Friday, May 15, 2009

Linksys Discontinuing All Media Extenders DMA 2100 and DMA 2200

DMA 2100 Discontinued

For the past year you could pick up a Linksys DMA 2100 for super cheap prices at various online stores.  So cheap the little MediaCenter extenders have become quite popular. 

Unfortunately it looks like Linksys is finally running out of the devices and officially discontinuing the Media Extender products entirely.

I say "looks like" because I haven't seen anything completely official yet, but after being tipped off on this by this post on the GreenButton Forums, I did a little searching.  What I found is the DMA-2100 is listed as discontinued at the following stores:

  • Linksys Online Store - 2100 discontinued and 2200 discontinued
  • Amazon.com - 2100 only available used and 2200 available for $207.49
  • Newegg - 2100 discontinued and 2200 $139.99
  • Walmart - 2100 discontinued and 2200 $299.98
  • Dell Home - 2100 discontinued and 2200 $199.33

You'll note that the DMA-2200 with an optical drive is still widely available although it costs much more than the 2100 did.  Another concern among the many Linksys DMA 2100 users is whether they will continue to provide firmware updates as needed.  My guess is they won't, but hopefully that won't be a huge issue as it is a pretty mature product.

DMA 2200 Discontinued

These extenders are V2 which means they work with both Vista Media Center and Windows 7 Media Center.  I hope Linksys isn't getting out the market entirely and plan to provide a newer version sometime soon. 

I've put in an e-mail to confirm Linksys's intentions and will report back if/when I hear back.

Update:  I've received a note back from a Linksys Representative who confirmed that Linksys has discontinued all extenders and have no plans to replace them with new models:

"Yes,they are in discontinue status and right now there is no plans to
replace. Sorry"

 

Did I mention I really think extenders are the right way to go for a multi-room HTPC setup?

Deal of the Day - Logitech DiNovo Wireless Keyboard

Logitech diNovo Mini Wireless Keyboard - Midnight Black, Silver

You can get the popular Logitech diNovo Mini Keyboard for $86.99 ($115.99 less 25% off Coupon Code: 7WD7KLJJNSZX44 Expires 5/20).  Shipping is $8.99 or to get free shipping add $14 of additional items

Logitech diNovo Mini Wireless Keyboard - Midnight Black, Silver $86.99 after coupon 7WD7KLJJNSZX44

 

 

found via MissingRemote Forums

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Deal of the Day - 1TB Hard Drive $76 Free Shipping

HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.B 0A38016 1TB SATA II 7200 RPM 16MB Buffer Hard Drive Bulk

If you're looking for some internal hard drive storage for your rig, ZipZoomFly (affiliate) has a great deal on a 1TB SATA II internal hard drive good for the next three days (ends 5/15):

 

HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.B 0A38016 1TB SATA II 7200 RPM 16MB Buffer Hard Drive Bulk $75.99 with FREE SHIPPING!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Hulu's Success and Failures

Hulu is a website often discussed by those who use HTPC software as well as those who just happen to have a laptop and a desire to watch TV programs on their own time.  Every since Hulu tried to stop the Boxee HTPC app from accessing the online TV content, the battle between the content providers and the consumers wanting more flexibility has interested me.

If you're interested in the topic, be sure and check out this article at wired.com:

Hulu, a Victim of It's Own Success?

CableCARD Tuner Hack for DIY Vista and Windows 7 PCs

Over the past week or so there has been a lot of talk about how to install a CableCard tuner into a DIY (Non-OEM) PC for use with Media Center.  Progress on that front came about thanks to a few recent developments:

So now that it's pretty much out in the open, its going to be pretty tough to find an ATI Digital Cable Tuner - especially the external variety.  Still, I expect to see many MediaCenter users to try this out.  There is definitely a risk (I really think it's very likely) that Microsoft will find a way to block this hack so be aware.

For those of you who use other, non-Media Center HTPC programs such as SageTV, BeyondTV or GBPVR this solution still doesn't give you much.  Why? because Microsoft MediaCenter is the only HTPC program with the ability to use CableCard as a tuner (thus far) and the DRM restrictions wrapped up into CableCard make it even less likely we'll ever see it work with the competition.  I'm not saying it isn't possible, but it's pretty unlikely at the moment.

For those of you MediaCenter users, the instructions are very detailed, include lots of good screenshots and information you'll need through the process.  No CableCARD OEM bios is required with the hack because of the PID that was posted - just know that might not last forever.  Read more at EngadgetHD and let me know how it goes if you give it a try.

MediaPortal 1.0.2 Released

MediaPortal, one of the more popular open-source and free HTPC software programs has released the 1.0.2 version to address several bugs that appeared with 1.0.1.

If you're using 1.0.0 or 1.0.1, this is a must-have update as it takes care of many bugs introduced with earlier versions.  Plus its easy to update if you are already using MediaPortal 1.0.0 or 1.0.1 then you can simply use the "update" function to install this release.

TV Engine and TV Server

MediaPortal also announced that this would be the last release for the older, "TV Engine" component as they are now moving completely towards the newer TV Server.

Vista TV Pack and Windows 7.

The MediaPortal team also announced that they are not currently supporting installations of MediaPortal on systems using Vista TV Pack or Windows 7, but they are working on those two setups so that support can hopefully be added in the near future.

 

Read more at the MediaPortal Site

Monday, May 11, 2009

GeekTonic Week in Review May 10

Below is a quick summary of the past week's news and stories on GeekTonic.

Week In Review:

Stay tuned for more in-depth content for Media Gadget Fans at GeekTonic.com.  If you’re in to the Twitter thing, be sure and follow me on twitter under the name GeekTonic.  Thanks for Reading GeekTonic!

XBMC 9.04 Babylon Available

XBMC

 

Last week the XBMC team released the XBMC Media Center 9.04 (codename: Babylon) in its final form. Versions for Apple TV, Mac OS X (Tiger, Leopard. Intel-x86, PowerPC), Windows (XP, Vista), Linux (Ubuntu PPA), Xbox, of this free cross-platform media center software are available and are ready for download.
New features include:
  • PowerPC (PPC) support for Mac OSX
  • NVidia GPU Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding for Linux
  • New Karaoke features
  • More Media Metadata Scrapers
  • Improved Fanart support
  • Enhancements to the XBMC Skinning Framework
via XBMC Blog and the XBMC forums