Author Archive

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Vista Media Center gets a chance

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

For the past week I’ve been going back and forth about trying to use Vista Media Center to replace my two TiVos and today I finally decided to take the plunge. After spending some time with my friend Dave’s setup today, it really just came down to price. With all the deals Dell runs, I didn’t want to pay too much. With Apple it’s easy, no one gets a deal; but with Dell, you have to be more careful. In the end it was a combination of a $400 off deal via Fatwallet.com and no interest for 12 month — you know I’m a sucker for those. The only downside is I had to buy a 22-inch display with it, so you can look for it on eBay in a few weeks.

As for the specs — I’m waiting on the Blu-ray player and the extender until I’m sure it’ll be a good replacement for my wife and I, but I’m getting started with a Quad-Core 2.4Ghz, 3GBs of Ram, 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD3650 256MB GDDR4, and a single ATI CableCARD tuner. Ohh and free 2nd day air shipping, but who knows when it’ll actually ship.

All said and done, it’ll cost me $1200 to my door with tax. So after I sell both my TiVos, it’s $400 out of pocket. Of course I’ll only need one CableCARD from FiOS and no more TiVo tax, but even with the $24 a month savings, it’ll take me about 17 months to break even.

Posted in HDTV, Media Center | 7 Comments »

Is it time to trade in my TiVos for a Vista Media Center?

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

I’ve been a TiVo users since the first TiVo HD for DirecTV was released — used ReplayTV with commercial advance before that. But lately I’ve been seriously considering selling my three HD TiVos (2 Series3s, and one TiVo HD — thanks Steve!) and buying a Dell XPS 420 with a single CableCARD tuner. Then I’d add my HDHomeRun, as two additional OTA HD tuners for a total of 3 tuners. Add a Media Center Extender for my other TV and a Blu-ray player with WinDVD 9 and I’d have a really nice setup.

My main motivation is to converge all my media on to one box. I can have all my HD, TV shows, my Blu-ray movies, and stuff I download all accessible from the same UI — for me I find that I’m less likely to consume media if I have to switch inputs, so if it’s not on my TiVo it doesn’t get watched. Add to this the new DirecTV HDPC-20, and I’d have a really sweet system. Plus, this would save me from buying a new AV/R as I’d have access to TrueHD and DTS-HD content via analog outputs, thanks to the latest WinDVD 9 update.

The problem of course is the price. If I sell all three of my TiVo’s and my BD-P1000 I’ll get about $1200. A Dell XPS 420 with a CableCARD tuner, is $1300 — assuming I can’t find a better deal. Plus, I’ll need a at least one extender for $300 and a Blu-ray drive at $130. This makes my grand total at $1730, minus my eBayed items, leaves me at $530 out of pocket.

If given a choice, I’d just wait on the CableCARD tuner, as I don’t really need it until football season kicks off — damn ESPN and the NFL Network. But according to a Dell XPS rep, it can’t be added later.

Of course the lack of TiVo tax is a factor, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it. I’m not sure Vista Media Center is ready to replace my TiVos.

Posted in HDTV, Media Center, Personal, TiVo | 16 Comments »

Thanks for the TiVo referral Devron!

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

I’d really like to send a thanks to my friend Devron for sending me a TiVo referral! I love TiVo, and I’m glad I’m more successful at being a TiVo evangelist than I am at being an Apple evangelist.

Thanks!

Posted in TiVo | 1 Comment »

Who knew there were provider fanboys?

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

The fanboy phenomenon is really interested, just think about people who attach to a corporation and defend it online despite all logic, it really is like a religion. We dealt with them on EHD all the time during the format war, and I’m sure Joystiq can tell you some stories about about game console fanboys — the PS3 fanboys have come after me a few times and all I can say is wow. But who’d a thought there were provider fanboys.

Yesterday I saw a post on a forum — I won’t say which, ’cause I know they wouldn’t want to be associated with the poster — where a DirecTV fanboy was taking great pleasure in taunting Dish Network subscribers because of Dish’s failed satellite launch the other day. It’s hard to believe he has anything to personally gain from Dish’s failure, but even then, the language he used was as bad or worse then I ever saw used on EHD, and definitely one we would’ve deleted without hesitation. Despite this loser’s comments, I still hope the best for DirecTV’s launch tomorrow.

Posted in HDTV | 1 Comment »

My fav EHD comments 2: “Blu-ray is DVD”

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

In the second edition of my fav EHD comments we have a really smart guy who decides to correct me.

Here’s Andy Sullivan in response to my Why Blu-ray will be the next DVD post.

First of all, blu-ray is not competing with DVD. Blu-ray is DVD. It is competing with SD DVD. And unless it can come very close in price for players and movies then too many consumers won’t even pay attention to it.

I really hope you’re joking Andy, as the two aren’t anywhere near the same thing. I’ll give you that they both contain movies and are the same size, but that’s pretty much were the similarities end.

