The Media Viking

I wrote previously about a new set top box device that I was looking forward to, the PopBox from Syabas. Upon it initial announcement this little box sounded like it was going to be the great new end-all device for the home theater. Well as we get closer to its imminent release, Syabas has announced [...]

This post will be continuing on from my previous post about new projects to start the year of right. I mentioned that I would be addressing the lack of proper audio equipment for my home theater setup. In order to do so, I have locked on to purchase an Onkyo TX-SR607 A/V Receiver. That will [...]

New Year With a new year comes new projects (and after Christmas specials)! I apologize for the pause in updates. We took a short, unexpected vacation to get all prepared for 2010. Hopefully everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday and took time to be with family and friends. Well, now we are settled back [...]

Syabas Technology has said today that it will be shipping a new set-top box in March and is rumoured to be offered around the $130 price point. Targeting the internet streaming media arena, Syabas’ set top box, dubbed the “PopBox,” is aimed at competing with Roku’s offering and the recently announced Boxee Box by D-Link. [...]

XBCM has released version 9.11 of their Xbox Media Center with a whole slew of updates, changes, and tweaks. The most noticeable difference is the new default theme. XBMC switched over to the new Confluence theme as the default with the recently updated PM3.HD set as the secondary default. As part of their cleanup, XBMC [...]

I’m always interested to hear about people’s “extreme” projects, whether it be an extreme media server or some interesting computer mod. The home theater does not need to be relegated to a dry or boring niche of nothing but HD televisions, HTPC’s, and Onkyo audio receivers. Media has be stored somewhere and with the growing [...]

It has been a few weeks since I first mentioned my plans to review the Netflix and Blockbuster rental services. As promised, here is the first of those reviews detailing my experience with Netflix’s free two week trial. So let’s see how things went… Netflix quotes an average 3 day turnaround on their shipping, but [...]

A few years back when blu-ray was just starting to come about, Richard Weber wrote in an article entitled “The Age of Blu-Ray” detailing some of the main benefits of blu-ray technology: “Do you remember how awesome it was when you upgraded from you old VHS tapes to DVDs? The picture was way clearer and [...]

The other night, D-link showed off its upcoming Boxee Box. It is a custom built appliance running Boxee on Linux. It comes with: SD Card Reader HDMI output port S/PDIF Digital Audio Out Stereo Analog Audio Out Ethernet RJ-45 connector 2 USB 2.0 ports Boxee has mentioned that they are pushing to get support for [...]