Gear

I created this list because:

  • I'm frequently asked for technology recommendations and decided to keep a consolidated and updated list.
  • I wanted to speed-up my software download/install process when setting up a new computer.
  • I've personally tested everything on this list and feel all of it offers the best performance for the price.
  • Many of the software products are free and open source; the developers deserve more recognition than I can give them this is a start.

Home Theater Hardware:

  • High-End Video Projector: Anything from the JVC D-ILA line. Unsurpassed black levels, extremely bright, amazing picture detail.
  • Budget Video Projector: Panasonic AE4000 or Optoma HD20.
  • Subwoofers: SVS Subwoofers are amazing, especially considering the price. I recommend the PB12-NDS model for budget-oriented systems or two of the PB13-Ultra models for the ultimate setup.
  • High-end Home Theater A/V receiver: Anthem D2V or AVM-50v. Built-in high-definition video processing and amazing audio quality; great factory support.
  • Budget Home Theater A/V receiver: Which ever Onkyo or Denon receiver fits your budget that has HDMI switching and supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats
  • Digital Media Player: Syabas Popcorn Hour C-200. It supports playback of DVD backups and Blu-ray backups from a networked attached server within you house. Great format support and easy setup. But you need to add your own Blu-ray drive and hard drive.
  • Digital Video Recorder: TiVo HD (Series3) with off-the-air antenna
  • Universal Remote Control: Logitech Harmony 900 RF remote. I like that it has an RF base station, so you don't have to have the remote pointing at the device for a command to work. ( I do not recommend the Harmony 1000/1100 because they are not customizable enough.)
  • Ultra-complicated Highly Customizable Universal Remote Control: Philips Pronto Professional TSU9400 and (2) RFX9600 wireless base stations. (Do as I say, not as I do — this remote is too complicated for most users and sometimes even me,  but it is fully customizable and can do anything you can imagine if you have the skill to figure out the programming. If you're a perfectionist and are willing to devote the time, this is a great remote.)
  • Surge Protection: Panamax surge protectors are the best for both computer and home theater. One nanosecond response time to incoming surges; protection for every type of cable entering your house – enough said.
  • Home Network Music Player: Sonos Music Player

Dedicated Media Player / Home Theater Personal Computer (HTPC) Software:

General Computer Hardware:

  • Home Network Router: Linksys WRG610N v2 (contains 2 dual-band wireless N radios for super-fast speeds and great coverage) or Linksys WRT54GL (contains 1 wireless G radio and is very stable and widely supported.) If you like to modify you gear to get even more features, consider adding the DD-WRT firmware (free + open source) or Tomato firmware (free + open source)linksys_wrt610n
  • General User Laptop: Apple MacBook Pro with whatever price/screen size is most appropriate for you (I recommend the 17" version because I choose screen size over portability)macbook_pro_17
  • Power User Laptop: Dell Studio line w/Blu-ray drive and back-lit keyboard
  • Netbook (tiny cheap laptop): ASUS Eee PC 1005HE with Windows 7 and 6-cell 10.5 hour battery
  • Computer Monitor: The largest Dell LCD widescreen you're willing to afford: 20", 24" or 30" widescreen (or if great industrial design is more important than low prices, go for an Apple cinema display)dell_monitor
  • Ergonomic Mouse: I recommend this only if you have wrist/joint pain in your hand! 3M Wireless Ergonomic Optical Mouse (medium/large hand size, small hand size)3m_ergonomic_mouse
  • Surge Protection: Panamax surge protectors are the best for both computer and home theater. One nanosecond response time to incoming surges; protection for every type of cable entering your house – enough said.
  • Home Theater Personal Computer (HTPC) case: Atceh Fabrication (very nice, made-to-order, but much too expensive)
  • Portable Music Player: Apple iPod Touch

Digital Camera / Photography Hardware:

