Elgato EyeTV Update and New Hybrid USB TV Tuner

Speaking of EyeTV, Elgato announced their new EyeTV Hybrid USB TV Tuner and updated the EyeTV Software Version to 3.1 at CES this week.

Elgato's new EyeTV Hybrid USB TV Tuner has improved reception and a FM radio tuner included.  The TV Tuner includes a QAM (unencrypted only) 1080i tuning and will sell for $150 along with an included one-year EPG subscription ($20 per year for EPG after first year.)

The 3.1 update to EyeTV comes later this month presumably with full Hauppauge HD-PVR support.

Read more and purchase the EyeTV Hybrid Tuner at Elgato

 

via electronista

Elgato Gets Hauppauge HD-PVR beta

We've followed the analog hole superhero, Hauppauge HD-PVR for the past year since it was first announced at CES.  During that time, the likes of SageTV, BeyondTV, GBPVR, MythTV and MediaPortal all were able to support the HD-PVR.  SageTV won the mult-platform support award first with Windows, then Linux and finally Mac support.  For those Mac users SageTV was the only way to use the HD-PVR, but now you can use it with the Elagato Eye TV for the Mac.

Actually a beta for EyeTV was released on November 13th and many beta testers have been hard at work since then.  It's still in beta, but you can go sign up and try it out if you have a desire to match up your EyeTV HTPC with the Hauppauge HD-PVR.  I think we'll see support for one more HTPC software platform in the next few weeks - keep your eye on GeekTonic for that.

Read more about the Hauppauge HD-PVR Beta at the EyeTV Lounge (forum registration required)

 

If you're interested in using the Hauppauge HD-PVR to get liveTV and recorded TV in all of its digital and HD glory, here are your options:

SageTV XP, Vista, WHS, Linux, Mac and HD200 extenders
BeyondTV with XP and VistaGBPVR with XP and Vista and PopCorn Hour
Media Portal RC3 with XP and Vista (download & further info)
MythTV Linux
MediaPortal

Read more about the Hauppauge HD-PVR

Linksys Media Hub NAS

Linksys announced the "Linksys Media Hub NAS" at CES.  This new Media Network Attached Storage Device looks pretty good and has a very nice feature set as well including a front-panel LCD display and card reader.

They'll have three different models: 500 GB without the LCD for $350, 500 GB with LCD for $400 and 1TB with LCD for $430.  Each of these models can be expanded from the included single hard drive with a second hard drive of your choosing.  It's built on a linux platform that will work with PC, Mac and of course Linux and includes a nice looking web inteface with media browsing and playback capability.  Streaming to UPnP DLNA devices is included as well as the ability to stream iTunes.

Not a bad little device if you're looking for a way to expand your media storage options.

 

Read more at SmallNetBuilder (photo from SmallNetBuilder)

BeyondTV Power Command Line Tools

If you’re looking for a little extra “power” for your BeyondTV setup, you might want to check out “BTV Command Line Tools.”

What Does BTV Command Line Tools Do?

• Extract metadata from BeyondTV recordings
• Import Metadata into BeyondTV recordings
• Initiate a streamsnip job (removes unnecessary HD signal data) from the command line without knowing the recordings major and minor channels or even the correct stream information.  In laymans terms, streamsnip removes what you don’t need from the OTA digital recording and this app doesn’t require you to understand how or why.
• Many other command line tools

Requirements: BTV 4.8.1

Read more and get the download at the BTV Command Line Tools Snapstream Forum Thread

Roku Netflix Player – Now Does HD Plus Amazon Unbox Video on Demand

Those Roku Netflix Player naysayers have a few less things to complain about.  The Roku Netflix Player has upgraded to HD Netflix Watch Now (HD titles available) via firmware update.  Roku now has announced that they’ll be offering over 40,000 Movies and TV Shows for VOD rental or purchase from Amazon Unbox.

For me, Netflix Watch Now and Amazon Unbox make a great paring if Amazon Unbox gets it’s HD on soon.  Throw in Hulu or CBS for instance and you have yourself a nice segway between internet video and your television.  My preference would be to put this all under the hood of a single device (read HTPC or the TV itself) but its hard to argue against a box that would bring all of these things to the television for a low price.  Still, as Dave Zatz states Amazon Unbox needs HD – without it its just not as appealing.

 

via ZatzNotFunny and Engadget

Evolution of Windows Media Center From Birth to Windows 7

Microsoft has posted a short video that takes you from their work to get the PC to the living room even before Media Center.  It’s short, but shows the evolution fo the interfaces along the way as well including a quick overview of Windows 7 Media Center.

