PVRblog

The Linksys Wireless-B Media Adapter

Linksys' Wireless-B Media Adapter adapter seems to do everything TiVo's Home Media Option does.

It's not too expensive (Amazon is selling it for $169), though the amazon reviews point out the installation is a bit flakey and it doesn't say anything about video streaming support. [via jrobb]

VentureBlog: TruckWidth

A great post over at VentureBlog covers the cable industry, Video on Demand, and how services like Netflix and TiVo have sprung up to route around the faltering cable companies.

The post also mentions the bandwidth of a DVD in a postal truck, which is something the CEO touched on in this Wired interview: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes"

myHTPC: Home Theater PC frontend

myHTPC looks like a free clone of the Windows Media Center XP interface, available for free personal use. It's a generic front-end to PC apps and allows for mouse, keyboard, and/or remote input.

I'm downloading it and giving it a spin this week, I'm hoping it's fully customizable and I can run winamp and snapstream through it. [via Anil].

Tivo's Home Media Option Review

One of the key things I was looking forward to when I upgraded to a Series 2 TiVo was the opportunity to try out their new Home Media Option (HMO). The $99 optional package consists of several features that exploit a home network and let you connect to other TiVos and other computers. After setup and signing up, you can play music and look at photos on your TV, schedule recordings online through a web interface, and transfer recordings to other Series 2 TiVos in your house.

What follows is my full review of HMO after testing it out for the past month.

Neighbor sharing in HMO

This post over at the TiVo Community boards contains one of the more interesting anecdotes about the Home Media Option. Apparently thanks to Apple Rendezvous and open wireless networks, it's possible to share your music and photo collection with your neighbors, even if you never authorized their DVRs. The strange bit is how the person feels weird about it, as if it is illegal or unethical.

TiVo Home Media Option for $59

TiVo's Home Media Option is currently on sale for $59 (a full review of the HMO to will be posted tomorrow)

JD Power and Associates TV study

JD Power and Associates recently released their 2002 Cable/Satellite TV Customer Satisfaction Study results, with the two satellite companies clearly ahead of the pack. I've been a customer of MediaOne, Comcast, and DirecTV, and although I would say I was overall most happy with the DirecTV service itself (it had the best picture, best sound, and best reliability), I used to get phone spammed constantly by DirecTV when I was a customer. I swear I had weekly calls reminding me that pay-per-view and HBO existed, as if I didn't already know (and use both). [via mmmBlog]

Media Center XP hacking

The Green Button is the Media Center XP equivalent of the TiVo community. They offer user-to-user forums complete with helpful tips like how to convert the Media Center video files to mpeg.

TypePad launch

TypePad, the blogging and hosting service this site is running on has recently gone live and is offering 30 day demos of the application and reasonable rates. This site is using the Pro account, which includes all sorts of great features like the photo albums. Typepad is the easiest blogging system I've used and that's an accomplishment considering all the power-user features hidden within.

While I'm mentioning blogging instead of PVRs, I might as well mention the hilarious parody of this site by none other than internet superstar Ben Brown, who launched the ACblog last week.

Guide to Series 1 video extraction

Michael over at Cruftbox has a great little peek at what his hacked Series 1 box looks like running TyStudio to extract movie files and convert to mpeg for storage or DVD backup. Although this is currently impossible to do on series 2 boxes, it's nice to know that hacking scripts have grown into user-friendly packages on the older devices.