  • Compact Point-and-Shoot Digital Camera: The Canon PowerShot S90IS is an amazing point-and-shoot camera because it is very small, very fast, and has great low-light (ISO 12,800) sensitivity. Also, it has image stabilization and a 3.8x optical zoom. It can even store images in the original, uncompressed RAW format, in addition to standard jpeg. (If you are interested in adding some hacker-ish features, check-out the CHDK firmware enhancement project.)
  • High-end Digital Camera: Any Digital SLR is almost certain to be an improvement over a point-and-shoot. I recommend the Nikon D90 because of features including: HD movie recording, great ergonomics, easy to use. The Nikon D40 is a great starter Digital SLR. For lenses, the Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens has a very useful zoom range and the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Lens is great for low light and blurred background (aka bokeh) photos.
  • Digital Photo Frame: HP DreamScreen 130 due to the built-in WiFi and network capabilities.
  • Picture Software: For Windows users, I've found the FastPictureViewer raw codecs to be very useful, especially if you run a 64-bit version. xnView and Picassa are also great for organizing images and editing the tags.

Mobile Phone:

  • Apple iPhone 3Gs: hands-down the best phone available in the US and a ton of apps to add extra features.  The Google Nexus One is a close second due to ability customize and may surpass the iPhone in a couple of years.
  • Headphones for iPhone: Klipsch Image S4i headphones ($99) because they have a microphone and control buttons (for play/pause/next/previous, volume up/down) and great sound quality. The two runner-ups are the extremely expensive Klipsch Image X10i ($350) and the Apple Premium In-Ear Headphones ($70). (I tried bluetooth wireless stereo headsets and found the poor audio quality to be intolerable.)

Windows Computer Software

Backup:

  • Windows Home Server for Windows users
  • Apple Time Capsule for Mac users
  • CrashPlan peer computer backup (free) + online backup (unlimited for $3.50/month) works on Windows, Mac, Linux.
  • Mozy online backup (unlimited online backup for $4.95/month)

Web Browsing/Email:

General:

  • Office: OpenOffice (free + open source) or Microsoft Office (commercial)
  • Finance: Quicken Premier 2006 (commercial)
  • PDF Viewing: FoxIT PDF Reader (free)
  • PDF Creation: PDFCreator (free + open source)
  • Genealogy: Genealogy Finder? Still not sure about this one.
  • Mapping: Google Earth
  • Clock / Alarm Clock: Qlock (free)
  • Text Editor: TextPad (free commercial demo) or Notepad++ (free + open source)
  • Note Taking: EverNote (free or enhanced commercial version) – fast, easy, and free, EverNote allows notes to be stored in many formats, has categories, and built-in security.

Music:

  • Music Editor: Audacity (free)
  • Music Ripper: Exact Audio Copy (free) or dbMusicConverter (free or enhanced commercial version)
  • Music Format Converter: dbMusicConverter (free or enhanced commercial version)
  • Muisc Storage format: FLAC (free + open source)
  • Music Player: MediaMonkey (free or enhanced commercial version)
  • Music Tagger: MP3Tag (free) and/or TagScanner (free) and/or MediaMonkey (free or enhanced commercial version)
  • Podcast Downloader: iTunes seems too be the best but I'm still looking for something better.
  • Muisc Lyrics: EvilLyrics (free) – Automatic lyrc downloading – supports about any music player software you can imagine: Winamp, WMP 9, iTunes, MusicMatch, Foobar, MediaMonkey, Real Player, QCD, Y!Music, XMPlay, AlbumPlayer, etc.
  • Apple iPod Audio Book Converter: MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter (free + open source) takes *.mp3 files and converts/merges them into one single *.m4b file that is recognized as an audio book by iPods, so it can be bookmarked. I also use MediaJoin to combine WAV files from multiple CDs into one large WAV file and the use dBpoweram Muisc Converter to convert to a *.m4b; this results in better audio quality due to only 1 compression stage (wav -> m4b instead of wav -> mp3 -> m4b).

