Latest Entries »

Where has the fun gone?

Filed Under: Media Center by madtigger — Leave a comment
May 6, 2012

So it’s been another year, time flies. The world for me has become faster but with less substance I feel. Last year was a profiliration of new tablets Ipad 2, Ipad 3 Galaxy Tab 2.0 etc etc..

Is it just me or does all this start feeling like bad sequels there is no more exciting things going on the tech space. Everything is easy and nothing is a challenge any more it seems companies like Apple and Microsoft are making things so simple that we don’t even  have to think.

So anyway the year was full of refinements of my existing solutions, my media center has been stable now for 12 months, I have included Recorded TV HD (latest version) in replacing my recorded tv tab which works really well (worth the money) http://www.recordedtvhd.com/

I also made the switch to 1xHD PVR and SD PVR’s so I now can record 3 channels at once using a Hauppauge Colossus, 2xPVR 150′s. The HD PVR through DVBLogic into Media Center and the SD PVR with some minor registry tweaks to get IR Blasting working through normal tuner setup. IF anyone is looking for these tweaks or the HD PVR IR blasting code for DVBLogic MCEBlaster please let me know.

On hardware this year the biggest thing I added to my home kit is a new Dell U2711 (In my opinion it’s great but not worth the R3000 premium over a Samsung 27″. I bought a Samsung Slate 7 to test Windows 8 which works well but the iPad is just more usable. I aso added Bose Companion 2.0 to my desktop set-up which I would happily recommend any day of the week they are awesome speakers for your desktop.

I have also played around with an AR Drone, don’t bother it’s a toy, and invested in some polar sports watches which translated in my wife loosing 6 Kg’s in 4 weeks. Best purchase I have ever made, for anyone that is interested we bought a pair of Polar FT60′s for someone looking to get into exersize these really are great companions. My advice buy from Amazon and use www.myus.com to import them. You will save yourself R1500

I think that’s pretty much the summary for last year, anyone out there that is struggeling with their MCE setup buzz me on andrew@mediasmart.co.za

Cheers for now…….

 

 

Tags: , , ,
Comment

MCE HD

Filed Under: Media Center by madtigger — 4 Comments
May 24, 2011

So I have not been online posting for a while now, and today I found myself with some free time to discuss interesting changes to my MCE setup.  I have sold my Hauppaug HD PVR and in turn bought a Hauppauge Colossus which is essentially the internal PCI-X version of the HD PVR. I must admit my experience has been quite positive. I still use DVBLink and www.1geek1tool.com have built the adapters to support the new Colossus and the stability is really very good. I don’t think I have seen a crash except when the trial license expired. I have also purchased the DVBLink Network Pack and very surprised on easy and painless that works for streaming my TV content around the house.  Unfortunately I have only gotten it to work on my iPAD, so other devices are still TV-less.

My setup is not perfect yet, I have 2xMCE 150 TV tuners and the Colossus with 1 TV tuner and the Colossus competing for the DSTV HDPVR’s attention, I need to swap my second decoder (little 1110)  for a SDPVR (for 2 SD channels) and then dedicate the HDPVR to the Colossus, so if anyone has a spare SDPVR please let me know.

I have also added a second MCE PC to my home, this build included some scrap parts I had lying around, old 400W power supply, a E2200 CPU and MB, 2GIG’s of RAM and 300GB HD. I bought a Lian-Li HTPC Case C37 and a ATI 5450 for some decent graphics. I installed the network pack client and I could watch every HD channel captured through the Colossus and DVBlogic in perfect HD (720p) resolution. This is quite a big deal as everyone inthe MCE community always wanted a Software Media Center Extender and I think DVBLogic have delivered just that.

So I will try and add more post over the coming weeks, Some of my planned thought are:

1. How to get Airplay and Media Center working for Video and Audio (small pet project I have).

2. And how I got complete wireless sync working from both our cars with ipod touch’s. This allows you to pull your car with an ipod kit into the garage go to your pc and wireless sync new content to the car without taking the device out of the cubby (I know I am lazy :-)  )

Until next time.

 

 

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comment

Windows Phone 7

Filed Under: Gadgets by madtigger — Leave a comment
November 28, 2010

I have been lucky enough to get my hands on a Windows Phone 7 device over the last week. My first impressions are quite positive. The phone UI is quite different from my iPhone 4 and it takes some getting used to but I think like it. The UI feels very dynamic and integrated and almost like a leap forward compared to iOS 4.2. The Facebook integration is very nice, in the people hub  you have the ability to associate (link) all your outlook, windows live and Facebook contacts together. This allows you one view of your friends and family which is probably the best feature in the phone. The home page is quite good with some dynamic content being shown, like faces of people on the people hub, your next calendar entry on the calendar tile etc.  But what seems to be missing is other apps don’t mimic this behaviour, you would expect twitter and Facebook to-do the same but they don’t.  There tiles are all very static but maybe that will change over time. The Zune interface is of course very good and similar to my Zune HD, I like the fact that I can drag and drop my media center recording to the phone without conversion. The outlook works as you would expect, it’s not better or worse than the iPhone. One thing I do miss is the scrolling through contacts on the iPhone, on Windows Phone you need to press # select the correct letter to search for, which probably is ok but you need to get used to it.

