 17th, 2008 by Kevin
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Guides, HDTV | No Comments »
April 13th, 2008 by Kevin
Update (7/1/2008): Slysoft has announced that until July 31, they are offering a 20% discount on all products, including AnyDVD HD. Check it out here.
So you want to rip your Blu-ray movies to a hard drive? Even with a ton of DRM, ripping Blu-ray movies is possible. [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in HD-DVD/Blu-Ray | No Comments »
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Cyberlink, News | 2 Comments »
March 26th, 2008 by Kevin
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in News, Vista Media Center, Vista Plugins | 2 Comments »
March 13th, 2008 by Kevin
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Press Releases, Soundcards | No Comments »
February 24th, 2008 by Kevin
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 [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Media Center, Media Center Extenders, Vista Media Center | 2 Comments »
February 6th, 2008 by Kevin
A couple of weeks ago, I helped my cousin install a home theater projector in his basement. It actually took longer than I thought to set it up. After several hours, it still was not quite perfect. The picture looked great, albeit just crooked.
He had a [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in Projectors | 2 Comments »
January 31st, 2008 by Kevin
Over the last year, the clear leader in Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback on a computer has been Cyberlink’s PowerDVD Ultra. Finally, this month someone else has thrown their hat into the HD realm: Arcsoft with their release of TotalMedia Theatre. According to Arcsoft, TotalMedia Theatre supports Blu-ray discs, AVCHDs, [...] Continue Reading…
Posted in HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, Media Center, News | No Comments »