HDTV

Hava Player Nokia N800/810 Beta

The Beta release of the Hava Nokia N800/810 software is out and it is GOOD.  On May 8th, Monsoon released their TV streaming software for the N800/810 to a group of beta testers for further testing. The results from the group appear to be good.  I got my hands on this software as part of the beta  program and I am very pleased.

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Hava Platinum HD

Hava HD is a Ethernet device for streaming your TV signal across your network to your PC. Don’t have a TV in your kitchen,  drop your laptop on the counter and fire up your Hava Player.  The software gives you full motion video and audio along with a software based remote control to control your Tivo, Sat box, or VCR (who has one of those still).  I have played with this some over the past 3 weeks and so far I am pleasantly surprised.  Video and audio on the local LAN is superb and set-up was fairly straight forward.  The kicker for this device over the popular Slingbox is that Monsoon is developing a client for the Nokia Internet Tablet (N800/810).  The software is out for beta testing this week.  More on that later.

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Record HDTV from component inputs.

If you arrived here through a google search to find out how to record an HDTV channel from component inputs all I can say is the wait for a device capable of doing this is nearly over. Hauppauge’s much-anticipated HD-PVR looks close to being released.

Hauppauge debuted their HD PVR, which can take a HD signal from its component inputs and transcode it to H.264 in real time for storage on your computer, at CES this year. What this will really allow you to do is bypass any restrictions on recording HDTV programs to your selected device. For me that finally means my full digital cable lineup will be available to my MythTV DVR. Granted this device will sit in the analog hole between your cable / direct tv receiver and your HDTV so, there will be a slight loss of quality due to that and the compression to H.264 but, this should still provide a quality picture. Even with this slightly loss of quality, the promise of opening up all HDTV channels on cable or satellite to any type higher quality recording, has been the holy grail for HTPC for a long time.

Hauppauge had planned to release this unit in Q1 of this year but, like all good things, it will come to those who wait.

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A whole mess of N800 / N810 news.

There is a whole mess of news related to my favorite internet tablet that has come out over the past few days.
Nokia N810 with WiMax
First off, there was the debut of the WiMax enabled N810 at CTIA 2008. Other then the addition of the WiMax radio, only the color of the standard N810 has changed. It is slightly darker now and I think it looks pretty good.

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Why do Monster Cables cost so much? Here’s your answer.

Why do Monster brand audio video cables cost so much? Do they really give your A/V equipment a better signal path from component to component. Is there some magical gas or material that is used to magically turn your system into the most efficient high bandwidth entertainment machine known to the planet. […]

HD-DVD Domino effect

Now since BestBuy and Netflix have announced that they will support Blu-ray as the High Def DVD format, Walmart has jumped on the bandwagon and announced they will no longer stock HD-DVD players in its stores. “Its a one two punch too the head, Blu-ray is beating the thin metallic coating off of HD-DVD. […]

Best Buy chooses sides in the HD-DVD Blu-ray War

Best buy announced it has chosen to go the way of Blu-Ray. Best Buy will now recommend to its consumers the Blu-Ray format opposed to the HD-DVD products. The best buy chain of stores will continue to carry both formats but believe that Sonys format will emerge the victor in the war. […]