 

Evolution of Windows Media Center

 

Media Center Timeline

 

• 1997 Microsoft acquires WebTV

• 1998 released WebTV Plus that included a TV tuner and programming guide

• 1998 June - WebTV for Windows built into Windows 98 with support (drivers etc) for TV Tuner Cards in Windows

• 2001 Bill Gates keynote address for the Windows XP Launch showcased version 2 of SnapStream's PC DVR product (predecessor to Beyond TV).  Note this love for Snapstream’s product was likely at the same time Microsoft planned to release their competing product in the very next year!

• 2002 Windows XP Media Center Edition Released

• 2004 Digital Tuner support and hardware extender support (including Xbox)

• 2006 Vista Home Premium includes Vista Media Center

• 2009 Windows 7 includes newest version of Vista Media Center – there will be a few exciting surprises for this one:  Stay tuned for news on that very soon.

 

 

Video discovered via Entertainment 2.0

Snapstream's Rakesh Agrawal Interviewed on FreshDV Podcast

The FreshDV podcast has a good interview of Rakesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of Snapstream Media.   The FreshDV is a good podcast focused on digital video.  In this interview of Agrawal the consumer PVR software, BeyondTV is mentioned, but the focus is on Snapstream Enterprise.  It's worth a listen for anyone interested in Snapstream and especially if you're interested in Snapstream's Enterprise Product.

Listen to the Podcast at FreshDV

TV Premieres: What to Watch 1/4 - 1/10

The holidays are over and the TV networks are back to business.  This week will be a busy one for TV watchers with a bunch of new premieres and returning shows.  You'll note that most of the new premieres are reality tv shows - a very bad but common trend.

Note:  The complete guide to the Winter 2009 TV Premieres with a free, downloadable guide is here

                             Damages
 
Season Premieres For this Week:

• Confession of a Teen Idol - Reality TV
• Superstars of Dance - Reality TV
• Rock of Love with Bret Michaels -Reality TV
• Superstars of Dance - Reality TV
• Secret Life of the American Teenager - Series Premiere
• Homeland Security - New Reality Series
  
• The Bachelor - Season 13 Premiere - Reality TV
• True Beauty - Reality TV Series Premiere
• Nip/Tuck - Season 5 (part 2) Premiere
• 13: Fear is Real - Series Premiere
• Tyler Perry's House of Payne - Season 3 Premiere
• Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns - Series Premiere
• Damages - Season 2 Premiere
• The Real World - Season 21 Premiere - Reality TV

NOTE: Times are EST

Sunday 01/04/2009

America's Funniest Home Videos (7pm on Fox - Available in HD)
Confession of a Teen Idol (8pm on VH1 - Available in HD) New Reality TV Show
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (8pm on ABC - Available in HD)
Superstars of Dance (8pm on NBC - Available in HD) New Reality TV Show
Cold Case (9pm on CBS - Available in HD)
Desperate Housewives (9pm on ABC - Available in HD)
Rock of Love with Bret Michaels (9pm on VH1) - Season 3 Premiere
Brothers and Sisters (10pm on ABC - Available in HD)
The Unit (10pm on CBS - Available in HD)  

 

Monday 01/05/2009

Gossip Girl (8pm on CW – Available in HD)
Secret Life of the American Teenager (8pm on ABC Family) - Series Premiere
The Bachelor (8pm on ABC – Available in HD) - Season 13 Premiere
One Tree Hill (9pm on CW  – Available in HD)
True Beauty (10pm on  ABC – Available in HD) - Another new Reality TV Show Series Premiere

Tuesday 01/06/2009

90210 (8pm on CW – Available in HD)
According to Jim (8pm on ABC – Available in HD)
Homeland Security (8pm on ABC – Available in HD)- New Reality Series produced with the full cooperation of several agencies of the Department of Homeland Security.  So I'm betting this one will be a bit different than the other reality shows.
NCIS (8pm on CBS – Available in HD)
The Biggest Loser: Couples (8pm on NBC – Available in HD)
Privileged (9pm on CW – Available in HD)
Scrubs (9pm on ABC – Available in HD)
The Mentalist (9pm on CBS – Available in HD)
Law & Order: SVU (10pm on NBC – Available in HD)
Nip/Tuck (10pm on FX – Available in HD) - Season 5 (part 2) Premiere
 

Wednesday 01/07/2009

13: Fear is Real (8pm on CW – Available in HD) - Series Premiere
Knight Rider (8pm on NBC – Available in HD) 
Ghost Hunters International (9pm on SciFi – Available in HD)
Tyler Perry's House of Payne (9pm on TBS – Available in HD) - Season 3 Premiere
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (10pm on TBS - Available in HD) - Series Premiere
Damages (10pm on FX – Available in HD) - Season 2 Premiere
Law & Order (10pm on NBC – Available in HD)
The Real World (10pm on MTV) - Season 21 Premiere
   

