Ryan & Amanda Keefer's Personal Site: Cycling, Family, Tech, Music, Software & Game Reviews, etc.
// August 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech, TiVo Bytes, TV Talk
Finally, we get a glimpse of the oft rumored next generation DirecTiVo hardware. Sounds like it’s been delayed.. yet again — this time probably into 2011. No surprises there, though not really sure how these evolutionary (versus revolutionary) boxes can be so difficult to design and manufacture.
// June 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers, Gaming, Internet / Web, TV Talk
On the heels of my post last week about trying to find alternate ways to watch our favorite shows on an alternative to cable, I’m excited to read rumors that Hulu is looking to the Xbox 360 and the iPad. I don’t really care about the iPad, but I am very excited to see the possibility of it coming to my Microsoft console. I’m guessing, that like Netflix, it will requite an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Guess I’ll be renewing that at some point if Hulu comes to fruition.
// June 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Computers, Software Reviews, TV Talk
Over the long weekend, I stumbled onto a useful little application that hit me at just the right time. Recently, we had a death in the Keefer electronics family — our living room TiVo HD is down and out. A replacement is crawling its way towards us via UPS Ground, but in the meantime, we’ve been reduced to watching live TV in standard definition in the living room. *shudder* Even before this high definition time-shifting tragedy, we’ve been exploring alternate ways to watch media on our TVs without cable TV. Ways we’ve come up with so far included:
1. Getting a Mini-Display Port to HDMI adapter for the wife’s MacBook (plus a mini jack to RCA for audio since until the newest MacBook, the DisplayPort was video only). This is the best way we’ve found to watch Hulu and other Web-based content on the big screen.
2. Setting up our PowerMac with 360Connect – a way to stream videos from the Mac to the
3. Netflix and its ability to stream to our TiVo HD (when it’s again functioning), Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii
4. Wii Transfer, which seems to function similarly to 360 Connect, though in my tests, the video quality was dropping frame rates, and you’re using the Wii’s Opera browser. I couldn’t figure out a way to hide the chrome either. This seems like a passable way to view photos and stream music, though I can’t recommend it for video (unless I’m doing something wrong)
I’d love other suggestions in the comments on ways to go. We don’t have a PC, so a lot of the Hulu stuff needs a MediaCenter type services to get it to appear on the 360 or Wii. Anyone have any FREE solutions to get hulu and other TV and movie content to the TiVo HD, Nintendo Wii and/or Xbox 360? Any suggestions and further discussion would be appreciated and welcome!
// May 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech, TiVo Bytes, TV Talk
I love this client/server model that DirecTV’s releaed to compete with TiVo’s multi-room viewing. But, for DirecTV customers, this Whole Home DVR is a lot cheaper than having TiVos, or DVR’s of any brand, for that matter. It means you have a central DVR, hopefully with a nice big hard drive. Then any other TVs in the house have a box cable of talking to that big DVR, and streaming content, with a monthly price of $3 per room, with a max of 15. That’s right, if you have 15 (actually 16), you can stream DVR content to them all at $3 a piece per month.
// May 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // TV Talk
This is a great post Boing Boing did on network TV’s frustrating things they do with their programming, but more specifically, why they do it. Personally, “Don’t leave a show on long enough to build viewers,” Remake anything” and this one is for all of us TiVo fanboys — “Listen to the Nielsen numbers/Not listen to the great DVR numbers” are very frustrating, lame and downright annoying in my book.
// March 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // HDTV Bits, Local (Raleigh Durham), TV Talk
This could be interesting — it seems Time Warner Cable is going to be remapping its channel lineups in the area over the next few months. This could either end up being a big nightmare, or a mere blip of inconvenience. We shall see.
// January 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // Film, TV Talk, Video
In a LLLOOOONG line of remaking old show properties into feature films, add “A-Team” to the list. It doesn’t look half bad as a summer action flick. I comes complete with the B.A. Baracus (sp) mohawk and the black and red GMC van. Might be worth at least a Netflix rental later this year.
My question is when is “Knight Rider” making the move to the big screen. With “Dukes of Hazzard” and now “A-Team” making the transition, it’s time for Knight Rider to redeem itself after the latest short-lived run on NBC.
// December 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // TiVo Bytes, TV Talk
As always happens right around this time, CES rumors are ramping up hardcore here at the end of 2009, and on the heels of yesterdays rumors of a new TiVo HD box, there are rumors that the January 2010 CES will be a big showing for DirecTV, including the announcement of a new hi-def DirecTiVo, along with a solid release date (something a little more solid than just, “2010″). I’ll be keeping a close eye on this as late 2010 we may be going back to DirecTV after a few software updates have been made to the new DirecTiVo and more importantly, our TiVo HD’s subscription is up. I’d love to get away from the craziness and unreliability of cable cards and SDV.
// December 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // TiVo Bytes, TV Talk
It’s no surprise to anyone who’s had any involvement with Cable Cards that it’s been an utter failure. Mix in SDV, and it really get ugly. Below is a nice article about where some of the hardware providers — most notably TiVo, think the industry should head. Sounds like it makes sense. But how much do you want to bet that Time Warner, Comcast and a host of other bastards will find things to complain about with it (DRM most likely, as the article points out) *and* ways to muck it up?
TiVo, Sony and others to FCC: ‘gateways’ should replace CableCARD
// December 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Music, TV Talk, Van Halen, Video
The Fox show, “Glee” (Never have seen the show, though I’ve heard it has a decent following. I hate musicals, TV series or otherwise) covered the Van Halen “1984″ album hit, “Jump.” This just makes me cringe, especially the background chants of stuff like, “Jump! Jump!” Man, this makes my skin crawl. Yuck! David Lee Roth must be rolling over in his grave. Wait, he’s still alive.
At least they left the guitar solo in (and a bit of synth behind the solo), though it’s not EVH caliber stuff. Man, am I getting to the age where my favorite music is going to be relegated to commercials and [bad] covers? Granted, to be fair, “Jump” was released when I was 6 years old.
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