The WhiningDog.net has a review of Microsoft’s MCE Extender for XBox, a cheap way to extend a MCE DVR to another television if you already own an XBox. If you don’t, it might be a good back door way of convincing your significant other that an XBox is needed.
Sounds like a good product except for two things I find disappointing:
- You need to have the software CD inserted in the XBox to run the software, making it a hassle to flip between watching television and watching a DVD on the XBox
- There is no support for XVID/DIVX, which unfortunately, is the format of choice for most of my video library given it’s smaller footprint
That being said, it’s not a bad product for $80, including a remote control with a stylish, big green button in the middle of it.
(Hat tip: HTPCNews.com)
Competition is a great thing for consumers and good example of this is the battle being waged in the video capture card market. Both Hauppauge and AverMedia have released sub-$100 MPEG2 Encoder cards to the market this year, and at a $70 street price, the Hauppauge 150MCE and the AverMedia UltraTV 1500MCE both give the consumer a lot of bang for their buck. I had a chance to try the AverMedia UltraTV 1500MCE, and I found it to be a great value.
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Few products have given me as much emotional satisfaction as XPlite from the Australian company LitePC.com. It’s an absolutely brilliant application that makes deleting unnecessary system components easy to remove. Just the progress dialog alone featuring two gears grinding up system icons is enough to pay for this product.
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In a previous review, we looked at SnapStream’s BeyondTV 3.5 and found out how easy it was to setup a multi-tuner server. BeyondTV 3.5 Link, software which can be installed on another PC to control and view BeyondTV, turned out to be just as easy to setup and use.
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PCWorld has a short review of the Humax DRT800 DVD Recorder with Tivo Service. They liked the unit but thought they should have added some simple editing tools so that users could remove commercials from recorded shows or home videos (which you can transfer to the unit via firewire).
Additional Info:
TVHarmony Product Tracker: DRT800
Build Your Own PVR.com has a good review of the Plextor ConvertX USB2.0 capture card with built-in Divx Encoding. Add it to the list of positive reviews that for this easy to setup, MPEG4 encoder hardware.
HTPCNews.com has a nice review of the Plextor ConvertX product with SageTV. HTPCNews has some good screen comparisions between MPEG4 encoding, MPEG2 encoding, and the Hauppauge 250 encoding. Here’s their final pro/con list:
Pros
- Hardware DivX encoding!!
- USB 2.0 so it doesn’t use a precious PCI slot.
- Works with SageTV and soon BeyondTV (from what we’ve heard).
Cons
- Software bundle that is really not useful for HTPCs.
- Needs some tweaking to get the input to the quality level of a PVR-250.
- Where’s MCE support (even if only in MPEG2 mode)?
I’m really impressed with the Plextor guys. I took notice when they came out with the original killer hardware specs including MPEG4 encoding and USB2 interface, but they’ve taken it one step farther by doing a couple great partnerships with SageTV on Windows and EyeTV on Macintosh. It’s a combination that is hard to beat.
Additional Info:
TVHarmony Product Tracker: Plextor
There have been several good reviews on SnapStream’s BeyondTV 3.5 product over at Build Your Own PVR.
It’s been a BeyondTV Review frenzy lately, and here’s the links to the latest:
GotApex.com has posted a review of the Plextor ConvertX PVR. They seemed happy with the product, only knocking it for its high price. Here’s the money quote:
“Make it $129 bucks, or heck, 100 as long as I’m wishing, and you got a perfect score. As it is, 8.5 of 10.”
Additional Info:
TVHarmony Product Tracker: Plextor PX-TV402U
(Hat tip: Design Technica)
Wired has a short review of the new Plextor ConvertX for the Mac. They tested the product on an older Mac below the minimum specifications but still thought it was a handy tool for Mac users.
Additional Info:
TVHarmony Product Tracker: Plextor PX-TV402U
