Easy HTPC

Hulu has introduced Hulu Desktop as part of its new Hulu Labs. The client allows Mac and Windows users to browse their favorite TV shows and movies on the desktop using an Apple or Windows Media Center remote. So far, we like it.

Hulu dropped a surprise on TV fans Thursday by introducing public beta of Hulu Desktop—desktop software for the Mac and Windows that works with the popular TV streaming site. The software finally removes Hulu from the Web browser in an official, Hulu-approved way and puts it into a very media-center-like format for browsing and watching your favorite shows. Though Hulu Desktop still keeps Hulu’s offerings largely on the computer, it offers some flexibility in the watching experience.

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Via Arstechnica.com

We’ve covered Windows 7 from rumor to release candidate, which you can currently download and install for free. Now, it’s enchilada time: Here’s everything of value that we learned about Win 7, packed in a complete, easy-to-read guide.

Note: This is one awesome guide. If you have been sitting on the fence, deciding to install Windows 7 or not, this guide should help your decision.

Read the Complete Guide here.

Via Gizmodo.com

Netflix’s streaming service will appear on Windows Media Center within the next couple of days.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has struck a deal to bring Netflix’s streaming movie service to Windows Media Center, the companies said Tuesday.

Netflix’s more than 12,000 “Watch it now” movies and TV episodes are only available to users of Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. XP users won’t be able to access the service.

Owners of Windows Media Center will also be able to search the entire Netflix library, manage their DVD queues, and “filter searches by titles that are available to watch instantly,” Microsoft said in a statement.

Microsoft continues to try to boost the amount of content available on Windows Media. In March, the company launched a new sports channel, including replays of the past NCAA basketball tournament.

“We’re building on our broader vision to alleviate the need to jump from Web site to Web site to find TV shows, movies, sports and news,” Microsoft said in a statement. ” “With Windows Media Center, (users) can now find it in one place.”

For Netflix, the partnership offers the Web’s No.1 video rental service the chance to reach scores of of Vista users. Netflix’s deal with Microsoft’s Xbox videogame console proved to be a boon for the company.

Netflix has steadily been crossing the once wide chasm between the PC and the television by striking partnership deals with a wide assortment of set-top box makers, including Roku, and LG.

To access Netflix’s service, Windows Media Center owners must first subscribe to the rental service. Then, to stream movies, they can start Windows Media Center on their computers by selecting the new Netflix tile under TV+Movies heading.

Via Cnet.com

M4A78-HTPC Series are the World’s 1st Motherboards with an Independent Audio Power Connector—Delivering Pristine Sound Quality and Taking Multimedia Enjoyment to a New Level

Taipei, Taiwan, May 18, 2009 – ASUS, the world’s leading producer of motherboards, today released its new M4A78-HTPC Series motherboards that are developed specifically for use in Home Theater Personal Computers (HTPCs). HTPCs have become more prevalent due to the vast popularity of the Internet and the ease with which content can be found, downloaded and viewed. Also, the chipset technology that supports Full HD 1080p is maturing, and large-sized widescreen LCD monitors are becoming more mainstream—allowing users to download and watch HD videos directly on their PCs. M4A78-HTPC Series motherboards are based on the AMD 780G chipset, which fully integrates HDMI/DVI support to display HD videos smoothly. Together with audio innovations like the ASUS Absolute Pitch Hi-Fi and DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC™ Technology, audiophiles can look forward to pure, crystal-clear sound for the most exhilarating HTPC enjoyment. Furthermore, M4A78-HTPC Series motherboards come with a user-friendly media center dubbed Home Theater Gate and a low-noise, energy efficient Tranquil Mode that offer users greater convenience and a more conducive music environment respectively.

Crystal-clear Sound Quality with ASUS Absolute Pitch Hi-Fi
As power delivery is a key determinant of audio quality, high-end receivers often utilize separate power channels or analog/digital signal separation to ensure high sound quality. The M4A78-HTPC Series are the world’s first motherboards to be equipped with revolutionary ASUS Absolute Pitch Hi-Fi technology which dedicates an independent audio power connector solely to audio components. This effectively reduces electronic noise, ensuring purer sound quality. Additionally, the gold-plated RCA stereo audio connectors are compatible with amplifiers without requiring additional connectors—making it simple to link PCs to home theater equipment. Furthermore, the M4A78-HTPC supports DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC™ Technology for true high-definition home theater entertainment, delivering an exceptional surround experience through the most common PC audio setups—stereo speakers or headphones.

