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SageTV's STX-HD100 HD Media Extender gets reviewed
Although we just caught wind of SageTV's new HD Media Extender late last month, the unit is now not only up for sale, but it's already been through quite a workout at the hands of Brent Evans. The STX-HD100 showed a lot of promise on paper, and thankfully, it seems to have delivered in reality. Mr. Evans found the overall experience with the device to be "very impressive," noting that image quality was "excellent," file support was up to snuff and heat / noise were both non-factors. Additionally, the box played nice with a myriad operating systems, suffered from no "crippling DRM restrictions" and came in at a very respectable $199. Granted, there were a few things to pick on -- namely the lack of an optical drive / CableCARD slot and the inability of the remote to toggle the TV on and off -- but aside from that, most everything else seemed to garner copious quantities of praise. We know, it does sound a bit too good to be true, but head on over and digest the whole spill if you're still skeptical.[Via ZatzNotFunny]
SageTV reveals STX-HD100 HD Media Extender
Details are still a bit thin, but it looks like SageTV -- developer of alternative media center software -- is poised to release an HD media extender for in-home placeshifting. The company, which already makes a standard definition wireless extender, revealed pics of the so-called STX-HD100 today, along with a few shots of the retail packaging which expose such features as HDMI, component, S-Video, and composite jacks as well as USB 2.0 Mass Storage Interface. Keep reading to check out another angle, and you can probably dig up a little more info by trawling around the SageTV forums, where it seems like quite a few folks have been waiting around on this product for some time now...[Thanks, Matt C.]
HDHomeRun HDTV Mac Streaming Tool
I first heard about the HDHomeRun on DL.TV a while back, and while it looked very interesting I was left disappointed that it lacked full Mac support. The HDHomeRun is a cool little device that contains two over-the-air HDTV tuners to receive HDTV and then stream that HD content over your home ethernet network. The streams it produces can be viewed with VLC so it it was possible, if somewhat difficult, to make it function with a Mac. Now, however, aa1979 has posted a Mac GUI to the Silicon Dust forums which makes it much easier to set up a stream. It's still far from as full featured as the Windows Media Center interfaces, and you still need to use VLC to watch the stream, but the level of hackery necessary to use the HDHomeRun with the Mac has gone down considerably. I wish EyeTV supported the HDHomeRun, though there's some hope that once SageTV gets going on the Mac (later this year) it may support this device to make a true Mac-based HDTV DVR.Thanks, Andy!
SageTV Placeshifter now available for the Mac
We knew it was coming, we knew it was soon, and now it's here: you can finally get the SageTV Placeshifter for your Mac. Not quite as early or exciting as we expected, but better late than never, and there's no better time than the present to start placeshifting your media to wow your friends and / or mother. Remember, you'll still need a Windows or Linux box running the full-blown SageTV app to actually do the shifting, and that'll cost you $99 and includes one placeshifting license. You can pick up another for $30. As always, we recommend such gifts on February 14th only when accompanied by the traditional flowers / candy / bears standbys -- let's stay safe out there!
SageTV releases Placeshifter for Mac
SageTV has released their Placeshifter client for OS X. SageTV is a two piece solution for making a PC centered PVR. A Windows or Linux PC (with video capture hardware) runs the SageTV Media Center software which offers standard PVR type functions (scheduled recordings, pause live TV, etc.). The Placeshifter client allows you to access this recorded content over the internet. In this respect it's similar to Slingbox and LocationFree (both of which also have Mac clients), but instead of a hardware box at home you run a Media Center PC. Unfortunately, the Media Center software itself is still only Windows or Linux, but they expect a Mac version early next year. Thus, while the Placeshifter client allows Mac users to access recorded content on the road, you still have to have a Windows or Linux box at home to do the actual recording.
SageTV Placeshifter hitting the Mac
If hardware-based placeshifting isn't your thing, but you're still set on toting that MacBook of yours, then SageTV might have a solution for you. This month, as expected, they're launching SageTV Placeshifter, a Mac app that will let you connect to SageTV Media Center running on a Windows or Linux box. You won't be able to build a media center Mac yet, but if you're a dual or tri-platform type of person, the Placeshifter's client functionalities should fit in nicely. All the usual PVR and media functionalities will be available to your shiny OS X box, and the app will come bundled with a $99 license of SageTV Media Center. If you'd like to add another concurrent placeshifting connection, it'll cost ya $29.99 per.
