TV Premieres, Finales & Specials This Week 03/7/2010

The Oscars tonight and then a few more premieres, returning shows and even some finales this week.  Plenty of basketball for the sports fans as we head towards March Madness too.  Each week GeekTonic covers the TV scene with a complete listing of premieres, finales and specials for the week.

 

   The 82nd Academy Awards is on ABC Sunday night

 

Sunday, March 7

What Would Brian Boitano Make? (noon on Food Network) – Season 2 premiere

Hannah Montana (7:30pm on Disney) – Part one of the finale

Big Love (8pm on HBO – Available in HD) – Season 4 finale

The 82nd Academy Awards (8:30pm on ABC – Available in HD) – I’m not in to awards shows really, but this is one of the big ones and should prove to be interesting.  Honors for achievements in film take place at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles; Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin host.

Breaking Bad (10pm on AMC – Available in HD) – Season 3

 

 

Monday, March 8

Yo Gabba Gabba (10:30am on Nick) – Season 3 premiere

Top Gear (7pm on BBC America) – Season 13 finale

Gossip Girl (9pm on CW – Available in HD) – Returns from winter hiatus

Trauma (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) – NBC’s expensive drama that often was compared to “Emergency” returns from hiatus and life support.  It was rumored to have been cancelled and then revived by NBC.

Turf War (9pm on DIY) – Sneak peek of a new series on DIY

Make it or Break It (9pm on ABC Family) – Season 1 finale

 

Tuesday, March 9

Wild Recon (8pm on Animal Planet – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale

Food Wars (10pm on Travel – Available in HD) - series premiere.  This is a series I’ll be recording just to see some of the dining establishments I’ve been to highlighted on TV.

White Collar (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale.  Another good series on USA.

 

Wednesday, March 10

America’s Next Top Model (8pm on CW ) Season 14 premiere.  Just wondering here, if this is really about the modeling world, shouldn’t it be in HD?

High Society (9:30pm on CW – Available in HD) Series premiere of a new realityTV show that follows New York socialite Tinsley Mortimer and her friends.

First Love, Second Chance (10pm on TV Land) – A new realityTV show on TV Land.  This one reunites folks with their first love.

Psych (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – Season 4 finale

Billy the Exterminator (10:30pm on A&E – Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere

 

Thursday, March 11

Sober House With Dr. Drew (10pm on VH1) – Season 2 premiere

Friday, March 12

Supernanny (9pm on ABC) – Season 6 finale

NUMB3RS 10pm on CBS – Available in HD) – Season 6 finale

 

Saturday, March 13

The Guard (9pm on ION) – New series on ION

 

Sunday, March 14

Sons of Tucson (8:30pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Series premiere for a new fox comedy with Tyler Labine.

Apprentice (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) – Season 9 begins

The Pacific (9pm on HBO – Available in HD) – The highly anticipated WWII miniseries finally arrives on HBO.  Think of this as the “Pacific” version of Band of Brothers.  This is THE reason I subscribed to HBO recently and based on what I saw of “The Making of the Pacific” it shouldn’t disappoint.

If you follow GeekTonic for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click here if you would like to get a regular e-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News

Deal of the Day – Gyration Motion Sensing Remote Control - $30

I came across a heck of a deal on the Gyration Motion Sensing Remote – a 2.4Ghz RF remote that is Windows 7 Media Center compatible.  This thing sells around $90 normally, but TigerDirect (affiliate) has it for $29.99 right now.

Gyration Motion Sensing Remote $29.99

Media Gadget Showcase – GadgetWisdom’s MythTV Rig

It’s time for another installment of the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase Series.  Today the guys from GadgetWisdom are back to share with us their whole-home MythTV HTPC setup which even includes a MAME Arcade Emulator!  The first post from GadgetWisdom about video & MythTV can be found here.

NOTE:  This is a guest post by GadgetWisdom.  To read more about how to submit your photos and/or write-ups for the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase Series, read this.  Basic guidelines for writing and submitting a guest post at GeekTonic can be found here.

Our current HTPC setup runs MythTV. MythTV uses two basic pieces for its  for its system. A backend that records video and a frontend that plays video back. These two pieces can run on the same system. In our case, we've opted to run them separately. Our backend is on 24/7 recording, but we usually shut the frontends down when not in use.

The Backend

Our MythTV backend has gone through a lot of changes over the years. The first iteration was in a yellow server case on wheels. We went through a period of overbuilding, and the yellow version of the case was $17, the other colors were all closer to $100. We probably have a picture of that iteration somewhere, and will post it if it is ever found.

Click Through to See Photos and More Info on this Awesome Setup!

 

A Beautiful Future for SageTV User Interface

When you compare the feature-set of popular multi-OS HTPC software, SageTV to the competition it’s pretty difficult to argue against it on features alone as they have about as much functionality and flexibility of any HTPC solution available today.  But you’ll often hear complaints about the old or underwhelming user interface on SageTV.  We’re beginning to hear and see some information about one of a few new UI projects in the works for SageTV and today the “Project Ortus” team began showing off some of what’s to come for SageTV users.

Project Ortus is a SageTV add-on led by a team of 3rd party developers making a new user-interface add-on for SageTV that includes a brand-new UI.  They are still working on this behind the scenes in an alpha testing phase, but are welcoming curious folks to check out a few screen-shots of their work:

Main Menu

 

Movies Menu

TV Series Menu

TV Guide: What’s On at a Glance

 

As you can see, this new add-on will be offering a very, nice, new look for SageTV.  The public beta is slated to begin in approximately four months (timing could change) from now. 

More Options to Come

Keep in mind, this is only one of a few different projects like this going on for SageTV – and the company SageTV is also working on their own new UI for the next version of SageTV – SageTV 7 as mentioned here at GeekTonic this January.  And even beyond these options, there will continue to be different “skins” to further customize the look of your HTPC setup to your hearts desire.

 

via SageTV forums

Are SSDs ready for HTPCs? Solid State Drives versus Hard Drives

I’ve been toying with the idea of dropping a SSD drive in my HTPC setup for a while, but the price has always held me back.  Andy (known as babgvant on the web) takes a look at using SSD’s verus HD’s in your HTPC.

Excerpt from the article:

Like rocket cars, moon vacations and watchable online video we all know that solid-state drives (SSD) are the future. Of course it will be a long time before any of us can afford to replace that 2TB drive with one, but with prices for smaller SSD finally approaching a reasonable level it makes sense to start thinking about how to fit one into the HTPC (especially a client).

Read more at MissingRemote.com

The Killer Kindle Feature – Price

With the iPad coming soon talk of the tablet/MID device killing off the Kindle (and other eReaders) has been going strong.  I would argue that this talk is premature – especially for those of us who actually still read books on a day-to-day basis.  But even still, I’ll admit the iPad will definitely have an effect on the eReader market in some significant way.  So how will the Kindle survive?  The number one way will be price and that’s a great thing for the reading public.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Digital Daily blog, the ARM chip inside the Kindle devices has a new chip design that could (I repeat, COULD) drive prices of the Kindle’s most popular eReader device down around $150 or even below.  I’ve always said the biggest negative for the Kindle is the high price.  Put the Kindle at $99 or even just above that and you could easily pull in those hard-core readers who couldn’t justify the cost before.  I’d probably even pick up a third Kindle for our family – one for myself if the price dropped that low.

What do you think?  Would a $99 or $149 Kindle be enough to make you buy one?  Or do you need an internet device that also functions as an eReader regardless of price difference?