Video:

Pictures:

Utilities:

Web Applications

Web/Server/Developer Tools

  • Server-side CMS: WordPress
  • Software Installer: Install Creator
  • CSS Editor: TopStyle Lite (free) or TopStyle Pro (commercial)
  • Server-side Webpage Editing: UltraEdit (commercial)
  • Webserver: XAMPP is a very easy-to-install Apache Distribution for all operating systems and includes MySQL, PHP, Perl, an FTP server, and phpMyAdmin.

External References

Written by Carlton Bale on Jul 30,2006 in: Uncategorized |

14 Comments »

  • Frank Mayeda says:
    2006-December-27 (Wed) at 9:33 am

    Nice site- ran into touble with a new remote and your site googled in. Can't get the Dish reciever code – suggestions?(have 3 recievers,each reprogramed w/seperate 2 digit code)
    Also unable to decrypt Descent- do you use VobBlocker?
    Where is DVD Profiler – is it still freeware?
    You must use some sort of backup/network server- interested in what you use.(running my 2nd Buffalo NAS).
    Sorry for so many qustions – very similiar interests, not many resources. Also a diver. Frank

    Reply
  • Carlton Bale says:
    2006-December-27 (Wed) at 11:59 am

    Frank: I recommend using AnyDVD to decrypt/backup movies. It is update very frequently (at least once a week it seems.) If you have a problem with a DVD, the developer will work with you get the problem figured out and release a new version.

    DVD Profiler is still available as freeware, although I recommend upgrading to the commercial version. http://www.intervocative.com/Downloads.aspx

    My file server is also my desktop PC. I'm running Ubuntu Linux 6.10 and have a 12-port Areca hardware RAID card, currently with five 500GB Seagate SATA hard drives. I was using Windows Server 2003 but recently converted over to Linux and have been very please with the improvement in file serving and stability.

    Great to hear from another diver! Unfortunately, it's been almost a year since I was under water. . .

    Reply
  • Marcelo Susevich says:
    2007-April-15 (Sun) at 11:35 am

    Carlton,

    Great site. I congratulate you for the time you take to reply all comments. I read most of you articles and enjoyed them a lot.
    Regarding your technology list, I'm surprissed I've not seen a media center extender or any other device capable of feeding your HDTV from programs stores in your computer, I was hoping to get some advice as I need to buy one. I've tried the Buffalo LinkTheater DVD but I've sold it because it didn't pleased me the software nor the video quality.
    Regards, MS

    Reply
  • Carlton Bale says:
    2007-April-15 (Sun) at 12:25 pm

    Marcelo: I feed my home theater projector with a computer running Windows Media Center. I have a Linux-based server that stores all of my media (currently 2.5 TB worth.) I also have an Xbox that has been modified to run third-party software and I use Xbox Media Center to play movies / music on my other TV. This takes a lot of work but the results are fantastic see this thread on AVS Forum for more details.

    If you are looking for a device you don't have to spend too much time to configure or modify, I'd suggest looking at a TviX from Dvico. The M-5000 model is the best media extender out there from everything I've read – and I've read quite a bit. If you can wait a couple months, the M-4100 and M-5100 models will be out and they offer about everything you could possibly need: H264 codec support, HDMI audio/video output, and SATA drive support.

    The Apple TV is another alternative, but I don't recommend it unless you plan to modify it. Out-of-the-box, it only supports some very specific Apple file formats. Support for other formats can be added but you have to do quite a bit of modification (remove hard drive, install special software, etc.)

    You might want to spend some time on the AVS Digital Media Servers & Content Streamers forum to get more opinions. Hope this helps – enjoy!

    Reply
  • Paul Valente says:
    2007-April-23 (Mon) at 8:28 am

    Following on the previous comment . . .

    Yes, the TVIX Box is a simple digital media solution. I work for TVIX Box and we have been selling a lot of these units for the past couple years. They keep getting better and the feedback has been great. Here is the real simple breakdown:

    1) TVIX Box M-3100: This player is NOT HD and is NOT networkable, but if you want to get your digital media to your TV with out a lot of investment or hassle, this is the way to go.
    2) TVIX Box M-4000: This has all the same specs as the 5000 mentioned above which has been the gold standard for about a year now, but it is about 100US less, due to recent manufacturing innovations. It is HD and has a built in Ethernet as well as optional Wi-fi access.
    3) TVIX Box M-5000: Same as 4000, but in an innovative cylindrical shape and about 100US more.
    4) TVIX Box 4100 and 5100 series: Not yet available, but all the features of the 4000/5000 plus 1080 support and H.264.

