Check out the Vista-ready OMS-GX300 Media Center from Okoro Media Systems. This beast of a media center will set you back $4,995 but includes some mouth watering specs:
A silver and sleek SilverStone LC18 case which comes with a little 7" Touch Screen display featuring a 15:9 wide display with HDTV transcoder for 720p
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core processor
2GB of Crucial's Ballistix memory
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card
1TB of hard drive space (2x 500GB) – can be upgraded to 2TB.
16x Dual-Layer +-RW DVD Writer
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX PCIE 768MB HDTV & HDCP
Saber 2020 TV Tuners with hardware MPEG-2 encoder.
PCI Over-The-Air HDTV Tuner
Optional USB HDTV Tuner
Microsoft Media Center Remote Control w/ IR Blaster
Snapstream Firefly Remote Control
You may be thinking this is a little over the top for a Media Center PC unless you want to do gaming. But as CrunchGear points out, a great feature of Vista is that it works seamlessly with the Xbox 360 controller making living room gaming from the couch much more appealing.
The new TiVX 5010-P HD TV recorder is one unique and sleek PVR from DViCO. To start off this futuristic grey cylinder does not contain an internal hard drive but requires you to add your own external one via a USB port.
I actually quite like the option of being able to add my own external hard drives as it makes for easy upgrades. But wait there's more; this HD TV recorder is more than just a weird looking PVR, it's also a media extender.
It can record videos in 1920 x 1080 resolution and stream files to and from a PC in a variety of video formats including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, (VOB, ISO and IFO), AVI, TP, WMV9. It can also send pictures and movies around the house too. Other features include:
An Electronic Program Guide to use on your TV
ATSC hi-def television tuner
DVI, component, S-Video and composite video outs
2x USB 2.0 ports for adding external disk drives
A third USB port for other storage devices (e.g digital camera, MP3 player)
fixed 10/100Mbps Ethernet or 802.11b/g WiFi
It is currently being launched in Korea and will cost $352. There is no word on releases in other territories, but hopefully there will be.
OQO, a company that specializes in ultra-mobile personal computing, announced the Model 02 at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.
The Model 02 is an extremely powerful portable mini PC that has the ability to run Windows Vista Ultimate. Kevin Groppe of FloppyHead pointed out that if it can run Windows Vista Ultimate (which comes with MCE) it must therefore be a mini Media Center PC.
Further more the Model 02 comes with USB support so could get hooked up with a USB Digital Tuner turning the Model 02 into a portable mini PVR. Also the Model 02 has a HDMI output so could be hooked up to any HD TV.
Whether this little PC could stand up to the heavy requirements of PVR recording and playing HD content is yet to be seen. But it would damn cool if it could!
STMicroelectronics has announced its Dual HD Chip, the STi7200. This is the worlds first Dual HDTV Decoder Chip to be manufactured in 65nm Technology which means it can offer lower power consumption and competitive pricing.
The STi7200 chip supports HD inputs from HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, as well as high-definition satellite and cable TV standards. The chip is designed to be used in set top boxes, PVRs, and DVD electronics.
It will basically allow you to watch HD material on two TV sets, one channel in high definition and the other downscaled on-chip to standard definition. This means you can have a single HD PVR for two TVs.
The STi7200 Dual HD chip will be available to consumer electronics manufacturers and priced at $30 in high volume.
The Miglia TVMini HD+ is the successor to the Miglia TVMini HD offering 10-bit video and stereo sound and the ability to tune into unencrypted digital cable, analog cable and over-the-air signals. As the name suggest it also supports HDTV.
The Miglia TVMini is of course designed for the Mac and connects via a USB 2.0 port. It will be shipped with the EyeTV 2 PVR software and remote control so you can expect full PVR features.
According to a NewsChannel 9 story posted yesterday Time Warner is out of HD PVR boxes for its customers due to an overwhelming number of requests, according to the company. Well either that or Time Warner just didn't organise getting enough of them.
Time Warner has stated that new boxes will arrive within two or three weeks. In the meantime Time Warner subscribers can pick up regular HD set top boxes, get on a waiting list for the HD PVR, and get one as soon as it's available.
You may not have heard of Compro, a company that creates PC graphics and multimedia products, but you might be interested in its new HDTV USB Tuner.
The U2700 hybrid DVB-T tuner brings OTA (Over the Air) High Definition and Standard Definition channels reception to your TV (NTSC/SECAM/PAL) and features full PVR functionality including time shifting and scheduling capabilities.
It connects via USB 2.0 and has the odd ability to let you watch five digital 1080i streams at once, providing four of those are already recorded and you have a beefy 3GHz processor. Not quite sure why you'd want to do this, but it's there if you need it.
The PVR interface is from the ComproDTV 3 / Ulead software and works with the included IR remote. The device is also Windows Vista certified which is always handy.
No details on price or when the U2700 tuner will launch. More specs are on the Compro website.
If you want to record television shows directly onto your PC from cable it is possible for a number of channels. The FCC requires that all cable boxes have a firewire port allowing you to connect your PC and Cable Box together.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as connecting your PC and Cable Box with a firewire cable (pictured right) and starting to record. You'll need to install various software and drivers first.
Also it is unlikely that you will be able to record any premium channels as they will be encrypted. All regular broadcast channels must however be open, if they are not get on the phone to your cable operator and tell them to sort it out.
Uber Lounge has the full steps for recording cable TV in both SD and HD to your PC.
The HAVA Gold HD has been launched today at the highly respectable price of $129. For this small price you can turn a regular Windows PC into a PVR and also stream MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video to multiple PCs on your home network, and also over the internet, just like a Slingbox.