Okoro Media Systems busts out a pair of Blu-ray media PCs
While Sony and AMEX Digital have already busted out Blu-ray-equipped media PCs, it looks like Okoro Media Systems is finally making the leap, too. Just a few months after stuffing Core 2 Duo chips in its machines, the company has now unveiled the OMS-BX100 and OMS-BX300 HTPCs, which both sport Blu-ray drives and HDPC-compliant 1080p outputs. The thinner, sleeker BX100 packs an Intel T7200 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, front panel LCD, optional 7-inch touchscreen, 500GB SATA hard drive, ATI X1600 PRO 256MB PCI-e graphics card, built-in TV tuner, and the usual complement of ports including 4-pin FireWire, audio in / out, USB 2.0, and just about every video output imaginable. The larger, more feature-packed BX300 houses an Intel 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, 2GB of memory, a terabyte of internal storage, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 256MB PCI-e graphics set, dual OTA tuners, and touts the same port selection as its smaller sibling. Both units come with your choice of operating system and HTPC software, and while both boxes are available now, the low-profile BX100 starts at $2,995, and the beefed-up BX300 will set you back $3,495 (or much, much more).[Via eHomeUpgrade]
SageTV headed for Max OS X
Despite the immense amount of shiny going on in Apple's own Front Row media app, the feature set falls woefully short of a full-blown Media Center killer for the Mac. Now it looks like the SageTV peeps are going to pick up the slack and port their well-loved media app to Mac OS X. Their latest edition of the software, SageTV V5 -- which is already available for Windows and Linux -- includes support for SageTV Placeshifter on Windows, so hopefully SageTV finds time to squeeze that into the Mac edition so Apple users can finally get down with their TV-on-the-go selves. Right now SageTV is seeking out beta testers for a closed beta that should take place in the next few weeks, so it doesn't look like the Mac heads among us will have too terribly long to wait.
SageTV bringing place-shifting to Linux
Despite Major League Baseball's disdain for the practice, place-shifting is a hot feature that will only get more popular as it becomes easier for people to stream their content -- and software company SageTV is at the forefront of the movement to make that happen. Less than two months after adding the feature to its media center package for Windows, the company is supposedly on the verge of offering similar "slinging" functionality to open-source fanatics, with GigaOM reporting that we can expect to see SageTV Media Center for Linux V5 announced within the week. Until the official unveiling, not much is known about this product save for its Media Extender support, although we've also learned that Mac users will be getting their own version at some unspecified future date. There are certainly other ways for the Linux faithful to place-shift their content -- we recently saw a rather convoluted how-to on Engadget Mobile which uses MythTV -- but if you're willing to pay for commercial software, it sounds like Sage's upcoming solution will be the easiest way to go.
SageTV Placeshifter offers mobile content streaming
Those of you who do the home theater thing from your PC and are for some reason unhappy with the free streaming service offered by Orb now have a new way of "slinging" your content to a remote computer with SageTV's Placeshifter add-on. The $30 software, which requires the $80 SageTV media center package, offers remote access to videos, music, photos, and if you have a TV tuner card or USB device, both live and recorded programming. Cnet got a "first look" at Placeshifter in action, and reports spotty but acceptable performance, with the delays and artifact-infested video we've come to expect accept from these remote streaming services. While we're pretty happy with our free Windows Media Center and Orb setup, if you already own SageTV, the one-time fee might be worth it to free your content with the knowledge that someone's there to troubleshoot the inevitable problems.[Via PVR Wire]
SageTV beta adds placeshifting
We placeshift our HDTV with an Xbox 360, so this was interesting news to us. SageTV's newest beta (4.1.7 for you Sage-a-maniacs) now supports placeshifting via a client called "SageTVPlaceshifter". Don't be disappointed in the name, what did you expect since the names "Orb" and "Slingbox" were already taken? We're guessing that you're not shifting HD content with this first version, but we all know that's where things are headed. Does anyone know the patron saint of "bandwidth" so we can light a candle?[via eHomeUpgrade]