The games are pretty impressive as well, it seems they are of a higher quality than the games available on iOS, I was playing Harvest last night and was really impressed. Overall I think it’s really a good 1.0 release. But I must admit everything is very similar to Android and iOS, you get a phone you get apps and you get an awesome media player. So did Microsoft do enough to compete? I think so, will people migrate from iOS to Windows Phone, probably not Smile.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

Drive Extender Gone?

Filed Under: Home Server by madtigger — Leave a comment
November 24, 2010

So one of the features that you get with Windows HomeServer V1 is called drive extender. It’s essentially the little bit of technology that abstracts us normal users from the complexity of adding drives to the home server, duplicating files and managing shares. Now it seems that Microsoft has either buckled under pressure from suppliers or they are positively smoking something, but as of today they have decided to remove the technology in the upcoming version called Vail. The beta which is out now still has it built in, but according to a facebook post they will be replacing this with normal standard raid configurations in conjunction with with hardware partners. Hmmmmmm sounds fishy, now you wont be able to to use cheap dual core atom boards in your HomeServer without buying an expensive raid controller. Anyway if you feel strongly about supporting the cause to bring DE back then join the facebook group and post your comments.

Tags: , , , ,
Comment

What I use November 2010 Update

Filed Under: Uncategorized by madtigger — Leave a comment
November 6, 2010

I always find it interesting what people use technology wise in their homes. So I have decided to post a what I use and will try and keep it updated.

Lets start at the easy stuff:

Desktop PC: Custom Built Core i5, 4GB Memory, 1TB HD, 64GB Corsair SSD (285mbs read/ 275mbs write), Samsung T260 Screen (25.5″) powered by CrossFire 4870, Logitech Comfort Keyboard and Microsoft Sidewinder X8 Mouse.  This I use for all forms of gaming in the home including Starcraft 2 and Call of Duty Series mostly and sometimes Civ 5

Laptops: I have a late 2010 Macbook Air and HP 2510 work laptop,

Consoles: I have a Xbox 360 (Very early) which is in my study (4 years and no RROD shows how much I use it :-) ). I dont really game on it but use if for streaming and as a Windows Media Center Extender.

Servers: I have 2 Home Servers at the moment, 1st one is a HP Mediasmart EX485 and is the production workhorse of the home and stores all photos, music and videos. I use custom Softvault Online backup software that backups my Photos to Amazon S3. I also have a new test Vail box that I am using to test Windows Homeserver Vail. This is a custom built Chenbro ES 34069 chassis with a E2200 CPU and 1GB’s of Ram. I also have my house wired up with X10 controller and use the mControl Software addin for Windows Homeserver to control my home automation.

Phones: I use the iPhone 4 which I am not to keen on and would caution anybody that has a 3GS to upgrade. I would rather wait for the iPhone 5.

Music Players: I have a Zune HD and a 2nd Generation Ipod Touch. Both of these I have US accounts to allow access to their music services they provide. Microsoft has a Zune Pass subscription which allows unlimited music downloading for only $15 a month + you get 10 free songs every month.

E-Readers: I have a Barnes and Noble Nook (1st Generation). This is a good device but the international support is non existent you can only really buy books if you vpn to the US and get a local IP. Which is more trouble than it’s worth. I would buy the Amazon Kindle if I had to choose again. The color touchscreen on the nook made it really attractive but I think the overall experience with the Kindle will be much better in South Africa.

 Tablets: I had an IPAD this year as well as a JooJoo which was upgraded to 16GB flash storage and 2GB ram but both of these have since been sold as the form factor didn’t really work for me.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Softvault Launched www.softvault.co.za

Filed Under: Home Server by madtigger — Leave a comment
November 6, 2010

Tags: ,
Comment

All Tablets Gone

Filed Under: Gadgets by madtigger — Leave a comment
November 6, 2010

So after some months I have decided to sell the JooJoo. After spending some time upgrading the SSD to 16GB and the ram to 2GB and installing software such as Zune, Touch Pack, IE9 and frontface (touch explorer replacement) it was probably one of the better windows tablets out there. The JooJoo is the only tablet that actually has an ION GPU onboard which allows for decent 3D performance, all the other tablets use the broadcom crystal chip to play 1080p video. But alas the form factor failed me, so now I have no tablets in the home. So I was quite interested when the new Macbook air launched in 11″ guise, this promised the ultimate combination of Tablet things I like, including long standby decent battery life and good form factor. But also it had the one thing that you cant live without a keyboard :-) . 