Additionally when used with Windows Media Center (both XP and the soon to be released Vista MCE) it opens up the option of using the HAVA Gold as a TV Tuner appearing on the PC as an installed TV Tuner card.
The HAVA Gold HD will connect to any TV source such as Cable, Satellite, DVD, TiVo or a Camcorder allowing you to spread your TV to any PC over your home network or the internet.
Unlike the higher end HAVA Wireless HD model it does not come with built-in wireless features and fewer I/O options.
I have to say as an entry level Slingbox device I like the specs and I like the price.
If you'd rather watch TV in the bathroom than read the paper, you might as well go all out, right? Roto Rooter is sponsoring a contest for a "Pimped out John." The winner will get a flat screen HDTV, laptop computer, an iPod with a dock, a TiVo, an Xbox 360, and a DVD player, portable fridge, and other components to make sure you never have to leave your favorite room in the house. Oh yeah, and there's a Kohler toilet thrown in for good measure.
The contest begins January 24th, it's not clear at this point what you have to do to win, but Roto Rooter is encouraging people to sign up for the company's newsletter "to be reminded when the sweepstakes begins."
With the highly anticipated Apple TV being a bit of a let down, there is still plenty of room left in the PVR market for a nice sleek looking device. And although I am far from a Sony fanboy, I do have to say that their VAIO VGX-TP1DT does look pretty damn nice.
The unit is made up of what can only be described as cylinders – the top unit is the actual PC while the bottom unit is the digital tuner. It's an interesting concept, especially if Sony decides to start releasing peripherals in the same form factor (maybe something like external hard drives or a Blu-ray drive).
The VAIO VGX-TP1DT can stream hi-def broadcasts over Ethernet or WiFi for both viewing and recording at up to 1080i. As far as specs go, the PC runs Windows Vista Home Premium with a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo and sports 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a DVD drive and a terrestrial tuner. It also has HDMI, analog RGB and optical digital outputs.
The system is expected to go on sale in Japan at some point soon for about $1661 USD. Although it is quite a bit more expensive than the Apple TV, it is still sleek looking and it can be used to record TV out of the box.
News broke late yesterday and I have just received an email from The Venice Project team that it has now been renamed to the much more catchy name: Joost. Here's what the email from Fredrik de Wahl of Joost said:
"While we're still in beta, we hope that Joost will become synonymous with the best of TV and the best of the Web.
We're working on putting more content on the platform and creating more and more applications and functionality. For those of you who've already been on the client, you can expect to see some of these updates in the 0.8 release - which is not far away at all.
Now that we're Joost, we're going to be sending out many more beta invitations. I know some of you have been waiting quite some time for your invitation and I appreciate your patience. We've been somewhat conservative about expanding our beta - but that's going to change pretty rapidly now. So please keep a lookout for your invitation if you haven't gotten one already. And when you do receive it - please tell us what you think."
Along with the launch of the new name has come the brand new Joost website.
Looking at the screenshots of Joost in action its easy to see how it could be ported over to a PVR or set top box to bring high quality internet TV into the living room.
Had you been holding out hope that Apple would include PVR functions in the AppleTV? Well it turns out, you don't need no stinking AppleTV to transfer (some) HD content straight from your cable box to your Mac.
The whole setup is a bit clunky, as you have to hook up your cable box to your Mac using a firewire cord, assuming your cable box has a firewire port. And then once you capture the content on your Mac, it turns out that many programs will be unviewable, due to encryption.
That said, if you've got some free time on your hands and want to see how many of your cable channels are unencrypted, have at it. Motivated has a complete set of instructions, or if you want to be lazy, you can check out iRecord, which does most of the work for you.
The HD DVD version of Serenity is apparently a 19.6GB file in EVO format, that can be played using programs like PowerDVD and WinDVD with HD DVD playback.
Of course, at 19.6GB, it will take a pretty long time to download this movie on most internet connections. It would probably be worth spending the $20 to pick this title up on Amazon.
I'm actually much more impressed that the appearance of Serenity online would seem to indicate that the HD DVD encryption scheme actually has been cracked, and users who want to make backups of videos they've purchased for home use may be able to use software to do so.
Earlier this month I reported that HD DVDs had been sort of cracked. By "sort of cracked" I mean you could backup/copy a HD DVD providing you had access to the hard-coded "Volume Unique Keys", but how you would get hold of these keys was pretty much unknown.
However, now members of the Doom9 forum have tracked down the elusive key in memory and have already started leaking keys for a few HD titles including Serenity, King Kong and 12 Monkeys.
The cracking battle is not over yet due to a little part of the HD DVD protection system called Key Revocation. Key revocation procedures ensure that devices manufactured by any vendors who violate the license agreement could be relatively easily blocked from receiving HD data.
At this point it's not very clear what this will mean in reality and how it will effect HD DVD players and their users, some playback issues with the ripped HD movies have already been reported.
Check out the Vista-ready OMS-GX300 Media Center from Okoro Media Systems. This beast of a media center will set you back $4,995 but includes some mouth watering specs:
The new TiVX 5010-P HD TV recorder is one unique and sleek PVR from DViCO. To start off this futuristic grey cylinder does not contain an internal hard drive but requires you to add your own external one via a USB port. 
STMicroelectronics has announced its Dual HD Chip, the STi7200. This is the worlds first Dual HDTV Decoder Chip to be manufactured in 65nm Technology which means it can offer lower power consumption and competitive pricing.
According to a 
If you want to record television shows directly onto your PC from cable it is possible for a number of channels. The FCC requires that all cable boxes have a firewire port allowing you to connect your PC and Cable Box together.
Earlier this month I reported that 
