For more on the new 4.7 public beta version of BeyondTV, read this article.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Control Your HTPC with your iPhone or Smartphone
BeyondTV 4.7 Public Beta Released
- Faster HDHomeRun Tuner - QAM tuning with Beyond TV and the HDHomeRun is now much faster. Before there was a delay when you first started a QAM channel. Now with a setting change in the BTV webadmin, starting liveTV and changing channels for QAM channels are significantly improved.
- Auto Load Shows to iTunes - As Snapstream mentioned on their blog, this might help out those people who were relying on iTunes to get their NBC programming (no longer available on iTunes) You can now showSqueeze to h.264 (this is for all of those Apple iPods and other Apple devices) including a podcast rss feed for iTunes. From the release notes "For you non-apple fanbois, we've also included a 1280x720p h.264 profile that you can send your hd content to and save a ton of space whilst still looking good." Note this is a paid plugin packaged with the DVD Burning plugin (if you already have the DVD burning plugin, you'll get this feature also).
- Pool multiple Hard Drives as one - Snapstream calls this feature "drive pooling: Pool several hard drives as one so Say Beyond TV can manage and distribute recordings between each of the drives. It's simple and you can set it and forget it.
- Beyond TV Link DVD Burning - you can now burn DVD's right from the 10-foot BTV interface on your extender (Link) manchine. This feature has been available for the BTV server machine but until now you couldn't add this plugin on the BTV/extender machine. Note: This will be a fee-based plugin)
- iPhone or Smartphone Remote Control your BeyondTV - Snapstream is calling this feature the firefly nano (named after their firefly HTPC remote). I have more detail on the Firefly nano feature in this post.
- Automatic Community Recordings. In other words, it will take the top shows from other Beyond TV users (Beyond TV Buzz) and will then schedule them at the lowest priority on your BTV machine.
- Multiple usb-uirt support - use and manage multiple USB-UIRT's with one Beyond TV machine.
- Xbox 360 Streaming fix: Showsqueezed wmv files can now be set as type "video" for your 360 to be able to stream them. This setting is in the Web Admin under advanced settings -> Miscellaneous Settings.
- You can now set "record at this timeslot" to set up a show to record only at a certain time slot.
There are more improvements included as well, but those are the bigger ones. This is a fairly significant release so anyone with Beyond TV will want to upgrade when it goes public. If you can't wait and would like to help do the final beta testing, you can join the beta testing group here.
No integration of Beyond Media features with this one, but here's hoping it is released with the 5.0 version that must be coming before to awful long.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Last Day for free TV Guide for MythTV GBPVR and MediaPortal
The cost of the service is currently US$15/3 months with a 7 day trial payable via paypal. Thier plans are to lower the price by the end of the term, so recurring subscriptions are not yet offered.
The data is provided under license by Tribune Media Services.
MySpace Music Still Being Downloaded
The site is up right now, but lets see how long it lasts. Honestly, sites like these really make artists less likely to use the web to promote their music for fear of their music being stolen. For me most songs on MySpace are small, 96KBPS files so not good enough quality for me.
Flickr Hack - Post an Image in the Comments
Here's a quick and easy flickr tip. If you use flickr like I do, you likely comment on others photos from time to time. If you want to add an image along with your comments here is how to do it:
- Find the photo in your flickr stream that you want to post in the comments
- Select the "all sizes" button
- Select one of the smaller sizes, I use thumbnail or small so it fits in the comments nicely
- Go to the lower half of the photo page where it says "copy & paste this HTML into your webpage:"
- Now select the code that shows below the "copy & paste" note.
- Simply past the code into the comment. You can also add text in the comment of course.
Here are some other Flickr-related Hacks Highlighted on this Blog:
Show All of your Flickr Contacts on one Page
Custom Flickr Search for your site
Roll Your Own Flickr
Flexible Flickr Search Engine PiciShare
Four Ways to Track Statistics on Flickr
So you don't miss any future tips, subscribe to this Blog's RSS Feed by Clicking HERE
Monitor Your Network through-put for Free
- Select Start>Run
- Type in perfmon and Performance Monitor will start up
- Select System Monitor From the menu on the left of the screen
- With your mouse, right-click on the graph and select "add counters"
- In the "add counters" dialog box, from the Performance Object dropdown menu select "network interface"
- Then select the "select counters from list" dialog button and then select
- Now select the Network Interface Card you want to monitor (the one hooked up to your network of course)
- Select the counters ( bytes/sec etc) you want and select the "add" button.