We do agree on the price part, though.

Posted in Engadget, HDTV | Comments Closed

Buying a MBA with a Juniper card paid off

Friday, February 29th, 2008

MBA_iTunes_gift.jpg

I’m a sucker for no interest deals, so bad that sometimes I’m tempted to buy things I don’t even want just so I can shaft some bank out of its money. There’s nothing better than not paying the item off until the very last moment knowing that the bank’s plan has failed, and I enjoyed something on a big corporate bank’s dime for some period of time — so far I’ve yet to pay a cent of interest *knocks on plastic*. So when I bought my MBA I decided to take advantage of the 90 days no interest deal offered to new Juniper Visa Card with iTunes rewards customers. So today when I opened my mailbox I had three card sized envelopes from Juniper and each contained a $25 iTunes gift card. So not only have I not paid for the laptop I’m typing on right now yet, but I have $75 to spend at iTunes. The problem of course is that I generally don’t spend money at the iTunes store and the last time someone gave me a iTunes gift card for $50 (Thanks Stuart) it took me about a year to actually spend it. But I hear you can sell or trade these things nowadays.

Posted in Apple, Personal | 2 Comments »

Bjdraw.com is finally respectable

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

bjdraw.com.png

When I started Bjdraw.com just over a year ago, I was excited about the Apple TV and I wanted a place to talk about it — beyond its HD abilities. At the time I wasn’t sure I’d stick with it, so I didn’t want to waste time on hosts and themes, in case it turned out the first bjdraw.com. Well, recently a friend asked me to help him start a blog — more on that later — and in the process I figured why not upgrade my own blog and make it respectable.

So I’m very proud to announce the relaunch of Bjdraw.com. And starting now, I’m no longer on WordPress.com — very big pain btw — I’m not using the default theme anymore, and I’ve changed the tagline. Thanks Dave. What isn’t going to change is the quality of the content — or lack there of. But it’s not all good, as I’ve added a few ads from Google and I plan to add a few from Amazon, as I have to find some way to offset hosting fees.

Posted in Personal | 3 Comments »

I’m a failure as a Mac evangelist

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

VGN-CR290.png

Ever since I bought my first Mac, I’ve shared my love and I’m not sure if it’s me or those around me, but I’ve only been able to get a few people to switch, but the biggest failure hit me today. I’ve worked on getting my wife to use a Mac for almost four years now, and I just can’t break her. I even try to strong arm her — yes, I feel guilty about it — but it didn’t work either. I thought it was OS X — cause like many Windows users, no matter how much better something is, if it’s different it’s a barrier — so I even offered to install Windows XP on it. So today I gave up, and against my better judgement I helped her pick out a pink Sony Vaio. I know Jeremy, I know.

The reason is the funny part — although she loves pink gadgets, I’m sure I could’ve convinced her to send it off to Colorware. No, the problem was one that can’t be fixed, and honestly I completely understand. The problem is there’s no right click button on MacBooks. Yeah, she knows you can can control click, or tap with two fingers or rest two fingers while clicking, she doesn’t care. She likes to click on the buttons and she there’s no way to add it.

So how ’bout it Steve? You lost this one and you know it, why else would you’ve include the right click on the Mighty Mouse and all the MacBook shortcuts, so give in already and add the button? Like we all need a three inch click button or something.

Posted in Apple, HDTV | 10 Comments »

The HD industry is just getting started

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Now that the format war is over, I’ve had a few people ask or make suggestions about the future of Engadget HD. I’m not sure if they were just making fun or if they really think our site was only about the format war. Sure, we covered the format war a lot, but it was never our identity — but HD movies is a big part of it. All the writers of Engadget HD do it because we love it and while the format war was fun, it was never the reason we got into HD.

Chris Tribbey was working on a piece that was published in this weeks Home Media Magazine and asked me this very question and although he chose to quote me in his most recent article about the format war, he didn’t use the one I think sums up our future, “Sure, eventually when everyone has a HDTV, the digital transition is over, and every channel is available in HD to the point that SD is like black and white, then we’ll run into concerns.” I think as more and more people buy HDTVs and go looking for content and technical information they’ll find Engadget HD and our readership will continue to see the fantastic growth it’s seen over the past few years.

I was glad to see that Tyler from Format War Central was quoted as well and while I do think his site may have reason to be concerned, Tyler is very familiar with the format war. In fact, he is one of my greatest resources on the subject and there aren’t any technical format war posts on Engadget HD that he didn’t help me with.

Posted in Engadget, HDTV | 1 Comment »

I have 9 Hulu invites if anyone wants them

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

hulu.PNG

I don’t know who I’m supposed to give these things to, as everyone I know either is already in the beta or doesn’t even know what Hulu is. So if you want one, just leave a comment with the email address you want the invite sent to and I’ll hook you up.

Tags:,
Posted in Personal | 18 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »