• Sep 2, 2009

    Shattered (Media Center) Dreams

    Now that I've made the leap to HDTV, I had to find a way to record HD shows. I thought that I'd turn a Mac Mini into a media center with El Gato's EyeTV. I bought the EyeTV 250 Plus, hooked it up and was immediately disappointed. I'm used to TiVo and the user interface is second to none for using and scheduling. While my wife isn't technology adverse, sometimes she's a bit slow in adopting the technology I throw at her. It took awhile for her to accept the TiVo, now we don't know what we'd do without it.

    The EyeTV software is computer software and not consumer software; scheduling basically needs to be done with a mouse. I can use Apple Remote Desktop and schedule from my laptop, but that kind of makes it more difficult to program.

    I looked briefly at the HD TiVo and the price tag didn't faze me, but there are 2 things about the device that basically killed it for me. First, I have basic cable which also gets me 6 or 7 digital HD channels. The HD TiVo requires CableCARDs to get guide data for the digital channels. The second is that the HD TiVo cannot record 2 HD channels using basic cable at once. This completely baffles me, but their FAQ tells me this. TiVo has actually confused basic cable and digital cable like I did. (The guide with the EyeTV provides guide data for the digital channels I get over basic cable.)

    I had hoped to ditch my TiVo and retire my Apple TV to switch to a Mac Mini, but at this point, it looks like I'm going to keep the TiVo so my wife can program it for most shows and use the Mac Mini for HD shows. We'll see how this works. So far, the HD recordings are nice, but the scheduling is not easy to do without using Apple Remote Desktop.

    Oh well. I think that this is a conspiracy to get me to get me to buy "Digital Cable" from my cable company; something that I refuse to do as I'm unwilling to pay an exorbitant amount of money for TV when we watch just the regular over the air channels.

  • Aug 31, 2009

    Going green

    A few weeks ago, I wrote about the company that handles my flexible spending only accepting faxes for reimbursement requests. Well, I sent them email through their contact form and got a reply back saying that they do accept submissions electronically. OK, it definitely wasn't obvious to me how to do it.

    Last week I did another submission and looked around for how to submit electronically. I used the contact form again (it was secure) and saw that they had the ability to attach a file. I selected "Other" as my issue, attached my reimbursement and off it went. Today I received confirmation that they received it and they thanked me to helping them "go green". My next suggestion will be to make this easier to find instead of having to guess what to select.

    In any case, this is great news as I don't have to print out the reimbursement form and receipts that I assembled using Paperless.

  • Aug 30, 2009

    Review: Vizio SV370XVT

    Today I finally bit the bullet and entered the world of HDTV. I bought a Vizio SV370XVT at Costco. I did my research and decided on Vizio as it had features I wanted and got some decent reviews (some reviews have been mixed). This TV replaces my 7 year old Sony 32". Last week we were at Costco and I had settled on getting the VL370M as that's what they had in 37". This week, they had the newer XVT model which was $120 more, but had TruVolume and a we other features.

    Like my father, you might ask why 37"? That question is quite easy to answer. 37" is the largest TV that will fit in our entertainment center! It has doors that close over the TV which is important for us to signify the end of watching TV for the day for our son and doesn't make the TV the focal point of the room.

    The first thing I noticed about the TV was how light (in weight) it was; I was able to easily put it in our entertainment cabinet. This was after my dad, wife and I barely managed to get our old TV on the floor (first onto a table and then onto the floor); the old TV weighed about 170 pounds vs. the < 35 pounts of the new one.

    I plugged the TV in, hooked up the right cables (it does help to plug it in), went through the initial setup to scan for channels and presto, it worked. I started flipping through the channels and had already read that the -1 channels were HD channels, so I was excited to see what we got. My wife and parents were in the room as well and when I hit CBS or ABC HD showing golf, everyone at once ooed at the clarity of the picture.

    Pros

    • A plethora of inputs
    • An HDMI input that also has stereo audio; this is necessary for my Mac media center as I have a DVI to HDMI cable for video and RCA left/right for audio.
    • Simple setup
    • Very light in weight
    • Remote lets me easily switch inputs (my Sony required me to cycle inputs; the Vizio cycles through HDMI, but quickly goto component and TV inputs
    • Very sharp picture; granted I haven't had another HDTV in my house, so I don't have a comparison.
    • It's very thin; the box says 2.2". Wow, I had to make the hole in the back of the cabinet larger to fit the back of our old TV through it.

    Cons

    • I wish there was a second component input. I have a TiVo with component outputs and have cables for my Wii that output component. This may be a moot point soon when I move to a Mac based media center.

    While I've only played with my new TV a few hours, so far I'm quite pleased with it. Once I put together my Mac based media center, I'll be able to give it a more thorough test drive.

    I know that some people will say that the Vizio is the bottom of the barrel HDTV, so I'll just have to see how much I like it in 6 months. For the longest time, I said I didn't care about HD, so maybe my standards are quite low.

  • Aug 30, 2009

    Misinterpretation of Analog vs Digital Cable

    I'm a technology person by interest and training, but realized today that I really didn't have a clue about cable TV. I always referred to my basic cable server as analog cable as I don't have a cable box and simply have the coax go right into the TV/TiVo. What didn't help is a quote from my cable company's website:

    Just bought a new HDTV set? HD service is FREE with Digital Cable from Time Warner Cable*. Upgrade today and start enjoying an enhanced HDTV experience.

    This led me to believe that my basic cable service didn't get me ANY HD channels and didn't get me any digital content. Last week I read that cable companies had to carry HD channels at no additional charge for the broadcast stations, i.e. NBC, ABC, CBS. I saw this and was excited that I didn't have to pay more for cable to get some HD channels.

    When I plugged in my new TV, it scanned for channels and found 46 digital channels and something like 69 analog channels. Wow, that was quite promising. This, of course, meant that the basic/expanded cable I have is not just analog, but also carries digital channels. This should have been obvious to me, but it wasn't.

    So, with just a new TV and basic cable, I get a number of digital channels as well as some HD channels. The cable companies don't seem to want people to know about this so that they can upsell people on the cable packages that contain lots and lots of channels that many people don't watch. At this point, I can't justify upgrading my cable to get more HD channels.