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In: Home Theater
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I firmly believe in paying for the movies you own. By doing so, I believe you should be able to move them to your media server and play them back however you please. BD+ protection (DRM) prevented this with recent Blu-Ray titles, but latest version of Slysoft’s AnyDVD HD overcomes this limitation. Here is the update notification: 6.4.0.0 2008-03-19 New (Blu-ray): Removes the BD+ protection from Blu-ray discs! (for increased compatibility with titles released by Twentieth Century Fox 🙂 ) New (Blu-ray): Added option to enable / disable BD+ removal New (DVD): AnyDVD ripper no longer uses the Windows filesystem, it has now its ownRead More →

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Update 8-Apr-2008: Chris Lanier just posted about the program MC Menu Customizer, which automates editing of the start menu. A great alternative to what is posted below! I recently posted about automatically launching plugins within Vista Media Center. I just came across another improvement that allows editing the order and contents of the Vista Media Center start menu. This, combined with automatic plug-in launching, goes a long way toward giving whatever startup experience you desire. Quoting bluebucket on The Green Button forums: I’ve found a way to edit the standard start menu items in Vista Media Center, but its a hack. Using this hack I’veRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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For me, Brian Binnerup’s My Movies plugin is the most important function of Vista Media Center. It’s so useful that I want it to be the default start page every time I turn-on my Vista Media Center PC. I couldn’t figure out how to do that, and this I came across this post on TheGreenButton forums. Here are the details on launching a Media Center plug-in from via the startup folder or from a key on your remote control. Associate Media Center Plug ins with the Media Center Application: Open My Computer or Explorer and navigate to: C:Program FilesMCEMy Movies Right click on the fileRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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I was very excited to get my new TiVo HD DVRs due to the fact that I didn’t have to hack them, add a network adapter, and install MFS_FTP to pull shows (which was a ton of work for my DirecTV TiVos.)  Unfortunately, TiVoToGo show downloads fail on almost all of the programs I’ve tried to pull.  For example, for a 1 hour show, I can only download the first 1 minute (68 MB). At first I tried using TiVo Desktop (free download from TiVo.com) to download the programs and experienced the problem.  I figured it was an issue with that software, so I searchedRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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I’ve had two different home theaters; one with with a screen that cost about $50 and one with a screen that cost, well, much more than that. Here is a high-level overview of four options for a fixed, wall-mounted projector screen for any budget. Just add a front projector and you’re ready for a real home theater experience. Option 1: A Black Frame on a Painted Wall You could just point your projector at a blank wall, but having a border makes a huge difference and doesn’t cost all that much. This is what I did with my first home theater. The frame is simplyRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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After 5 years as a loyal DirecTV subscriber, I’m canceling my account and switching to TiVo HDs using *gasp* an over-the-air antenna! I never would have guessed I’d be doing this; I remember when I was a kid in rural Kentucky and all we received were 4 grainy stations out of Louisville. Cable TV, and later Satellite, made the poor reception and selection a thing of the past. But several things have changed since then and digital makes all the difference. Here’s why I’m switching and my thoughts on my new TiVo HD. Network Programming This year, I noticed how high the quality of primeRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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If you want the ultimate subwoofer for your home theater, this is probably it: the JL Audio Gotham. JL Audio, long known for their car stereo subwoofers, started to make a move into home theater a few years ago. I had the opportunity to hear this subwoofer a couple of years ago at CEDIA. Let me tell you, the bass from demo room sounded awesome outside of the demo room, and even better within. The sound was low, solid, and hard-hitting. I was impressed by how unbelievably smooth the sustained bass passages were (but I’m sure that’s in no small part due to a veryRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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I needed a new server case due to Antec P180 case becoming much to cramped. After reading many positive forums posts about the Cooler Master Stacker cases, I made my purchase. Here are my thoughts. To be clear, this is the older Stacker 810 case, not the newer Stacker 830 Evolution. I think the 810 offers many for features for a much lower price; I’m not sure why the 830 is even around. Th Stacker 810 is a great case if you have a bunch of drives and need a large, well cooled case. If you purchase 2 additional 4-in-3 modules, this case has 14Read More →

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I received a flyer in the mail yesterday from DirecTV. It was touting their newest MPEG-4 HD receivers or the 100 new HD channels they will be launching in the next couple of weeks. No, it was promoting features that will be available in a TiVo software update in early 2008! This is pretty surprising, first of all that they are releasing new features, and secondly that they once again care about TiVo customers, since they dropped TiVo as their DVR supplier many months ago. My best guess is that they know there are a lot of loyal TiVo users who are more loyal toRead More →

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Last night over at TiVoCommunity.com forum, TiVoPony announced that TiVoToGo will become available for the TiVo HD / TiVo Series 3 starting November 2007. (This was also announced at CEDIA, as was a new $200 Series 3 rebate.) This is the one feature I’ve been lusting after, in addition to all of the other Series 2 Stand Alone features that I currently have. Since I have a HR10-250 HD TiVo satellite receiver, many features such as these as well as networking, photo sharing, Home Media Engine, etc. are not available. So now I have to decide, do I stick with the DirecTV TiVo I haveRead More →