TV Premieres, Finales & Specials This Week 02/07/2010

February is here and the new month brings us the final season of Lost – the one show we can count on to keep us scratching our head wondering what’s going on all the while we watch week after week.  There’s a few other new premiers and returning shows this week as well so read on.

Don’t miss the Ultimate Guide to the 2010 Winter TV Season Premieres with free downloads by premiere date & by show name!  I’ve updated this guide with some additions and network changes.

 

          New series on Fox, Past Life premieres Thursday

 

Sunday, February 7

Superbowl XLIV (3pm although gametime is closer to 6:30pm on CBS – Available in HD) – Colts versus Saints battle on the 44th Superbowl

Undercover Boss (10pm after Superbowl on CBS) – New realityTV series where CEO’s act as regular workers in their own companies hoping to gain a better appreciation for what their workers deal with daily.  Not in HD.

Bathtastic (9:30pm on DIY) – Season 3

 

Monday, February 8

Antiques Roadshow UK (4pm on BBCA) – Season 32 premiere

Winter Next X (5pm  on Disney XD) – New series

Heroes (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) – The season 4 finale.  Will this be the last ever?  I’m betting yes and I honestly won’t miss it all that much…

Celebrity Fit Club: Boot Camp (9pm on VH1) – Season 7 premiere

NFL Full Contact (10pm on truTV – Available in HD) – New series

 

Tuesday, February 9

Past Life (9pm on Fox – Available in HD) – A preview of the new series premiering Thursday. 

Jay Leno Show (10pm on NBC – Available in HD) – the last ever Jay Leno Show.  For the 10pm timeslot at least as Jay returns to late-night.

 

Wednesday, February 10

Faces of America (8pm on PBS – Available in HD) – A new PBS documentary series.  Henry Louis Gates looks for answers to: “what made America” and “What Makes Us?”

Inside NASCAR (10pm on Showtime) – A new series not in HD.

 

Thursday, February 11

Past Life (9pm on Fox – Available in HD) – A two-hour series premiere episode.  Inspired by the book “The Reincarnationist” – the show is about investigators taking their clients back to their “previous lives” to resolve issues in the present.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villians (8pm on CBS – Available in HD) -  Season 20 of survivor is an All Stars episode starts with a two-hour premiere.  I had about decided to completely stop watching this realityTV series, but will probably see how the all stars episode goes.  Hey, at least it has Rupert…

 

Friday, February 12

Winter Games (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) The first ever all-HD Winter Olympics begins with the opening ceremonies.  You can catch some real Olympic action earlier at 7:30pm when ski-jumping qualifiers begin.

Famous Crime Scene (9pm on VH1) – new series

Friday Night Lights (9pm on DirecTV) – Season 4 finale.  If you don’t have DirecTV you’ll get to see season four beginning April 30th on NBC.

The Haunted (10pm on Animal Planet– Available in HD) – Season 1 finale

Operation Wild (10pm on Planet Green– Available in HD) – Season 1 finale

 

Saturday, February 13

Kick Buttowski – Suburban Daredevil (8:30am on Disney XD– Available in HD) – New series

Survivors (8pm on BBCA) – New series

But I’m Not Wrong (10pm on HBO – Available in HD) – Live comedy special on HBO

 

Sunday, February 14

The Amazing Race (9pm on CBS) – Season 16 of the popular “race around the world” realityTV show.  Still not in HD and off my list of shows to watch.

Celebrity Fit Club (10pm on VH1) – Season 7 premiere - realityTV

The Life & Times of Tim (10:30pm on HBO) – Season 2 premiere

How to Make it in America (11pm on HBO – Available in HD) – New comedy series on HBO

 

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DirecTV Serial/USB Channel Changing for Hauppauge HD-PVR using DVBLink

A few months ago David shared his step-by-step, how to setup the Hauppauge HD-PVR on MediaCenter with DVBLink.  Today he takes that how-to a step further and shows his method for channel changing – read on for all of the details.

NOTE:  This is a guest post by David.  Basic guidelines for writing and submitting your own guest post at GeekTonic can be found here.

 

Many people have trouble setting up serial/usb channel changing using DVBLink, DirecTV and Windows 7 Media Center.  I am going to show you the software, hardware and steps I used to get channel changing that is 99% accurate (sometimes it misses the NFL Sunday Ticket HD sub channels).

Software used

• HDPVR IrBlaster Bridge - This is a drop in replacement for the Hauppauage IR Blaster DLL. It currently supports talking directly to the DirecTV STB via the serial port.
• (Optional) DirecTV Channel Control v1.0- This is a utility that will allow you to change channels and control your external direcTV set top box using the low speed data connection (home control) port in the back of the receiver.  This is only needed for the NFL Sunday Ticket HD

Hardware used

• DB9, F/F, Null Modem Mini Type – monoprice
• 2 USB to Serial Convert Cables (DB9M/USB B female converter and USB A/B cable) – monoprice

Steps to setup

Install HDPVR Ir Blaster Bridge.

Connect the USB to Serial Convert Cables to the DB9 Null Modem and install the drivers.

Setup DVBLink to use the HDPVR IrBlaster Bridge or the custom hooks(Optional).

Optional

NFL Sunday Ticket and some of the other DirecTV sports packages use sub channels for the HD channels (ex. 703-1).  I had to use the following to allow me to be able to correctly change channels to the sub channels.

Download DirecTV Channel Control.  Extract it to a folder, I just put the directv.exe in C:\ to make it easy to find.

