Coming soon | XBMC. Way down at the bottom of this news release is something that could be a game changer. Two criticisms I have had of XBMC are 1) lack of A Boxee-style internet TV interface and, 2) it doesn’t play nicely with TV tuners. It sounds like at least one of those needs may be addressed.
They state: “PVR Frontend: Probably the most requested feature for XBMC. This will provide a unified experience to your choice of PVR backends such as: VDR, MythTV, Tvheadend, and MediaPortal TVserver.”
This would potentially bring live (and recorded) TV to the most beautiful media center out there.
With the right addons, the new Addons Manager might address my other criticism, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Please let there be a Clicker plug-in that out Hulu-desktops Hulu Desktop, okay?
I’m excited to see the XBMC team moving forward because when it comes to handling local video files as well as scraping and editing metadata (the source of all those beautifully presented extras like fanart and synopses), nobody does it better.
I think I hear my Windows Media Center’s knees knocking together, but I can’t wait for the shoot-out.
Boxee Blog » Boxee responds to NBC’s Jeff Zucker. In case you haven’t heard, the reason Hulu-NBC has been messing around with Boxee’s access is because their CEO, Jeff Zucker, is a schmuck surrounded by lawyers and kiss ups who are also schmucks. Since when is watching Hulu through a specific browser illegal? As mentioned in my previous post, I routinely watch Fox shows on Hulu via Boxee. I see all the Hulu ads when I do it, also. Hulu provides a great service, but they’re really leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
The irony is that if I watch Hulu on my browser – the ads are blocked by my add-on, Adblock Plus. So, if you’re paying for an advertisement on Hulu and Hulu is blocking the best media center interface (your chance for your ad to appear on the big screen) you are losing lots of eyes on your product. Seems to me that if anyone should be paying anyone it should be Zucker paying Avner for giving Hulu ads greater visibility.
Where do corporations find these guys? Anyone on my block would have more sense than this. (Okay, there might be one or two people on my block that wouldn’t.) Avner, out of curiousity, have you thought about asking Conan to invest in Boxee?
Of the twenty-five series currently scheduled to record on my DVR, only two of them are NBC. None of my stocks are NBC.
Streaming television is a wonderful thing. When the DVR’s electronic program guide (EPG) is thrown off by a football game, you haven’t missed the show. Can’t afford the internet and cable TV? You haven’t missed the show (unless it’s The Mentalist). You can watch it online. I use them all: Hulu, Hulu Desktop, Clicker, TV Guide DVR, TV.com, FindInternetTV, and so on. I like Clicker the best. What I don’t like is leaving the media center-style 10 foot interface. I tried the alpha Boxee and found its merits outweighed by its shortcomings. But a new release deserves another chance, right? Good news. Boxee Beta is much easier to navigate. And the one area where every other media center comes up short, streaming TV shows, is where Boxee really shines. Watch the video after the break, to see what I mean.
If you are anything like me, when you hit Google reader this morning, most of the posts were about Jobs’ new iPad Kindle Killer. Yes, I love my iPhone (sorry AT&T none of that bleeds over to you). But I am not an Apple worshipper or hater. I guess you could say I am an Apple agnostic who avoids the endless forum Apple versus PC debates . As a gadget freak I have been watching the pre-release hype quite closely and was anxious to see this magical and revolutionary product. Well, I haven’t seen one so I’m only addressing specs not experience. (Hence “speaking from ignorance.”)
My first impression is pretty much in line with my previous posts about iTunes. The iPad is great for those who wish to shop only at the company store. Publishers are excited about being able to charge more than the $9.99 they get from Amazon according to the interview I heard on NPR this morning. Are you excited about paying more? You’ll pay twice as much for the iPad versus the Kindle to get color ebooks, a larger screen, and more interactivity. Of course, that interactivity will be crippled by the lack of flash support.
Can a device be magical and revolutionary but not even support USB or SD cards? For crying out loud, even Sony finally gave up and started moving to SD cards because they are the people’s choice. Continue reading Speaking from Ignorance – Kindle Killer?
I want to watch anything I want to watch on my big screen (instantly) or iPhone (easily). Believe it or not, I am almost there. Today I’ll focus on the big screen. After building a Windows 7 HTPC with HDMI networked to 1TB NAS drive via LAN, I am nearly there. While waiting for the tuner manufacturers to sort out their CableCard or alternate means of replacing the set top box (slated for this year), I have scaled back my cable subscription so that no box is required. I then subscribed to Netflix, which I use to watch movies seamlessly from Windows Media Center (WMC). All that I am missing is live ESPN sports in HD.
How so? I get network TV (HD over clear QAM and analog SD) with a Hauppauge 950Q hybrid tuner. I watch or record shows using this through Windows 7. The WMC wizard detected the tuner and walked me through setting it up. Works great.
