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Greater Satellites


Home Theater Setup

written by Andrew
at 10:36 pm
on February 28, 2008
in Nerd-ish, Opinion, Real News, Technology

For a long time, I’ve considered going the route of scooping up a fairly recent, possibly refurbished Intel Mac mini and using it as my DVD player, DVR, audio streamer, DivX player, and all around Home Theater PC. There are even several friggin websites dedicated to helping people set up their dream system.

PlayTV

That dream was shaken at the core when I bought a PS3, which plays Blu Ray movies, upscales DVDs, and handles most video formats I’d want to play on it with the most recent firmware upgrade. Sony recently released a bad little MF’er by the name of PlayTV, which is an additional component for a PS3 that allows you to watch and record television directly to your console. This is pretty friggin sweet. What’s more is that the files it records (in high def or standard def) are DRM free. That’s right — you can record ‘em on your PS3, move them over to your computer to re-encode them for an iPod/iPhone, or burn them to DVD with no icky rights management debacle. What’s the catch? It’s currently unavailable in the US as it’s only compatible with PAL. You can bet your ass I would scoop that up the minute it’s available here in the states.

Conceptronic HD Media Giant

On a kind-of related note, there a really interesting media server being announced by a company called Conceptronic. The specs seem pretty decent and if the price is right, maybe this will grace my home entertainment setup:

  • Built in analog tuner (blah, but I’ll take it)
  • 1TB internal storage (saweeeet!)
  • Component, composite, and firewire inputs
  • HDMI (woot!), component, and digital audio out
  • Optional networking adapter
  • Codec support: DivX, XviD, WMV9, SVCD, and VOB

Hopefully the price will hit the sweet spot.


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about this

So little to say and so much time… Here goes something….

My name is Andrew to everyone who knows me and nothing to the people who don’t. I rarely feel inclined to write about myself and this small text blurb is no exception. I’m a film maker, of sorts. A designer, of sorts. A musician, of sorts. A photographer, of sorts. An armada of etceteras march behind these four generals.

The point I’m trying to make is that I enjoy art in all of it’s forms, and try my best to creatively express myself in every medium I take a liking towards. As always, things like life get in the way of being a non-stop idea factory, but that life is something that I’m thoroughly enjoying at the moment.

It consists of my beautiful girlfriend who I am very much in love with, a job that pays me well to do work that I would otherwise be doing for free, and a family and friends that I wouldn’t trade the world for. It’s safe to assume that I’m walking on air/over water/atop mountain peaks (pick one… hell, pick all three).


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