That's it. You can use this same Performance Monitor to monitor many other things on your PC. Play around with it and make it graph what you want it to. It makes a great troubleshooting tool without the need to install anything additional.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tetris for Geography: United States, Europe and Africa Versions of Statetris
DIY Underwater Camera Housing for Under $50
A very nice job indeed.
Integrate Your Netflix Queue with your HTPC
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Visualize iTunes Top 100 with iTunes TreeMap
Camera Hack: Disposable Camera Fisheye Creation
Found on Flickr
Here's a photo he took with a fisheye lens:
Funny Story From the Past: Self Driving Car Next Year?
Now it looks like VW has some sort of self-driving car that is actually being tested. If you're interested, check out this video (Note: You'll have to put up with some cheezy video hosts, but they actually are demonstrating a working self-driving car):
Either way, I'm not too excited about anyone letting a computer do the driving for you. I love computers and all, but still don't trust them in a real-life situation unless its a really expensive computer running the show and even still...
Build Your Own Arcade Game Seat
Here's another Racing Game Chair built by the guys at Toolmonger with a $380 welder. It turned out pretty nice
If you're really serious about making your own arcade game seat. Check out RaceSimCentral. They have some great ideas and examples of projects that have been done by others.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Netflix Hack - Find Watch Now Movies You Were Going To Rent Anyway
More Netflix-Related Articles:
Netflix Watch Now Hacked - Rip Movies from Watch Now
Why Netflix has already won the DVD Rental War
Complete list of all Netflix Watch-Now Movies
Renting Movies from a Vending Machine
Beat Netflix Throttle
Netflix Watch-Now Mini-Review
Also be sure to check out the excellent Hacking Netflix Blog to keep up with news and tips regarding Netflix
How To Embed YouTube and Google Video into Powerpoint
Today I have two different methods to embed a YouTube or Google Video into your PowerPoint presentation.
The first one uses Keepvid to obtain the video and then converts the video into a compatible video format for use in PowerPoint.
Read How to use this method to embed YouTube or Google Video HERE
Another way to do this is to just change the URL that Google gives you a little and then import it right into PowerPoint. Here's a video that shows you how to do it.
Read More on How To Edit and Add Video Clips to PowerPoint HERE
CableCard Rules relaxed: Big News for Home Theaters?
"Here's what consumers will get: they will be able to move content across
their home networks for viewing on devices that aren't attached to a set-top
box. That will include PCs as well as portable devices, and high-definition and
video-on-demand programming will be covered by DTCP-IP."
Monday, August 27, 2007
BusinessCard iPod Stand
Analyze and Clean Up Your Hard Drives
Another Choice for Disk Information Software is Windirstat. WindirStat is another free, open-source application that will display your drive usage on a map that tells you what file types and folders are using the most space on your drive.
The free, open-source utility WinDirStat displays your disk usage in a color-coded map that shows what file types and folders take up the most space on your hard drive. If you don't like Java apps, then WinDirStat will be your favorite.
Read more on WinDirStat at their site
For the Linux Users, there is an excellent program called Firelight. This application displays data as hierarchical pie charts. Filelight displays files and folders as you hover your mouse over it showing information like # of files, size and percentage of the entire file size. You can mouse-click on the pie to zooms in and display a portion of the entire pie. For Linux only, firelight is fast and easy to use.
Check out Firelight at methylblue.com
Finally we have EasyDuplicateFinder that will scan your hard drive for identical duplicates by analyzing file size and attributes (regardless of filename) and notify you of any possible duplicates. I found this app via DownloadSquad. Read more and download the freeware app EasyDuplicateFinder HERE
Now you can make the most of your hard drive space by choosing one of these apps, taking inventory of your hard drives and cleaning out the stuff you don't need.