Thursday 01/08/2009

My Name is Earl (8pm on NBC – Available in HD)
Ugly Betty (8pm on ABC – Available in HD)
Kath & Kim (8:30pm on NBC – Available in HD)
Grey's Anatomy (9pm on ABC – Available in HD)
The Office (9pm on NBC – Available in HD)
30 Rock (9:30pm on NBC – Available in HD)
ER (10pm on NBC – Available in HD)
Private Practice (10pm on ABC – Available in HD)
   

Friday 01/09/2009

Everybody Hates Chris (8pm on CW – Available in HD)
Ghost Whisperer (8pm on CBS – Available in HD)
Howie Do It (8pm on NBC – Available in HD) - Series Premiere
Wife Swap (8pm on ABC – Available in HD)
The Game (8:30pm on CW – Available in HD)
Flashpoint (9pm on CBS – Available in HD) Season 2 Premiere
Monk (9pm on USA – Available in HD) Season 7 (part 2) Premiere
My Big Redneck Wedding (9pm on CMT – Available in HD)
Supernanny (9pm on ABC – Available in HD)
Numb3rs (10pm on CBS – Available in HD)
Psych (10pm on USA – Available in HD) Season 3 (part 2) Premiere
 

Saturday 01/10/2009

No new premieres
 
That’s it for this week.  Stay tuned for many more premieres including 24, The Apprentice, Kyle XY, American Idol, Battlestar Galactica and more which you’ll find on GeekTonic this coming Sunday morning and each week on Sundays.

Deal of the Day: 42” Sharp Aquos LCD HDTV $850

Today’s deal of the day is a Sharp Aquos LC42D65U 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $850 with Free Shipping via Amazon (affiliate)

The Sharp Aquos LC42D65U 42" 1080p LCD HDTV features Static Contrast Ratio: 2000:1, Brightness: 450 cd/m2, Response Time: 6 ms, Contrast Ratio: 10000:1, and Aspect Ratio: 16:9

For more tech gadget deals follow the GeekTonicDeals website with daily tips on the best gadget deals available.

RSS Feed for GeekTonicDeals

JPG Magazine Says Farewell – Get Free Archive Downloads Now

JPG Magazine has been one of the better, and more popular photography magazines out there.  JPG was a 6-times per year mag published by 8020 Media. for the past two years and is closing down in the next few days for good.  All very bad news, but one glimmer of good news is that they’re offering free downloads of their magazine archives for anyone interested.

JPG Magazine focuses on photographers and has a loyal following of over 200,000 photographers who share their photos and stories online, review the others works, and vote for their favorite photos.

Unfortunately, Jpg is shutting down on January 5, 2009 due to financial troubles.  I encourage you to check out some of the free, download  archives (PDF format) – some of the photograph collections are simply awesome.

Nominate GeekTonic for the 2009 Bloggies – I’ll be forever grateful

GeekTonic is still in its infancy and learning the ropes of the blogging world.  As part of our 2009 push to increase exposure to the tech world, I’d love it if some of our readers liked us enough to nominate GeekTonic for the Bloggies.

Here’s the introduction from the 2009 Bloggies Website:

It's time for the 2009 Weblog Awards, the annual non-profit ceremony that celebrates the best in blogging. The Bloggies are the Web's longest-running blog awards, and the nominations, finalist selection, and votes are all up to you, the blog reader. So get your votes in and discover which blogs are this year's champions.

 

I’m not normally one to ask for nominations or votes for that matter, but one of my New Years resolutions is to help new readers find GeekTonic and improve the community by increasing exposure.  The winner of a Bloggie gets me $20.09 and I promise to put that towards a giveaway (yeah it’ll be difficult to find that $20.09 Media Gadget) and better yet, it will be good for GeekTonic and the readers to increase the readership.

When filling out the nominations, make sure you nominate at least three different websites in any of the categories.  I’d go with Engadget or EngadgetHD for Best Computer or Technology Weblog (or even Lifetime Achievement), Wordpress for best web application for weblogs and of course, GeekTonic for Best-Kept Secret Weblog.  Hey, I know it’s a big long-shot, but you gotta try ;)

Thanks for your consideration!  Submit your Nominations for the 2009 Bloggies Here

TV Premieres: What To Watch 01/01 – 01/03

The new year has arrived and many are on their couches watching football.  But starting tonight, the networks are getting back into their TV groove with the new Winter 2009 Television Season.  Several new premieres and returning series begin over the next few days and GeekTonic will keep you up-to-date with all of them.

Beginning this Sunday, GeekTonic will continue this “What To Watch” series detailing the new and returning shows coming up each week.

Note:  The complete guide to the Winter 2009 TV Premieres with a free, downloadable guide is here

                                               Game Show In My Head

NOTE: Times are EST
Thursday 01/01/2009
The First 48 (8pm on A&E Available in HD) Season 8 of this reality/documentary series begins on New Years Day. 