Your Gateway to True Home Entertainment!
The ASUS Home Theater Gate is a media center specially designed for the ASUS HTPC series of motherboards. With its user-friendly interface, users can easily launch the most common media applications quickly via an integrated menu that brings various media types together, including music, video, photos and Internet radio. The large icons and intuitiveness of the software make it easy for users to remote control their PCs up to 10 feet away from the monitor or TV. Furthermore, the bundled remote controller allows users to launch the music player and Internet radio, or to enter Tranquil Mode for a quieter environment, with just one touch.

Enjoy Perfect Music Environments with Lower Fan Noise
With the ASUS Tranquil Mode function, fan speeds are effectively reduced, lowering fan-generated noise by up to 28%—thus providing users with a perfect sound environment to enjoy movies and music while at the same time saving 25% power when watching movies.

Via 7thspace.com

Acer’s Aspire Revo has been doing the rounds in recent weeks as the first nettop to sport NVIDIA’s ION platform – that’s GeForce 9400M-class graphics coupled with an Intel Atom processor.

Today, the supposedly-affordable-and-tiny 1080p-capable PC has become available at Play.com, and it’s… well, surprisingly affordable. Today’s listings show the base model – equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N230 processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8GB SSD, GeForce 9400M graphics and a Linux operating system – etailing at a cost of £149.99.

Not a whole lot, considering that the system is essentially a small-and-low-power HTPC that’s capable of high-def output. The Revo’s armed with HDMI or VGA out, eSATA, six USB ports, a memory-card reader, Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, and a wired keyboard and mouse, too.

Of course, the Linux flavouring might not appeal to all users, and the single-core Intel Atom processor may struggle with certain tasks. But for a penny under £150, it’s hard to complain. If, however, you insist on doing so, there’s another option – the £249.99 Acer Aspire Revo, beefed up with 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Microsoft’s Windows Vista Home Premium operating system.

Via Hexus.net

Though Windows Media Center Edition and the Windows Media Player are very good at what they do, there’s no native support for iTunes file types. Though this is hardly surprising given the competition between Apple and Microsoft, it’s a bummer for those that shop at Apple’s popular iTunes online store. In steps MCETunes (various pricing, free demo), a plug-in for MCE that lets you access your iTunes media from within MCE’s ten-foot interface (what you see when you’re ten feet away an using a remote control).

There’s not a whole lot to describe beyond that. After installing MCETunes, head to the More Programs section of Media Center, run MCEtunes, then tell the program whether to import everything from iTunes or specify only AAC, mP4, music, video etc. I opted for everything and everything I got. MCETunes has to launch iTunes to do this if it’s not running.

The standard version of MCEtunes worked fine for me. I didn’t test the Pro version, which is required to play iPod/iPhone mp4 video. However, my mp4 copy of Kung Fu Panda did show up on the video list and all the .m4a format music played just fine. The demo version will only import 20 tracks.

Note: MCETunes will play protected content only on the computer on which it’s authorized.

Via PCWorld.com

Access to premium HD on computers has eluded most for way to long, so as soon as we heard that it was finally possible for anyone to add a CableCARD tuner to just about any Media Center, we just knew we had to try it for ourselves, and more importantly, share with you exactly how to do it. This doesn’t really require any hacking, or anything illegal for that matter — we’re not lawyers — but it isn’t cheap. The internal version of the ATI Digital Cable Tuner pictured above can be found new on eBay for about $195, or new from PC vendors like Cannon PC for just under $300. If that doesn’t seem like a bad deal to you and you already have an HTPC up to the challenge, then you should join us on our journey to HD bliss by clicking through.

What you need
It should go without saying that in order for this to work you’ll need a pretty new computer running either Windows Vista Premium (or higher) or Windows 7 as well as an ATI Digital Cable Tuner (DCT). The first requirement you probably already have, but the second can be a bit more difficult. Both the internal and external version of the DCT have the same functionality with the only real difference being where it is mounted. Some prefer the external since it is easier to swap out and doesn’t require opening the case to install, while others will do just about anything to eliminate yet another box with a wall wart from their setup. We will warn you if you’re leaning towards the internal though, it is pretty big and puts off some heat. So to accommodate the internal version you’re going to need a decent size case as well as an internal USB port and free floppy power plug.

