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…
April 13th, 2008 by Kevin
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.
Here are three options for ripping Blu-ray movies to a hard drive:
AnyDVD HD - AnyDVD HD is almost a “must-have” piece of software for media [...] Continue Reading…
April 2nd, 2008 by Kevin
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
January 18th, 2008 by Kevin
One of the more interesting CES press releases that flew under the radar was Auzentech’s announcement of the HDMI X-Tension. Sound cards have always been the weak link in an HTPC set-up, especially with the lack of HDMI 1.3 and Dolby True HD/DTS HD support. The HDMI [...] Continue Reading…
January 15th, 2008 by Kevin
I recently purchased a HDHomerun (about $170) to watch and record unencrypted television shows from my cable provider. My cable modem is right next to my computer so I just added a splitter and connected a coaxial cable to the HDHomerun and cable modem.
Setting up the HDHomerun [...] Continue Reading…