Edit the change-channel.cmd file located at C:\Program Files\DVBLogic\DVBLink\Data\HDPVR\Hooks.  My channel-change.cmd code change-channel.

Conclusion

After following the above steps I was able to have 99% accurate channel changes through USB.  It was faster and more reliable than using an IR blaster and it only cost about $18 for the extra cables and adapters.

About the author:  David is an HTPC and Home Theater enthusiast.  He has a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science and is currently working at a Private College in Virginia as a Web Technical Analyst.  He has built a theater in his basement from scratch.  He did 80% of the work himself.  After starting with XBMC on the original Xbox, he moved to an HTPC running SageTV, then now to Windows 7 Media Center.

Read more of David’s HTPC writings on his website

SageTV – True HTPC Support on Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server is a great product that provides users a simple way to centralize all of their files and provide easier ways to back up and restore that data when needed.  But one of the things it would be perfect for is something Microsoft hasn’t offered to MediaCenter users.  Thankfully SageTV has had WHS support for quite a while now and provides a solid, robust solution for serving your media to the TVs in your home via WHS.

Jason Smith is a new blogger on the Home Server Show and has a great writeup on “SageTV on the Windows Home Server”

If you’re a Windows Home Server user, a SageTV user or even a Windows MediaCenter user this is a must read.  Jason is mostly complementary to SageTV, but he’s very fair as this quote from the article proves:

“Obviously SageTV isn’t all sunshine and roses with puppy dogs smiling at happy babies. There are a few issues with Sage that would need to be considered."

I loved that quote.  Be sure and stop over at the HomeServerShow and check out the full article

AVerMedia AVerTV USB HD DVR – Capture Content via Analog Hole

 

A few days ago I hooked up with the fine folks at AVerMedia to learn a little more about their new USB HD DVR device set to compete with the Hauppauge HD-PVR.  This device, like the Hauppauge HD-PVR captures HD content (up to 1080i) via Component Video In and therefore uses the “Analog Hole” to record and tune the content you want from Cable and Satellite.

My interview with AVerMedia was with Stephen Dix, VP of Sales & Marketing and Dominic Wong from engineering.  I’m really glad I had the chance to talk one-on-one with these guys as it gave me good insight into where AVerMedia is in the HTPC market and where they plan to be going forward.  I’ll get into the companies history and future plans with the North American HTPC market in a future post but the basic takeaway from my conversation is that AVerMedia is very serious about HTPC and working towards increasing their presence in the U.S. market.

AverMedia USB HD DVR Ports

There seemed to be some confusion when AVerMedia’s AverTV USB HD DVR was first announced at CES.  Despite several reports that it recorded with a HDMI input this is not the case.  Here’s the inputs and outputs on the device:

Inputs:

• Component Video In
• S/Video In
• Composite Video In (on front)
• Composite Left/Right Audio In
• Power
• USB

Outputs:

• Component Video Out (1080p) pass through
• HDMI Out (for playback directly to TV – not for HTPC)
• Composite Left/Right Audio Out
• IR Blaster

Note two things in those specs above:  First, there is no Optical audio in or Optical audio out.  This is a biggie for some as it means no 5.1 audio.  But if priced right this might not be a huge deal really.  I confirmed with AVerMedia that this first generation of the device will only have stereo audio.

Secondly you’ll note the HDMI output.  At first this seems a strange addition as it doesn’t record from HDMI.  But it will allow you to connect the device to a TV with HDMI inputs.

I confirmed that the device will not ship with a remote control.

Software Support:

• TotalMedia Extreme 2.0 – comes bundled with the device and will be supported at launch
• SageTV – AVerMedia has begun discussions with SageTV on support for the device.  I confirmed with Jeff Kardatzke (CEO of SageTV) of SageTV’s plans.  Kardatzke had this to say “

  “we do plan on working with AverMedia in the future to integrate support for the HD-DVR into SageTV”

 

No word on support for Windows MediaCenter and based on how the Hauppauge HD-PVR device has been shunned by Microsoft, I’d expect the same situation here.  I’m also guessing that 3rd part support could be added for Windows MediaCenter if DVBLink gets it working as they have with the Hauppauge HD-PVR.

Hardware Encoding

Despite reports to the contrary, the AVerMedia AverTV USB HD DVR does hardware encoding just like the Hauppauge HD-PVR does.  Matter of fact the AVerMedia will pack in a very similar chip for hardware encoding to h.264.  AVerMedia tells me the semiconductor in their chip is a little more advanced too – we’ll have to check that in some real-time testing.

Expected Launch Date?

The estimated time of arrival for the AVerMedia AverTV USB HD DVR April 2010 which is a month later than originally announced.

Expected Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price:

The plan to launch with a MSR of $199 which is pretty close to what the Hauppauge HD-PVR is selling for.  I expect this should keep some pressure on Hauppauge to keep their price down and could mean the AVerMedia will sell for discounts at lower prices down the road – great news for HTPC owners!

Other Info

A few other tidbits I learned about the device:

• Will not include a remote control – not a big deal for me since I never use the one that came with my Hauppauge HD-PVR
• The use of more than one of these devices at one time on a single HTPC hasn’t been tested thus far but in theory should work.
• There is no fan inside for cooling.  Overheating is an issue Hauppauge had with their HD-PVR initially so we’ll watch this closely with the AVerMedia.

    

I’m excited about seeing competition for Hauppauge in this space – options are always a good thing.  Hopefully AVerMedia will put out a gen 2 device that supports 5.1 audio as well.

As soon as they are available I’ll have a full review of the AVerMedia AverTV USB HD DVR here at GeekTonic so stay tuned!