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Lux Entertainment's new outdoor, waterproof MCE LCD
So you have a media center PC and a pool that you like to entertain from, eh? Tell ya what. We'll show you a self-standing, waterproof LCD TV that will look so cool by your pool if you let us come over and take a dip? Deal? Check out the newest outdoor LCD by Lux Entertainment. They have integrated a 26-inch Sharp LCD HDTV into a rugged cabinet complete with a wireless MCE. All you need is an outlet for power and your media center with its built-in TV tuner will do the rest. They understand that most people are not going to want to move this massive cabinet around so they have made it to survive in the great outdoors. The screen is covered in a glare-free, reflection-free glass that museums employ with the thought that it will probably be a sunny day when you are by the pool. Even though the cabinet is made out of "armor-like shell form highest quality stainless steel," we still think it would be a good idea to haul it in during those heavy storms. Plus, can you image how hot this thing must be when it sits and cooks in the sun all day? (you think your MacBook gets hot) It looks like a great setup, but for $5,800 dollars, we are wondering if it is worth it. So about our little deal. Is 4:00pm good for you?[Via CEPro]
Lux Entertainment intros ARIIS-AR26SSMCE waterproof MCE TV
Probably bidding for business at homes that you'd deem a "crib," Lux Entertainment has introduced a flashy outdoor display that just so happens to integrate with your Windows Media Center PC. While it's apparently too easy to use your pool, patio, or deck for things like relaxing and catching up with friends, Lux helps you stay connected even when wandering away from living room. Although we've ran across TVs that were quite the outdoors type before, the ARIIS-AR26SSMCE makes streaming all flavors of media from an MCE PC to your outside destination a breeze. Aside from the 26-inch Sharp LCD HDTV -- which is safely sealed from cannonball overspray and flash flood rains in a glare-free glass enclosure -- you get a built-in Media Center Extender with wireless connectivity and a waterproof RF universal learning remote that can operate your pool and spa controls when not sifting through old episodes of "Friends." Lux also includes a stainless steel base rocking two "marine-grade speakers" and a snazzy temperature-sensing heating / cooling system to keep the system within the recommended operating conditions. The ARIIS-AR26SSMCE could likely be the answer to your pool party blues, so if you need a waterproof display that comes pre-wired to connect with your media in order to enjoy some R&R, and you can lay out the $6,800 it takes to procure one, then by all means, dive right in.
Get your YouTube fix on your Media Center PC
As if you needed to spend any more time digging through YouTube's seemingly endless archive of crap quality videos, you can now while away the time from the comfort of your couch thanks to a new Windows Media Center plug-in from Push-A-Button Software. The plug-in itself looks to be as straight forward as can be, letting you browse and search for videos and view them fullscreen if you wish -- just don't expect them to look too hot on your HD display. Best of all, the plug-in is free, although the developers are kindly asking for donations if you dig it -- ya dig?[Via eHomeUpgrade]
Move over Mac Mini: It's the Blueado m5e Sport
Ok so it's a little bigger than a Mac Mini at 4.2 inches tall and 7.8 wide, but a Mini doesn't include a ATSC tuner, a 400 GB hard drive and a Logitech® Harmony® 680 Universal Remote. This little box seems to have it all and it should with a MSRP of $1999, but with gobbs of inputs and outputs it may be just what we were looking for. Wow, would we like to have one of these in the HD Beat labs to run through its paces. More pictures after the jump.Thanks Chris!
Acer Aspire Idea 500 Windows Media Center
Yeah ok, we missed the press release on the Acer Aspire Idea 500 last month but she's still worth a quick double-back on this fully-spec'd, Viiv Windows Media Center PC. At just 2 3/4 inches thin, this low profile living room media center generates a mere 28 dBA under heavy load (23 dBA idling) yet packs in a Core Duo T2300 CPU, 250GB disk, 1GB DDR2 memory, a dual-layer DVD burner, 7-in-1 memory card reader, 4 x USB, Firewire, 802.11b/g WiFi, an RF keyboard and mouse, and not one, but two mini-PCI tuner cards for viewing and recording digital and analog television broadcasts. It also features a complete range of connectivity including HDMI, DVI-I, 2 x SCART (RGB?), 7.1 audio with S/PDIF digital out with support for High Definition audio, Dolby Digital Live, and DTC Connect. The Idea 500 should hit the cobbled streets of Europe any day now with an expected VAT-inclusive price of €1299/$1671. See, now aren't you glad we told you?[Thanks, Liam B]
Vista will not require a NTSC tuner
It wasn't that long ago that we were amazed that the NTSC requirement from Windows XP Media Center Edition was still a fact of life in Windows Vista Beta 2. This really bothered us for obvious reasons, like we have room for a NTSC card in our ultimate HD Media Center PC. Even if we did it, would take up the space for one of our ATSC tuners. Lucky for us the official unofficial word is out, Jay P. Kapur of the Media Center TV Team confirmed at AVS Forum that Vista will not need an NTSC Tuner![Via Chris Lanier's Blog]
Niveus and CableCARD at WinHEC
Everywhere we look these days we see new HD products and WinHEC isn't any different. Microsoft is pushing HD DVD and Niveus will be demonstrating the first Media Center PC features a CableCARD. We all know what this means; premium HD content on our Media center. This combined with the HD DVD support they announced at EHX would make this the ultimate HD machine. This is the good news, the bad news is that the previous Denali series costs $6000 and will ship at the same time as Vista and we all know when that is.
