TVedia Media Front-End Reviewed

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HTPC enthusiast Eirik Solheim spent some time with TVedia and came away very impressed, despite the software’s lack of DVR functionality. However… What immediately caught my eye was the Amazon affiliate advertising built into the interface (in addition to the $35 software fee). I exchanged a few emails with Eirik who informed me the “feature” is optional and sent along a screenshot showing how users can toggle the ads. It’s an interesting strategy and well executed given TVedia’s spartan interface and disable options.

Eirik writes: TVedia is a media center frontend with some extremely interesting networking functionality and a very nice interface for YouTube, Google Video, Flickr, LastFM and other media related web sites. I recently gave it a run on my Windows Media Center Edition box. So far this is one of the most interesting products I have seen in this space for a long time! The music library, networking and online features are way better than what I am used to in MCE.

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Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

Never enough time… TiVo tastes some sweet revenge. (Wired) Yahoo television guide updated with video clips and pilot episodes. (Yahoo) What’s holding up international deployment of SlingPlayer Mobile? (SlingCommunity) Omnicom Media Group signs advertising agreement With TiVo. (TiVo) KnoppMyth updated. (PVRWire)

Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

Never enough time… Record every new fall season show with BeyondTV. (SnapStream) Hand’s on with the MPEG4 HD DirecTV receiver in LA. (DBSTalk) Portable Sirius receiver outed by Crutchfield. (Orbitcast) How-to replace dead drive in a DirectTiVo. (Engadget) RealNetworks to offer open source support for WMV on Linux. (ZDNet)

Details On ReplayTV Software Emerge (Overpriced)

Tonight, at Digital Experience, ReplayTV will debut their software-only DVR product. I’m skipping the event, but perhaps my Engadget or Gizmodo buddies will take the new software for a spin and report back. ReplayTV is expected to ship this fall for $100. I hope that includes the referenced Hauppage tuner card, otherwise it’s horribly overpriced … Read more

Deal Of The Day: $30 Gyration RF Mouse & Keyboard

Kevin spotted a nice deal over on Woot for a $30 refurb Gyration keyboard and mouse. Back in my HTPC days I used this (or a similar model) to control a projector-attached computer. The remote and keyboard use RF, so you have increased range without line-of-sight issues. And being so compact, these are pretty unobtrusive … Read more

BeyondTV On Mac Mini

Want to turn your Mac mini into a PC DVR using BeyondTV? All you need is Boot Camp, Windows, and an external tuner. Why? Because we can! Not to mention this is tons cheaper than EyeTV. If you’re pining away for HD tuning on that Mac mini, you’ll also need an external drive to keep up. Of course the next step is seeing if the SnapStream folks can get this to work within Parallel’s virtualization software…

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