vista media center

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Are new Vista Media Center extenders too pricey?

Are new Vista Media Center extenders too pricey?Wow! I'll hold off on Wireless-N until 2009...I'll wait until I can afford the extender.RE: Are new Vista Media Center extenders too pricey?Yes! $50.00 to $100.00 is the sweet spot for me.Not competitiveOf Course They Are!Comparable units from competitors run in the $200...

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), TVs, TV & Home Theater, Consumer electronics, new Vista Media Center Extender, Vista Media Center Extender, Vista Media Center, H.264, Microsoft Windows Vista

Discussion threads 2007-09-27

Vista Media Center takes over the living room

[Update 24-August, 2:00PM: By popular request, I've assembled a list of the parts that went into this system, including specs and prices.]  In June, I recounted my out-of-the-box experience with a new Dell PC running Windows Vista, starting with a failed BIOS upgrade, undergoing a successful repair, and establishing that the basic hardware and software...

Tags: Media Center PC, PC, System, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows, Vista Media Center, Ed Bott

Blog posts 2007-08-24

Vista Media Center takes over the living room

Vista Media Center takes over the living roomSuccess StorySounds like a success story. It will continue to be a success story until someone sees fit to provide the same functionality for a reduced cost and with a greater ease of setup. Or until it breaks. I hope it doesn't.I'm not...

Tags: Media Center PCs, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), TVs, Media Center PC, Main Drive, PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Vista Media Center, Microsoft Windows Vista

Discussion threads 2007-08-23

Using Windows Vista as a home theater hub

Thinking of using Windows Vista's Media Center in the living room? Follow along as Windows expert Ed Bott offers a guided tour to his Vista-powered home theater setup.

Tags: screenshots, 3D, Keyboard, Home Theater, Media Center PC, Performance, Living Room, Backup, Logitech, Microsoft Windows Vista, HDTV, Story, ATI Technologies Inc., Windows PC, Connected Corp., Music, Vista Media Center, Media Center PCs, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Operating Systems, Software

image galleries 2007-08-23

Image Gallery: Vista Media Center, up close and personal

Image Gallery: Vista Media Center, up close and personalvista media centerquestion: does anybody know how you can connect your center to a cable television setup?do you place it between the digital converter box with smartcard and your tv set?tell us ...XP / Vista Media Center creates DRM-ed video recordingsI don't...

Tags: Media Center PCs, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Cable, TVs, TV & Home Theater, Media Center PC, Vista Media Center, Microsoft Windows Vista

Discussion threads 2006-06-06

Additional Resources

FastPictureViewer WIC Codec Pack 1.50 (Windows)

A set of free 32-bit and 64-bit codecs that enable full support for raw image formats from 12 manufacturers, covering 300 digital cameras in Windows 7, Vista and XP. Provides thumbnail support in Windows Explorer, along with viewing and slideshows in Photo Gallery / Photo Viewer and Window 7's Media...

Tags: Codec, Photograph, Axel Rietschin Software Developments, Microsoft Windows, Media Center PCs, Microsoft Windows 7, Operating Systems, Software, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment

Software downloads 2009-11-27

Sony Vaio FW560F/T (brown)

Editors' note: This review is part of our 2009 Retail Laptop and Desktop Holiday Roundup, which covers specific fixed configurations of popular systems found in retail stores. Several months ago, one of our favorite retail laptops was the Sony Vaio FW480J/T. Besides offering no-hassle Blu-ray playback and a large...

Tags: Desktops, Notebooks, Sony Vaio, laptop computer, game, Intel Core 2 Duo, Sony Corp.

Product reviews 2009-11-25

HP Pavilion dv4-2045dx

Editors' note: This review is part of our 2009 Retail Laptop and Desktop Holiday Roundup, which covers specific fixed configurations of popular systems found in retail stores.The HP Pavilion dv4-2045dx offers more multitasking muscle than many of the other mainstream budget retail laptops we've recently reviewed. Helped by a 7,200rpm...

Tags: Keyboards, Notebooks, Desktops, Processors, Overall IT, lid, Hewlett-Packard Co., AMD Turion II, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., keyboard, HP Pavilion

Product reviews 2009-11-24

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1802

Editors' note: This review is part of our 2009 Retail Laptop and Desktop Holiday Roundup, which covers specific fixed configurations of popular systems found in retail stores.Toshiba's latest Blue Label laptop from Best Buy, the Satellite E105-S1802, is an exact replica of the company's earlier Satellite E105-S1602 model with one...

Tags: Notebooks, Toshiba Corp., Toshiba Satellite, laptop computer, satellite, battery

Product reviews 2009-11-16

XP Tweaks Unlocked 1.3 (Windows)

XP Tweaks Unlocked is an excellent application that any Microsoft Windows user whether beginner or advanced will find useful when an improved Microsoft Windows experience is wanted. This software provides permanent, instant access to a wide range of Windows settings you can easily customize to help you save time and...