AMEX Digital's MPC-505BD Media Center PC with Blu-ray recorder
Hot on the heels of that Sony AR Blu-ray Vaio laptop comes AMEX Digital's Windows Media Center Edition 2005 PC with Blu-ray Disc recorder. Going by the oh-so-swanky moniker of MPC-505BD, this Intel Viiv enabled monster offers DVI and HDMI (HDCP?) outs, 7.1 channel audio with SPDIF optical out, and a hybrid analog and digital DVB-T TV tuner. And if that 23GB of single-layer BD recording don't cut it son, then how about the 120 hours of high-def recording possible on that full Terabyte of SATA disk? Yeah, we thought you'd like that. The box is powered by a 3GHz Intel Pentium D 930 and features Intel 945P Express graphics, 2GB DDR2 RAM, and 802.11a/b/g WiFi. Sadly, no deets on the expected biggie price tag or date for availability but let's hope an ATSC tuner version is in the works for these here United States. [Via Newlaunches]
Ask HD Beat: Does MCE support QAM
Reader and listener Big Sam writes in and asks: Am I clear that WMCE does not support QAM (and probably will not until Vista)? Are there any hacks or workarounds? I want to stream it to my Xbox 360. Does that new dual tuner TiVo support QAM? Thanks. Sam's problem is that despite our help OTA doesn't work well for him, but he does have access to QAM programming via his local cable company. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but even though QAM is supported by his capture card he still can't record and stream HD to his Xbox 360. Yes Sam the new Series3 TiVo supports QAM and OTA channels. Unfortunately I have bad news, there is no good solution until Microsoft decides to support QAM in MCE. There are two work around neither are very elegant.
The Clicker: The conversation that never officially took place
Every week Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:You could all but see the gears turning in his head as he pondered the statement. "Clearly," he thought to himself, "I've misheard. He can't seriously be saying what I think he's saying." "Excuse me?" Bill replied assuming that he would hear something different the second time around. "That's right. Apple wants to build a Media Center PC." There was a brief pause as Bill closely inspected his colleague. Blue Jeans, check... turtleneck, check... half-soothing / half-arrogant smile, check... This was the real deal; this was Steve Jobs. "Let me get this straight…" Gates, now a little bit confused, continued, "You want to build a Windows Media Center Edition PC?" "That's right." "Apple?" "Yes. Apple!" "Let me come at this from a slightly different angle. You're telling me that Apple wants to ship a Media Center PC?" "That's what I'm telling you." "You do understand that Media Center is part of the OS?" "Yes, I understand."
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UMPCs to get special Media Extender software
For those of you still scratching your heads over what exactly you might use a $700 UMPC for, Microsoft is working on a version of Media Center Extender software to allow you to touchscreen your way through TV, music, home automation, or whatever you use your Media Center PC for. So far there's no date for when we might see this software, but Todd Rutherford, Microsoft's program manager for eHome Control, says it's a sure thing. We guess it depends on your style if you'll use this thing as a glorified remote control, or as a primary viewing device, but at least now it'll do you a lot more good than just some oddly shaped Frisbee with a touchscreen.
From couch-surfing to web-surfing
GamersReports has instructions for getting a cool little app onto your Windows Media Center PC (sorry folks, MCE only) that will let you browse web pages using your 360. A caveat: "while you are able to browse the web, do not mistake this add-on to MCE [to be] a full fledged web browser. It is using the MCE PC to render an image of the website which it displays on the 360, but you will not be able to enter any text." Now you can check out Xbox 360 Fanboy on your Xbox 360! Anyone want to send in a picture?More MCE apps:Google Maps on your 360 with MCE app[Via Joystiq][Update: Check out the creator of the MCEBrowser, Anthony Park's, site.]
Windows Media Center: Cablecard support is great but what about 5C?
While we all sit patiently waiting for Windows Media Center CableCARD support I started to wonder. FireWire has been available on Cable boxes for almost 2 years but we still can't stream HD to our Xbox 360 since most of the channels are protected with 5C. This of course also prevents us from enjoying the content in HD on our HTPCs because of the lack of 5C support. Some people say that 5C will never be supported by PCs, but the original 5C presentation actually has a picture of a PC connected to the 1394 network. So all of this this lead me to the question: why hasn't Microsoft added 5C support to Windows Media Center Edition?Is it simply because CableCARD is a better solution, so why bother? Wouldn't it be cool if WMCE could participate in a HAVi or HANA network, turning other HANA TVs into Media Center connectors? Or support backing up to DVHS? Maybe they have tried but were turned down. Either way, I think it would be a great option, especially considering it wouldn't require a special capture card in the computer, just a 5C supported 1394 port.
How-To: Build a practical HTPC
We've seen a lot of home theater PCs lately and being in need of a new workstation, we decide to build one of our own. We started planning by looking around to see what others had done. It would be fun to own a HD capable 2TB box , but we're not going to drop $7,400. SnapStream's 11-tuner performance art piece looked fun too, but not practical. Even Ars Technica and ExtremeTech had decent looking guides, but both systems broke $2K. We wanted to build a machine that had: Good desktop performance Long life through upgradability Cost close to $1,000 So here's how we did it, click on to check it out!
Google Maps on your 360 with MCE app
Colin, at the humbly named Colin's Blog, got bored so he decided to make a Google Maps app for Media Center. Simply download the file here and place it into your media center folder on the Start menu.The controls are simple: use ChUp/ChDn to control zooming in and out and use the arrow buttons to move around. You see where we're going with this now; using the 360's Media Center extender capabilities, you can sit on the couch and check out maps of the entire world, through your 360!There is a web-based version here, which can be controlled with the arrow keys and the PgUp/PgDn buttons. Why you ask... what's the point? Because you can![Via Jake Luddington]