Not content with turning my laptop into a home media center, I made the foolish decision to build my own video|music streamer for fun. Not being the brightest bulb, I thought I would just use an old hard drive I had left over from my Ubuntu Server experiment. I wanted to hedge my bets and have a computer with guts to do video editing and transcoding if it proved awkward as an htpc. So instead of the ubiquitous ion nvidia approach, I went with a Phenom II x3 on an Asus motherboard with GPU. The ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard has the 785G chipset for easy jujitsu on any high definition graphics. I plan to stuff this into a hecCompucase HTPC case.
I love Hulu. Sadly it doesn’t carry about five of the shows I watch on TV.com. TV.com has it over Hulu in that it includes a viewing schedule with just the shows I’ve picked, but unlike Hulu it doesn’t notify me when there is something new or provide direct links to the fullest full episode. TV Guide now is offering a “DVR” service. Really it is a virtual DVR. The service appears to be offering an easy means of accessing media through their viewer as a portal to Hulu and other actual hosts. TV.Guide notifies you when a new episode of your shows is available and their access to shows is immediate. Unlike TV.com, one isn’t require to click the show in the schedule and then hunt down the latest full episode available.
The menu is easy to navigate and attractive. What could be better? Well, it would be better if the view offered high definition. In a random look at two shows I normally view in HD, only SD was offered. I expect they’ll do a better job of preventing people from using backdoor techniques to download the source video very soon. The good news is that now I receive notification when full episodes of all my shows are available for streaming. If you are an early adopter, let me know your experience in the comments. Will this be enough to wean you from the cable/satellite?
Thanks to Wired Science, I learned of a 14 year old boy in a remote African village who should be an inspiration for all of us. William Kamkwamba noted the wind in Malawi and thought he could rig something up to power a light to read by. This boy, who had been forced to drop out of school for lack of the $80 tuition, went to the public library and checked out some books on windmills. What happened after that will surely give everyone a lift. Watch this video and share it. What a great young man.
This story has ties into so many of my values: overcoming adversity, ingenuity, generosity, bootstrap economics, and, of course, environmentalism. (Not to mention my love of the public library system.) Go William!
Today we’ll look at how to capture TV shows and watch them using XBMC. In my second XBMC tutorial I covered how to name and organize directories and files for movies and included a peek at how to organize your media for TV Shows as well. Today we’ll start with getting TV shows onto your computer and then how to set them up for viewing in XBMC.
I have loved Tivo for oh so long. That cute little character has wheedled a small fortune out of my pocket. I was so pleased I purchased a lifetime subscription. Maybe it is the fault of the FCC, maybe of Tivo, and definitely of the cable companies, but with my Tivo HD came the dreaded red dot of “you can’t watch this on your computer.” DRM encryption has been added to our cable broadcasts and most shows can no longer be transferred to you computer using Tivo Desktop. One must now pony up a hideous amount of money for a bigger hard drive on one’s Tivo, buy an external hard drive from the one company Tivo allows, or hack one’s Tivo to archive one’s shows until they can be watched (after having paid both Tivo and the cable company to watch the show!). Click on the picture for details on this issue from Dave Zatz.
I don’t like big government. I don’t like political messages in schools. But what really gets me steamed is people that don’t respect the office of President of the United States. Maybe we didn’t vote for Obama. Well, boo-hoo. President Obama won. He is the President elected by the country almost all of us claim to love. So, why the big stink about him telling kids to stay in school? For those who say he is proselytizing to his political views or indoctrinating kids, I say you’re full of bologna. There is nothing political about telling kids to stay in school. Who doesn’t agree with this? Get serious. The same crowd whining about this would be waving the flag if it was President Bush instead of President Obama. No, the outrage is due to people so cross-eyed with hate that they don’t realize that what they are teaching their children is to disrespect the office of President. What kind of values are those? Lead by example. Either you want a democracy, and the risk of being on the losing side from time to time, or you want a different form of government. Which is it? If you want democracy, then act like it. The example you set for your children today will play a large role in what the future of our system will look like.
LSS is a nuts and bolts blog. Written by a geek who loves God, this journal reports my quest for technical perfection, environmental and social justice, and venting whatever else is going through my little pea-pickin' brain at the moment.
If you poke around a little, I'm sure you can find something to tick you off, but you might just find something that helps you, too. The former I consider collateral damage and the latter is my hope.
I'm not afraid of or offended by contrary opionions so I hope you'll use the comments to encourage, challenge, and inform myself and my readers. Thanks for visiting and don't forget to subscribe before you leave.
Coming soon | XBMC. Way down at the bottom of this news release is something that could be a game changer. Two criticisms I have had of XBMC are 1) lack of A Boxee-style internet TV interface and, 2) it doesn’t play nicely with TV tuners. It sounds like at least one of those needs may be addressed.