Tags: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Best Security Tips, XP Tweaks Unlocked, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows XP, Web Browsers, Operating Systems, Software, Internet

Software downloads 2009-11-11

Cloud Engines Pogoplug

Photo gallery:Cloud Engines PogoplugWouldn't it be nice to quickly access your data from anywhere without a complicated network setup? That's exactly what the Cloud Engines Pogoplug offers. Priced at $100, this tiny gadget turns any USB external storage devices--anything from a Seagate FreeAgent Go to a Western...

Tags: NETWORKING, Network technology, Pogoplug, network, home network

Product reviews 2009-11-10

Dell Studio XPS 8000

Dell's Studio XPS 8000 offers an attractive chassis and mostly up-to-date features. Its configurations start as low as $699, but our $1,329 review unit is a solid upper-midrange performance desktop that will play games and handle more demanding digital media tasks with little difficulty. For the very price-performance conscious, both...

Tags: Dell Computer Corp., Studio XPS 8000, Intel P55, Dell Studio XPS 8000, motherboard

Product reviews 2009-11-10

AVADirect Nano Cube

AVADirect's $2,266 Nano Cube tries to take on Shuttle's XPC H7 5800 at its own small form factor game. Both systems come with smaller-than-normal SFF cases, and each requires sacrifices, even more than with a standard SFF PC, in exchange for its tiny dimensions. Therein lies our problem with this...

Tags: DVD, Consumer electronics, Games, Shuttle XPC, SFF, small form factor, Cube, Shuttle, Nano, DVD burner, PC, Nvidia GeForce, NVidia Corp., AVADirect, game

Product reviews 2009-11-04

Toshiba Satellite A505-S6980

You can't argue with a large-screen, value-priced laptop when it delivers good performance, and looks nice to boot. We appreciated the Toshiba Satellite A505-S6960 when we reviewed it in our 2009 back-to-school retail roundup, liking its affordability, large screen, strong battery life, and excellent-sounding speakers. Just a few months later,...

Tags: Keyboards, Microsoft Windows 7, Notebooks, Processors, Toshiba Corp., keyboard, laptop computer, Toshiba Satellite

Product reviews 2009-11-04

Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: especially in this economy, it's hard to hate a laptop that only costs $350. It's even harder to hate a Windows 7 laptop that costs that much. The Toshiba L455-S5975 is, by 50 dollars, the least expensive notebook computer in our...

Tags: Notebooks, Microsoft Windows, Processors, Intel Celeron, Microsoft Windows 7, Toshiba Corp., laptop computer, processor, Toshiba Satellite

Product reviews 2009-11-02

Averatec D1130 All-in-One

The Averatec D1130 All-In-One is a stripped-down version of the D1133 we reviewed last month, and while this version cuts the price down to only $399, it also strips away many of the features that gave the higher-end model some value. With its puny 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip, 1GB of...

Tags: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows, Netbooks, nettops & MIDs, Monitors & displays, Averatec Inc., D1133

Product reviews 2009-10-30

Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H

Typically our challenges with the emergent Nettop category have been that real budget PCs cost just a little bit more and provide a dramatic performance uptick, and similarly priced Netbooks offer equivalent performance with the added benefit of portability. The Aspire Revo 1600's price tag alone answers those issues. ...

Tags: Wi-Fi, Performance management, Netbooks, nettops & MIDs, Wireless and Mobility, Semiconductors, Acer Inc., wireless networking

Product reviews 2009-10-30

Kodak 5250

The ESP 5250 is Kodak's latest upgrade to last year's ESP 5 all-in-one AIO, which should be obvious from the almost identical design. Aside from looks, the printer does make improvements to print quality and most notably, output speed, but the printer still isn't perfect--it's missing an auto-document feeder and...

Tags: Scanners, Printers, Monitors & displays, Eastman Kodak Co., ESP 5, ESP, scanner, printer

Product reviews 2009-10-29

Ubuntu 9.10 = easiest, cheapest upgrade ever

Worst OS ever! You should read what Dana Blankhorn had to say about your beloved linux! I'll give you a hint, its not good. I can't believe they would release a distro with known harddrive bugs. I'm going to laugh at you when you lose all your data due...

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating systems, UNIX, Ubuntu, Linux

Discussion threads 2009-10-29

Microsoft's Windows 7 challenge: Selling Live services (without being sued)

What competitors?Other than iLife, who is competing with Live Essentials?These seem like little trivial programs to be fighting over. Besides the people complaining about bloat (Even though these programs don't take up much space), I don't think anyone would complain even if they were included in Windows to begin with.The...

Tags: Operating systems, Patches, SECURITY, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Corp., operating system, Microsoft Windows

Discussion threads 2009-10-28