Not for everyone
We also want to say that this might not be for everyone. For starters, it’s totally possible for Microsoft to release an update that would make this stop working, but most importantly, you won’t be able to get any support if you run into problems.

Prepping the system
We suggest you run through these instructions before calling your cable provider to come out and install the CableCARD, otherwise you might run into problems and then you won’t be ready when they come.

The first step is to get by the requirement that has been holding us back up until now, which is that Windows will only allow you to use a DCT if your BIOS has the required OSFR table. Although unlikely, it is possible that your BIOS has the required table so first thing you want to do is download the OCUR BIOS Check Utility and find out.

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Via EngadgetHD.com

Whether or not you have a desk ready work with a laptop, or even better, want to control an HTPC from your sofa with FILCO’s latest 2 in 1 mouse, the BTLS90 and its gyro sensor, you can use it either on a desk/table or in the “air,” a bit like a Wiimote to control your PC/HTPC.

The BTLS90 is a800dpi mouse with a 550mAh internal battery that’s recharged via USB.

Via Akihabaranews.com

ZOTAC has today followed in the footsteps of Point of View by announcing a pair of all-in-one platforms built upon NVIDIA’s ION technology.

Continuing the trend, ZOTAC’s mini-ITX ION board comes in two unique varieties – one equipped with a single-core Intel Atom N230, and the second equipped with a dual-core Intel Atom N330.

Promising to deliver “a premium computing experience in a miniature mini-ITX form factor”, the ZOTAC ION features an NVIDIA GeForce 9400m IGP – complete with 16 processor cores – and makes light work of high-def video playback thanks to NVIDIA’s PureVideo HD technology.

Taking a slightly different approach, ZOTAC’s boards offer standard DDR2 DIMM slots, as opposed to the SODIMM slots found on Point of View’s ION boards. Elsewhere, it has opted to abandon the implementation of PCIe slots, though a Mini PCIe slot is available as an optional extra. External TV tuners only, then, for the standard model.

The board offers three SATA ports and one eSATA, as well as VGA, DVI and HDMI connectivity. There’s Gigabit Ethernet, but integrated Wi-Fi is an optional extra – as is an on-board DC-DC power supply.

With the number of optional extras, one would imagine that ZOTAC’s base bundles will be priced competitively. Those eyeing the board up for a HTPC build will also be happy to hear that ZOTAC tells us that passive cooling is possible – contrary to the above image.

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Via  Hexus.net

The XBMC project, which develops a popular open source media center application, announced the release of a major new version last week. XBMC 9.04, which is codenamed Babylon, delivers improved codec compatibility, an enhanced theming system, better Linux support, and many other features.

The XBMC project has its roots in the Xbox Media Player, an MPlayer-based media application that was originally designed for the Xbox video game console. XBMC currently uses its own playback engine that leverages FFMpeg, libdvdcss, and a number of other well-known open source multimedia libraries. Coded primarily in C++, it uses SDL and OpenGL for rendering. XBMC is cross-platform compatible and will run on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

The project is now on a six-month release cycle, which loosely mirrors that of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. The previous version, which was codenamed Atlantis, was released in November. XBMC can play an extremely broad assortment of common codecs and media formats. It also has extensive support for network streaming using a wide range of protocols. It provides a rich theming system—which got many improvements in the latest version—and a plugin framework that allows third-party developers to customize the application using Python scripts.

I’ve been running XBMC 9.04 since the beta release was made available last month. The new version is highly polished and stable. I have tested it on a Windows XP desktop system, a Mac Mini with OS X Leopard, and an Ubuntu-powered Neuros LINK. It performs well and was able to play high-definition video reasonably on all three computers. I streamed video content from my network storage device and tested several Web-based streaming video services.

XBMC’s plugin manager allows users to add new features to the program by downloading third-party scripts from the Internet. These scripts can augment the program’s behavior in any number of ways, such as adding support for additional streaming media sources. For example, one of the plugins allows users to stream fansubs of the popular Bleach anime series.

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Via Ars Technica