On Tuesday, we pointed out a review for a fanless power supply from ePower Technologies for those build-your-own PVR users that want a silent monster PC in their living room. Here’s another product review that puts you one step closer, a fanless CPU Heatsink that will support both AMD and P4 CPUs.
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I’m way behind the curve here, but Major League Baseball sells video of each of their games which you can download for $3.95 a pop. You can also download the radio broadcast for $.99. And if that isn’t enough, you can also create your own human highlight reel, downloading “minivision clips” of video for $.99 each. I’m sure there are a few Boston fans who want to re-live the Bill Buckner incident over and over again.
It’s a nice forward-thinking service for baseball fanatics. I hope HBO takes a clue and does the same thing for all the Soprano fanatics, like myself, out there.
It’s only a matter of time before someone comes up with MythBaseball as a plugin.
(HatTip: LostRemote)
The Tivo/Netflix partnership is one step closer to reality, with this article announcing that Warner Bros. will conduct a trial run to test the Netflix Video On Demand system.
To make the Tivo/Netflix service profitable, the service needs to offer enough movie titles to make it worth it for subscribers. Having Warner Bros. on board, even if it’s not finalized, adds credibility that they can get the licenses they need to make it a success.
(Hat Tip: Engadget)
Tom’s hardware has a head to head review of two products that will allow you to stream music directly from your PC to your stereo. If you don’t want to turn your television on and live without video streaming, these two options look pretty compelling.
The Squeezebox unit has an two line character display on the receiver, giving you the necessary feedback to setup and play music. The Creative unit has an LCD directly on the remote control.
Like all TomsHardware reviews, it goes into a lot of detail on each product and based on your willingness to part with cash vs. features, you can draw your own conclusion on which one is a better fit.
Although lacking in details, this Washington Post article compares several HDTV Recording devices on the market. Some highlights:
- Comcast’s DVR has a clumsy interface, ads in their programming grid, and some quality issues.
- DirecTV’s HR10-250 built with Tivo has a better interface but cost more. They also complained that it was a little sluggish with noticeable pauses.
- Dish Player-DVR 921 doesn’t have the features of Tivo but has picture in picture while in the programming grid and a superior advertising fast forward.
The articly also mentioned the JVC HM-DH5U Digital VHS recorder which will record normal television or HDTV. This suffers the same VHS vs Tivo disadvantages, the tapes sound price ($15 - $25), and it doesn’t work with most set top boxes.
Via TVTechnology.com, I found this press release on a new technology being offered by startup Kasenna of Mountain View, CA. Instead of putting a PVR in your living room, these guys have a technology that would reside at a broadband service provider or hopsitality chain.
The company would basically centralize the PVR technology at a operation center and allow end users the ability to download recorded shows on demand. I guess that means a business hotel could offer you a way of watching a recorded episode of Sopranos, as well as movies on demand.
For all you do-it-yourself PVR users, one of the holy grails is having a completely silent PC. One way to do it is using a low power motherboard and CPU like the VIA EPIA products. Using that approach requires you to sacrifice some CPU power for the sake of silence.
For those unwilling to sacrifice, HTPCNews has a review of a new “fanless” powersupply from ePower Technologies. The fanless is bit of a misnomer since there is a fan on the EPower Lion, but it won’t kick in unless the power usage goes above 250W, which rarely happens for most users. For those that want a silent monster machine in their living room, you could be one step closer with one of these.
Engadget points out a new wearable entertainment center that simulates watching a 30″ inch television. I can think of all kinds of uses for it including the perfect way to get through a very bad blind date.
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BYOPVR spotted the Tivo Series 2 for $50 at Circuit City (after rebate).
Slap on a lifetime subscription for $299 and the economics are hard to beat even compared to open source options like MythTV. For $349 it’s hard to build a computer with a capture card to compete with Tivo.
According to PCMagazine, General Motors will be putting a PVR in some models as an option. The system will include a mobile hard drive that you can shuttle between your home and car.
An interesting bit from the article said that satellite radio company Sirius (ed. note to readers, this website may be the most garish I’ve seen in some time)will broadcasting video to cars starting in 2006. Perhaps before then, they’ll cut their seemingly enormous budget on flash animation.