    Good Luck!

    Paul
    TVIX Box Multimedia Players

    Reply
  • Andrew says:
    2008-May-20 (Tue) at 4:40 am

    HI

    Great site and I love the technology list, especially the photography and software sections (there are a few there I will be taking a closer look at.

    As for the photography, I have a Nikon D70s and its a superb piece of kit and travels everywhere with me. I also bought a Digital Frame recentlyfrom these guys http://www.udiggit.com I ended up buying a 15" Acrylic one from their Pictorea Ramge and so far have found it very easy to use and displays my photos a treat.

    Andy

    Reply
  • Lisa says:
    2008-November-09 (Sun) at 5:25 pm

    Is this list up-to-date. I just want to be sure because I noticed your last post was in 2007. Thanks!

    Reply
  • Carlton Bale says:
    2008-November-09 (Sun) at 10:12 pm

    Yes, it's up to date. The footer at the bottom of the page indicates the date of last modification, which was 18-Sept-2008 as of today.

    Reply
  • Faisal Shah says:
    2008-November-28 (Fri) at 3:12 pm

    Hi Carlton,

    I just somehow ended up on your blog and really impressed with it. Coincidentally, I am going through the same phases you went through. I did comp sci, and have been working in a telecommunication industry for the past 5 years, and now feeling the itch to pursue my MBA, and also will be setting up my first Home theater in a new house. Love the technology list, and after reading numerous forums, my head is starting to spin, so your website is a sigh of relief. Great site

    Reply
  • Paul says:
    2009-March-04 (Wed) at 2:11 pm

    Hi,

    I am looking for a Philips 9FF2M4 digital photo frame but am currently struggling to find one anywhere, or to find anywhere that has a good review. Do you know anywhere you can point me to that will provide one of these please?

    Many thanks

    Reply
  • Klaus at TechPatio says:
    2009-July-17 (Fri) at 5:53 am

    Hi Carlton,

    I love your home-theater setup, it looks great! Actually, my friend and I decided to invite ourselves over for a movie weekend. We figure, start out friday with a Star Wars maraton. Saturday we do Terminator and Transformers and Sunday with a Harry Potter maraton.

    Oh, what's that, you're not in Europe? Too bad, rain check then, I suppose :)

    Reply
  • -Keith says:
    2009-December-27 (Sun) at 4:04 pm

    Carlton,

    Great site! I found it (like others, I daresay) doing research on building a theater.

    I have downloaded and installed My Movies to play with, but do not have a media extender for it at the moment. I actually stream all my media from my main PC downstairs to my PS3 using a program called PS3 Media Server…go figure.

    My question for you (I have many, but will only post 1 for now) is this: When you rip a DVD or Blu Ray, what format are you ripping to? My thought is that when running through a 1080p projector, a low quality file will look absolutely horrendous, but doing a full quality rip – particularly on BR – is going to make for some huge files.

    Thoughts?

    Thanks!

    Keith

    Reply
    • Carlton Bale says:
      2009-December-28 (Mon) at 1:56 pm

      Keith,

      I'm a purist and want the best picture quality, sound quality, and all of the menus and features on the original disk. So I don't transcode to a different format or container.

      I copy from the original disk to folders. DVD are in \Movies\Title\video_ts\ structure and Blu-rays are in the structure \Movies\Title\BDMV\ and all of the files from the original disc are within these folders.

      The downside is that most media players don't support this playback structure. Windows Media Center PCs do (Arcsoft Total Media Theatre is required for blu-ray playback.) The Popcorn Hour C-200 also supports both formats. But you're out of luck for Xbox 360 or PS3 support.

      The Collection Management application within My Movies is the best I've found for providing the correct cover art, movie details, and other metadata.

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