Friday 01/02/2009

Countdown to the Crown (10pm on TLC – Available in HD) This is another realityTV series premiere.  The series follows 52 state title holders as they live together on the Queen Mary luxury ocean liner and face a series of team and individual competitions to help them prepare for the pageant -- and prove they have what it takes to be the next Miss America.  Just really exciting stuff there…

Stargate Atlantis (9pm on SciFi – Available in HD) Stargate Atlantis returns from its Holiday Break to continue season 5.

Saturday 01/03/2009

Cops (8pm on FOX – Available in HD) Season 20 continues with more shirtless guys getting busted.  Did you know this reality show began in 1989!  Wow. Edit: This is a rerun so those of you Cops fans hoping for a new show will have to wait until February.  The good news is, Cops is pretty much the same every time so the reruns will be just like the new ones anyway.  Sorry about that.

Game Show In My Head (8pm on CBS – Available in HD) A new game show based on a similar British show arrives.  This one is a “hidden-camera” game show where contestants perform a series of silly and embarrassing tasks in public as they are instructed to by the host via a concealed earpiece. 

America’s Most Wanted (9pm on FOX – Available in HD) Season 22 returns from Holiday vacation.

 

That’s it for the last few days of this week.  Stay tuned for many more premieres which you’ll find on GeekTonic this coming Sunday morning and each week on Sundays.

GeekTonic Top 10 Media Gadget Predictions for 2009

It’s officially 2009 and time to make my Media Gadget Predictions for the New Year.  I’ve put on my future-seeing hat and gazed into the 3d future monitor to see what’s in store for everyone this year and thought I’d share my top predictions with you.  Predictions include those for Apple, Microsoft, HTPC devices in general and Blu-Ray.

       Photo by “circulating” cc license

Disclaimer:  These predictions are not intended to be used for actual expectations or choosing a company to buy stock from.  It’s entirely possible some of these came from last night’s amateur drinking night ;)  Lots of Tonic in there though so some of them will come true…

1. Blu-Ray becomes the de facto standard as prices of players drop as low as $70 and Blu-Ray Media prices drop to $15 by years end.
2. The first HTPC extender with a Blu-Ray drive arrives (or would that be Blu-Ray drive with HTPC extender) – possibly as soon as CES
3. A Leading for-profit HTPC software company ends new sales of their HTPC software leaving the market to two or at most three viable HTPC software companies and a bunch of free-ware HTPC programs.
4. Two of the freeware HTPC software programs will die and be abandoned.  The free-ware HTPC market will consolidate to two or three major forces (already has begun in 2008.)  I have my thoughts on which of those will die out in 2009, but will leave the names to your imagination…
5. Apple will push the touch-screen platform further by releasing a iPod Touch mini (or nano) as well as a iMac Touch micro computer.
6. Apple re-enters the living room (yeah they’ve basically abandoned it at the moment with the current AppleTV) with a new version of the AppleTV and calls it AppleMedia.  AppleMedia will bring 1080p, more online video and HD-PVR capability becoming a major force in the HTPC world in one fell swoop.
7. Media companies continue the fight to eliminate analog outputs from all devices to remove their fear of the “analog hole”.  They fail in 2009, but make inroads to their goal.
8. TV Networks begin to abandon the old “local TV station” model and push further to online delivery.  Hulu and other online video sites skyrocket in use and profitability as advertisers strive to find the consumer anywhere they can.
9. SageTV announces two new hardware devices.  One is an extender/player, the other is a complete hardware-based Server/Player solution
10. Microsoft cuts the budget for Media Center as HTPC interest wanes.  While Windows 7 is popular with current VMC users, number of consumers using Media Center stays relatively the same as with VMC.  Focus continues to shift towards the custom installers and highest-end customers.

 

Bottom line for HTPC market is this:  Home Theater PC’s as we know it will move even farther into the “enthusiast” demographic.  Software that serves that market will survive the tough economic conditions and competition from open-source and other freeware alternatives.  Those that simply stay the same and don’t evolve will have  a very tough go of it.

May your 2009 be the best ever.  Let me know your predictions, cheers or jeers (of the above predictions) in the comments.  Happy New Year!

PCAlchemy HTPC Store Closes For Good

PCAlchemy has been one of the more popular, HTPC-focused online stores and a great resource for anyone building their own Home Theater PC.

I’ve purchased a HTPC case, tuners and software from them in the past and always had good service from them.  Unfortunately recent financial difficulties have forced them to shut down permanently.  Over the past week or so I’ve heard rumblings of the PCAlchemy store not keeping products in stock etc (read this thread at MissingRemote for an example of that) and today, they posted this notice announcing the closure:

It could be a rough year for many companies – especially those that specialize in a very specialized niche like this.

PCAlchemy Notice