pvrwire.com — Want to hook your TV up to your PC and the internet to bring downloadable movies and your PC videos into your living room? Don't wait for the Apple iTV, check out what is available right now. Plenty to choose from.
Dec 1, 2006 View in Crawl 4
etandribDec 1, 2006
Uhh, you can't watch HD with a s-video cable... well I guess you "can" but not in HD. :) With wireless N you will at least be able to stream HD… which means that it will look better. Tada!
thundererDec 1, 2006
Apple has a history of making formerly good products look like cheap and boring when they release their version. I'll stick with my VLC and VGA to YPbPr adapter for now.
cleverboyDec 1, 2006
I just watched that video... I almost laughed at one point, but he started getting a little scarey as he talks with his teeth bared unnaturally. I like my iPod, and I'd have checked the Zune out if the display models weren't all broken at Best Buy. This guy bought a Zune because its "new". Watch how his smile vanishes when he describes why he prefers the Zune, and calls all 80gb iPod owners theives. Not scarey at all...
silentspyderDec 2, 2006
There were also plenty of mp3 players before the ipod.
josh85Dec 2, 2006
I've got XBMC and it's great BUT the 733Mhz Celeron isn't fast enough to decode 720p/1080i/1080p video. I'm assuming the reason why the iTV is so much more expensive is because it needs a processor fast enough to decode 1080p H.264 content on the fly.An alternative is to get a 360 but it's way too loud, too big, and only supports WMV.
pulse_instanceDec 3, 2006
I agree that not enough is known at this time to make a decision about whether or not this, whatever they call it, will be a good piece of hardware. However, using the fact that they haven't released the name yet as your reasoning to call people dumb for saying it will be good is the most stupid thing I have read in this entire thread.
kilraqDec 4, 2006
First generation hardware typically has errors and troubles. Just look at the Zune right now. Even apple can fall prey to this. They did it with Aperature when it first came out, even if thats a software example.The real benefit for right now would be to those who want this now and are not the early adopter types. Nice piece for information on what is out there. Least they show a roundup of ways for people to do this.Seems mostly like a ad-spew piece though. *Shrugs*
mentatDec 5, 2006
MythTV for the win. Difficulty ranges from Weekend Project to Multi-Month Work-In-Progress, depending on what you want to do with it.I had a Celeron 600 doing all my database work, along with recording, stashed in a a closet in the house, and a softmodded XBox running Linux and the front-end software to watch stuff on. I got a little lazy and used KnoppMyth for the back-end and preconfigured disk images for the XBox front-end, so I had a less-than-a-weekend solution (not counting download times). A legal solution, and demonstrating legal use of BitTorrent. Of course, if you don'ty want to mod and XBox, building a small front-end box shouldn't be too hard or expensive, but it's an open and legal solution. Sure, it's more work than buying an iTV, but it's more satisfying.
nfxmediaDec 10, 2006
There's a lot of assumptions with the "iTV". We only know a small portion of what it offers. Offering replacements right now is a little presumptuous. I'll wait till after Macworld to consider other options.
slashnotJan 15, 2007
the AppleTV will integrate seamlessly with iTunes. Its the same reasoning i have an iPod instead of a cowon player. Does the cowon player do more? most certainly but it doesnt integrate into iTunes. These alternatives are great but they don't integrate.
slashnotJan 15, 2007
yes and it integrates with iTunes. I was once on the side against apple. But then I got a mac mini. At that time I had a cowon iaudio and it didn't integrate with itunes at all. Its a great player, but i got an iPod because of the seamless integration. Now the AppleTV will be the same effect. I could use a dlink media server that has more options but it wont integrate with iTunes.