Recent Comments:
PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer going HD {Engadget HD}
Dec 12th 2007 10:47AM I just spoke with the Chicago affiliate (WTTW), and they don't have any plans to show it in HD, even in January. Personally, I'm looking forward to Shields and Brooks in HD every Friday ;-)
The Samsung Katalyst, T-Mobile's latest Hotspot @Home phone {Engadget}
Dec 11th 2007 10:04AM They're using it to mean prop-up or support the hotspot@home program which hasn't gotten great reviews or much press at all, save a guarded Pogue piece in the Times at its inception--the same week that the iPhone was released.
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=shore
OTA antenna sales skyrocket, cable subscribers jump ship {Engadget HD}
Dec 5th 2007 11:58PM I recently downgraded my cable subscription to the most basic level now that Daily Show and Colbert are off the air. I have a functioning mythtv setup that works great for recording, but I'm not quite ready to switch over completely to OTA. (I've had an antenna mounted outside for several months, but it just started to get flaky when the snow fell this week - so I'm not totally ready to abandon cable.)
Sidenote: When kindly requesting the downgrade in cable service, the rep told me that I wouldn't be able to get an HD programming through my 1+ year rented tuner. When I told him that seems to violate must carry legislation, he said that he was really only talking about HD stations like ESPN-HD. Unfortunately, it was much harder for me to convince Comcast to not block VoIP traffic when I plugged in my own cable box the next week.
Comcast to add Food HD, HGTV HD and A&E HD {Engadget HD}
May 22nd 2007 2:37PM As much as I'm excited to see Giada DeLaurentis and Alton Brown in HD, my interest is tempered by the fact that I won't be able to record the program with a my MythTV box. Congress needs to prohibit encryption on all non-premium cable channels.
The Time Warner Staten Island Project = loads of HD {Engadget HD}
Apr 24th 2007 2:06AM As a HD MythTVer in Chicago, I don't think I'm going to gain anything by a switch to an all-digital system. I'm limited to recording OTA HD and analog by "exploiting the analog hole", so this digital switchover won't do anything for me. Is this only going to benefit HD users with cablecards? This seems like yet another change for consumers without a noticeable improvement in service or a decrease in price.
Motorola ships CableCARD STBs {Engadget HD}
Apr 17th 2007 4:00PM But is this good for MythTV? AFAIK, there is no way for a linux box to use cablecards. I'm no fan of the STB, but at least I can get OTA stations (+ CSPAN) from firewire. I'm hoping that a foreign company will make a cablecard STB without any encryption on the firewire output.
Comcast begins digital transition in Chicago {Engadget HD}
Apr 7th 2007 3:09PM From a similar Chicago Sun-Times article:
http://www.suntimes.com/business/330445,CST-FIN-cable06.article
Schaefer said setting up the new cable boxes is simple, just switching three to six wires.
"It can be done in a couple minutes," he said. "They don't even have to set up the clock. The satellite will do that for them."
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So Comcast is trying to make the transition understandable by telling people that your time will be set by a satellite? Is this even true? Don't they have time servers at their distribution points? As someone who isn't intimately acquainted with the cable distribution system this is just confusing.
Comcast begins digital transition in Chicago {Engadget HD}
Apr 7th 2007 2:09PM Thanks Ben for the post. I read the article yesterday, but wasn't totally clear on what was going to happen to NTSC/ATSC tuner reception (or I guess transmission in this case).
As a chicagoan, the first question that comes to mind is "But it is good for MythTV?" I just got a PCHDTV-3000 PCI card in the mail and connected it with a $20 internal antenna from radioshack to see if I can get all of the HD channels that I am currently receiving from firewire. (It basically works, but I don't have the processing power/HD space to really test the HD feeds.)
Specifically, I wonder how I will record Comedy Central and Food Network? If I have to setup an IR transmitter to change the channel on my STB and encode from S-video, is it worthwhile even keeping cable at all; instead, watching The Daily Show/Colbert Report online for free and buying DVDs of Good Eats. I'm sure there's other things on cable I might want to watch, but if I cancel I won't know what I'm missing (unless its something like This American Life on Showtime which I wouldn't plan on recording on MythTV anyhow.)
In my part of Chicago there is no competition for Comcast, thus they have a $25 service which provides jack shit and a minimum of $51 to provide what I would consider to be basic cable. You have to spend something like $73 plus $7 for a HD cable box to get any HD programming that's not available over the air. At this point I'm just sick of comcast and its monopolistic power. Notice in the original article (which seems to have disappeared from chicagotribune.com) that Comcast didn't justify the transition by bringing up the terrestrial digital transition. Thus, the forecast for MythTV looks dim, despite what some lawmakers tried to do with their stipulation that cable providers provide firewire outputs. What we need is to stipulate that cable providers must offer all non-premium content over ATSC, without requiring a cablecard.
PC Perspective attempts to review the OnAir GT USB HDTV tuner {Engadget HD}
Mar 21st 2007 1:22PM I'm with Engadget. The least the reviewer could've done is recorded Jeopardy or a bit of a the Today Show. The notion of showing an example page with static across the top of pictures is totally ludicrous, unless you're choosing to juxtapose SD with real HD content on the same page. It's like asking an octogenarian to review the performance of a sports car.
Engadget's relaunch giveaways: Slingbox PRO! {Engadget}
Oct 13th 2006 1:38AM powerbook G4 12"