  
So after selling my White Macbook early 2010 model with all the tablets, I reinvested my budget into the 11″ Air 64GB with 2GB ram and 1.4Ghz core2duo and after a couple of hours of use I think I have struck gold. The Air is really ligtht easy to move around and works well as a coach surfer. But it also easily fits in the workplace or more heavy use if required. Also with the app store coming to OS X, I can now also play angry birds which I think is the ultimate combination. But only time will tell ;-)

Tags: , , , ,
Comment

Welcome JooJoo

Filed Under: Gadgets by madtigger — Leave a comment
August 28, 2010

So the last post for August is on my new tablet (ok it’s not here yet but coming soon). I didn’t like the IPAD for reasons mentioned previously so I went hunting for alternatives to explore if I really disliked the tablet form factor or really just the IPAD. So after reviewing all the Android tablets and all the other possible solutions (there currently really isn’t any) the only one that came close from a hardware point of view was a product called the JooJoo www.thejoojoo.com (funny name I know) . The hardware is really standard, 12″ (yes that’s a big tablet) capacitive touch screen based on the Intel Atom with 1gb DDR2 and the Nvidia ION graphics GPU. It has 4GB of storage based on mSATA and a usb port. The company who sells it is called Fusion Garage  and they have built a custom Linux distro to use as the operating system. Now to be frank the reviews weren’t positive, actually to be honest they were shocking but in every single review they mentioned how potentially good the hardware is, and then how terrible the software makes it look. So I started investigating if people were running other Os’s like Windows 7 Embedded etc.. and found that guys were doing all sorts of crazy things. Head on over to the www.thejoojooforum.comfor more info on all the options but trust me you can pretty much run anything. So I closed my eyes and went for it. To my surprise a major update was released for it yesterday that actually fixed so many things that people are getting quite excited again about this device. Maybe ill even be able to run the stock operating system but again only time will tell. Ill be updating with my comments later in the year on how useful this device is but for now im quite excited for it to land in SA.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comment

Thoughts on the Nook

Filed Under: Gadgets by madtigger — Leave a comment
August 28, 2010

So maybe a quick review on the Nook that I bought with the IPAD (I still have it :-) ), I must admit the technology behind the e-ink display is really very good and it makes it really easy on the eyes. The problem that I seem to have with the nook is that the battery runs dead within 4 days on standby, so every time I want to use it, it’s not charged. I have in 3 months only read 1 book on it and I have subscribedto PC magazine in the US which I really like($2 subscription I think).

I found when I was on vacation I didn’t want to take it to the beach with me and get sand all over it, so it was pretty useless lying in the hotel room. (This might only be my problem :-) ) and for some reason the side forward button is at the bottom and the back is on the top which doesn’t feel right I think it should be the other way around. They have updated the software (based on Android) to version 1.4 which includes games (chess and sudoku which are fun) and a web browser (which you will never use) and they have promised a big update  in the near future. So all in all not  really sure about this device, maybe the kindle is better? but I don’t think books have anything to worry about in the near future.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

Media Center HD Update

Filed Under: Media Center by madtigger — 4 Comments
August 27, 2010

Ok so while I am writing posts I should probably give an update on the stance of HD in Windows 7 Media Center. So in the past 2 months hauppauge have started to release native drivers for the HDPVR to support Windows Media Center and they have gone through a couple of beta’s with the latest being released on the 21st of July. You can get the drivers from http://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_hdpvr.html under the windows media center section. They have also updated the driver version to v1.5.7.0 and this has made a huge difference in the stability of the product. 1geek1tool have also been hard at work and updated there software to Version 2 of the DVBLOGIC stack with BETA 3 for the HDPVR being released a while back. So with all this change I decided to pull the HDPVR out of the cupboard and give it another go and used the native driver on a separate PC with a camera connected to it. The PC ran for 2 weeks with perfect stability. The problem unfortunately was that I could not get the HDPVR to learn the PACE IR codes to change channels. (The DVBLOGIC Software has another solution for IR Blasting using the MCE blaster built in). So I moved to the HDPVR back down to our production MCE Box with the latest version (Beta 3) of HDPVR DVBLOGIC  and connected it all up. So the report after a month is that it is now a lot more stable than it was. Unfortunately it is still not 100% to the point where I can trust it to record my wife’s series. But I must admit it works pretty much 80-90% of the time for watching HD channels which is good enough at the moment. The latest native Hauppauge driver also added the possibility of calling an external IR blaster application so I could go back to the native driver and see if I can squeese the last 10% of stability out of the solution but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  So overall I think this is still the best possible solution, but again it is probably not worth the effort and money if it isn’t a passion or a hobby for you.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment