Full Support for H.264 Broadcasts

EyeTV now fully supports digital television H.264 broadcasts in standard TV and HDTV resolutions. More and more countries are adopting the H.264 video compression standard for digital television. H.264 provides excellent picture quality at lower data rates than MPEG-2, thus reducing the amount of bandwidth required per channel. The end result is that television stations can broadcast more channels, while using the same number of transmitters.

Closed Captions Support in QuickTime Format Exports (North America only)

EyeTV now supports the exporting of ATSC/NTSC Closed Captions for use on iPhone, iPod, and Apple TV. The Closed Captions are also supported for playback in QuickTime and iTunes.

Separate Deinterlacing Options for Standard TV and HDTV

EyeTV now has separate deinterlacing options for Standard TV and HDTV.

Improved On Screen Menus

The text used in the On Screen Menus has been updated for improved readability. Errors and messaging have also been improved to help users troubleshoot problems.

Unplayed Recordings Badge

EyeTV now displays a badge over the thumbnail of recordings that have not yet been viewed.

Hardware Support

Support has been added for the TerraTec Cinergy T USB XXS.
Support has been added for the Digital Everywhere line of FireWire tuner products (FireDTV C/CI, T/CI, and S2).

Misc bug fixes are also included but not listed in on the site. Stop by Elgato and grab it here.

Matt Brinkhoff

1. It’s small.

The Mac Mini lives up to it’s name. It’s compact and it’s form factor integrates easily with most home theater setups. If you think that having a mini tower sitting on the floor next to your entertainment stand is 733t then there is a reasonable chance you’re not a huge fan of OS X anyway.

2. It’s not ugly.

Let’s face it… Apple has some kick <bleep> designs and the Mini shows it. It’s clean lines and understated brushed metal finish look very much at home parked underneath your fancy new flat panel set. This is in sharp contrast to almost every other PC maker’s beige/black/silver box offerings.

3. It’s quiet.

Listen… Do you hear that? Nope, me nether – I don’t hear a peep out of my Mini in my home theater rack. Compare it to my Xbox 360′s “this is what a small turbine engine sounds like” noise level the Mini is a godsend.

4. It’s not really cheaper.

Admittedly the Psystar box seems like a good deal at $399. Now add $155 for OS X, $50 for Firewire and $90 for wireless networking… Maybe not such a hot deal after all. (To it’s credit the Psystar does have the Mini beat in the Memory and disk areas though.) Oh, and by the way you can’t use Software Update on the Psystar box – how much is that worth to you?

5. It’s a Mac

You don’t have to drink the kool-aid to recognize that there is just something about a Mac that makes it different. It’s not just the software, the hardware, the design or the innovation… It’s a Mac!

In summary I can’t say that I would give the Psystar a second look as a home theater PC. In fact as a FrankenMac builder I can also say I really wouldn’t consider a Psystar for any use at all.

Matt Brinkhoff

One obvious feature that users have noticed is the addition of a “Genres” tab to the My Movies list. Some users at the Apple support forums have reported issues with wireless after upgrading to 2.0.1. It seems to primarily affect users that are running 802.11n on the 5GHz band. Switching to 802.11b/g compatibility mode seems to have taken care of the issue for some users but if you’re loving your n-wifi you may want to hold off on the update.

Matt Brinkhoff

The latest in the long line of Apple rumors involves the ever popular “Apple in the living room” theory that includes “an IP/video set-top box that will bring the Internet and video downloads directly to the TV” according to Information Week.

Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research even went as far as dubbing the mysterious device “AppleVision”, but it definitely won’t be this “AppleVision” skeptical? So am I.

Bernoff goes on to describe the box as including “digital video recording (DVR) capabilities that would make it an effective Tivo killer” as well having the ability to download content directly to the box, for playback on televisions.

Consider me unconvinced, at least until Steve holds one up…

B.Greenway

About a week ago in my distantDVD v0.04b review I stated “if distantDVD supported movie trailers I would lock the app into my startup preferences and I wouldn’t ever have need to see my desktop again, baring the occasional maintenance.”

20 minutes ago I did just that. distantDVD is now my default launch app and barring any unforeseen killer app coming down the pipeline, it will remain so.

Other changes in 0.05b include: Improved error capture, DMG, ISO, & IMG support, and distantDVD now remains on after media is launched.

Tom is really doing a great job with distantDVD and I want to publicly congratulate him on all his hard work.

I’ve included a few screen shots from version 0.05b:

Main Interface

Movies

Trailers

B.Greenway

Not to worry however as Tom over at distantDVD recently finalized support for my particular resolution namely 1280×720. For those who have missed my earlier references to the app, distantDVD is a VIDEO_TS launcher which also supports MPG, MPEG, and AVI files. This app was about as easy to set up as could be.

Simply extract the contents of the .dmg file to the directory of your choice and select the launcher for your resolution. The first time the app is run it will prompt you to specify the directories where your VIDEO_TS files are located, click save and viola there are your DVD’s displayed very nicely, in the span of just of a few minutes.

You’ll want to drop a .jpg of the individual DVD covers, into their respective folders to get the full effect.

Navigating through the on-screen GUI can be accomplished with just about any device that can repeat keyboard commands. Both my wireless keyboard and Keyspan remote worked like a champ.

As I’ve indicated before I really prefer dark colored themes for my HTPC applications and distantDVD definitely fits that bill. The look of Tom’s GUI is exactly what I was after. To be honest with you it almost feels like Front Row’s long lost cousin of a Video_TS launcher, but in lieu of Front Row supporting TS files, this will do just fine thank you.

In all honesty if distantDVD supported movie trailers I would lock the app into my startup preferences and I wouldn’t ever have need to see my desktop again, baring the occasional maintenance. My mini stays in our home theater, in case that last statement sounded odd.

About the only complaint I can think of in regards to distantDVD is that the GUI is so clean and professional looking, I wish it would remain in the foreground after the DVD is finished playing, in its current state the app closes once the DVD is launched.

Speaking of that DVD launch, distantDVD can launch either Apple’s DVD player or VLC Player. distantDVD works with any G3, G4, G5 or Intel Mac running OS X 10.3 or later. Display resolutions of 1360×768 and 1280×720 are currently supported.

If you’re searching for a great looking VIDEO_TS front end for your mini, I highly recommend giving distantDVD a try.

B.Greenway

Basically starting from scratch I wanted to see how quickly and with as little tinkering as possible, what I could achieve with each platform.

Front Row:

I started off with Apple’s Front Row. Ok Front Row is pretty slick I’ll admit but its lack of support for Video_TS folders makes it a no-go for me. Say what you want about the technical legalities involved with ripping DVD’s but in my book I have the right to do what I want with the media I legally own.

Until someone comes up with a plausible workaround for Video_TS folder support in Front Row, I can’t really accept this as a HTPC front end. Let’s face it Front Row offers nothing you couldn’t get from walking over to the mini and inserting DVD’s one at a time.

However Front Row as I mentioned above, is relatively slick in other respects. I like the ‘x media is in y folder so lets associate with this front-end’ logic, but overall this just isn’t a viable solution in my book.

CenterStage:

Moving on to CenterStage You know I really want to like CS, I mean this should be the all in one solution we hoped for in a HTPC front-end. Sadly though I’m just not 100% convinced this is the way to go, especially for new users. I get the impression that no matter how much I tweak and maintain CS initially, I’m always going to have the feeling something isn’t quite right.

For starters I feel the GUI is bloated and while I can appreciate the work that went into it, I just don’t care for its appearance.

One feature I really miss with CenterStage versus other solutions is movie trailer support. Yeah it might sound like a trivial complaint but now that I’ve gotten used to being able to push a few buttons and see new fresh new content without having to buy or download anything, I miss it.

Lastly in keeping with my ‘through the eyes of a newbie’ experiment, I just don’t feel CS is quite there yet in terms of simplicity. Yeah it’s workable, but that doesn’t make it 100% intuitive.

Matinee and DistantDVD:

Ah lets not forget Matinee. While Matinee could hardly be considered a HTPC front (it’s just a Video_TS launcher) I can’t help but think with some further integration and tweaking that it could have been much much more than a DVD launcher.

In the same vein as Matinee the previously discussed DistantDVD looks promising as well. One thing in particular I like about DistantDVD is that it runs full-screen and has a dark colored theme, bright colorful HTPC front ends just aren’t my thing.

However DD doesn’t support my native resolution (yet) so further testing isn’t an option; I will keep my eye on this one though.

MediaCentral:

Lastly I tried out MediaCentral. Of all the HTPC front ends I’ve tried MediaCentral would seem to be the most promising. That is until you dig a little deeper and discover some of MC’s little hang-ups. For one while MC does support Video_TS files, it uses Spotlight to index them. My DVD drives are networked and even after creating alias’s to them in the movies folder, I couldn’t get MC to launch them properly.

For the odd DVD I could get to play off a networked drive the video was choppy and unwatchable. I do like MC’s movie trailer functionality it was pretty much exactly what I was after in that regard.

Another odd hang-up I found was MC’s Internet TV section, even after installing the required Real Media player, it informed me I needed to install it for viewing.

I will say though, that even with MediaCentral’s short-falls it’s worth keeping an eye on. It’s simplistic (dark themed) GUI combined with what it does right, gives me hope

In the end however I’m pretty much left where I started, I have several different options that contain certain functionalities I need but none of them offer everything I want in a single package.

The hunt continues..

B.Greenway

In a response to a question about Microsoft’s Media Center, Jobs replied

We hear you loud and clear

Far be it for me to incite the flames of passion in Mac HTPC fans but as this has to do with our sites focus I would be remiss to not mention it. The real question is, do they hear us and don’t care? Or do they hear us and have a surprise in store?

B.Greenway

The clever part to all this in my opinion is that Apple has found a way to test the media center waters without having to devote an inordinate amount of resources or worrying about it being a flop, hey it was just a freebie application right? On the other hand if it explodes in popularity, they’ll say yeah that was all us, we knew that would be huge.

Apparently Front Row is only available with new iMac’s (for the time being) but if it catches on, I could see box’s with the remote and software on Apple store shelves in the not to distant future. The biggest question is will Apple support third party devices like the Elgato Eye or similar products with Front Row, because without this kind of integration, Front Row is nothing more than a remote interface with some fancy trimmings.

As the post and quote in the post below will indicate, Steve Job’s never met a contradiction he didn’t like.

B.Greenway

Well hmm how to respond to that, in the most basic root sense it already has, now as to whether the average consumer will embrace it (I’m sure he was speaking to the latter) remains to be seen, but as with anything else, and Apple knows this all to well, all it takes is one killer app and consumers will flock to it.

B.Greenway