You can pick up a Harmony 510 Universal Remote for $49 or a Harmony 510 with IR repeater for $97 until 1PM with NewEgg’s (affiliate) Shell Shocker Deal for today. Note that the remote is of the “recertified” variety
Shell Shocker! Exclusive Daily Deals- the jaw-dropping savings will leave you in shock at Newegg.com
Over the past several years I’ve subscribed to and listened to many different media + gadget focused podcasts – I’ve even been a guest of a few of them. But these past six months have stretched my time so thin that I’ve really not listened to more than a few hours of podcasts during that entire time. That’s about to change though as I took the opportunity of eight-and-a-half hours of driving to listen to a new podcast by the guys at Digital Media Zone called HTPCentric.
You may remember HTPCentric from a while back. I was a guest on the final episode of that version where we did a MS MediaCenter vs SageTV rundown. This new re-creation of HTPCentric shares the same name, but really re-focuses on the topic of HTPC’s in general.
Yes, there’s definitely more attention spent on Microsoft Media Center and on SageTV, but the key here is it’s not necessarily software-specific.
The co-hosts are Adam Thursby who uses Microsoft Media Center and Jere Jones who uses SageTV. The plan is to have a monthly podcast with a couple of guests on who all run through a set of topics that will interest anyone who uses HTPCs regardless of their favorite HTPC software.
If you’re a typical HTPC enthusiast, you’re always interested in what the other “side” is doing and this is the perfect place to find out and be in the know."
I’ve just finished the first two episodes and in my book this is a must-subscribe podcast for anyone interested in HTPCs. I’m already learning a lot from listening to these. Do yourself a favor and listen in to these first two and I’m betting you’ll be hooked like I am.
A great start by Adam & Jere!
Find out more on the podcast and for subscription information at TheDigitalMediaZone
Glee returns to Fox Tuesday
NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST
Brandy & Ray J: A Family Business (9pm on VH1) – new realityTV series
The Tudors (9pm on Showtime – Available in HD) – Season 4 premiere
Army Wives (10pm on Lifetime) – Season 4 premiere
Basketball Wives (10pm on VH1) – New series
Treme (10pm on HBO – Available in HD) – New Series
What Chilli Wants (10:30pm on VH1) – New Series
Life Unexpected (8pm on CW – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale
Extreme Forensics (9pm on Investigation Discovery) – Season 2 premiere
VH1 Tough Love Couples (9pm on VH1) – Season 2 premiere
Deadliest Catch (9pm on Discovery – Available in HD) – Season 6 premiere
Melrose Place (9pm on CW – Available in HD) Season 1 finale
Glee (9:28pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Season 1 returns from hiatus with gues star Idina Menzel from Wicked.
Construction Intervention (10pm on Discovery – Available in HD) – Season 1 premiere
The Millionaire Matchmaker (10pm on Bravo – Available in HD) – Season 3 finale
9 by Design (11pm on Bravo – Available in HD) – New series
Human Target (8pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale
Ugly Betty (10:01pm on ABC – Available in HD) – The end of the road for Betty as ABC airs the Series Finale
Project Runway (10pm on Lifetime) – Season finale part 1
Doctor Who (10pm on BBC America) – Season 5 premiere
If you follow GeekTonic for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click here if you would like to get a regular e-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News
Sage Job Queue – Boy that sounds like an unexciting piece of software! But don’t let that stop you from checking this excellent program out. Sage Job Queue or SJQ for short is a very powerful program that can manage anything from the simplest to the most complicated set of processing tasks and provide to you all of the control you could ever want or need.
Sage Job Queue (SJQ) is similar to Comskip Monitor, DVRMSToolbox and DirMon2, SJQ watches for new media files and based on the instructions you give it, it automatically processes those files to detect commercials as well as other processes such as transcoding to other media formats. The impressive thing is how flexible and powerful SJQ is. SJQ can handle just about any set of instructions you throw at it including:
There ARE one or two negatives to SJQ. The first one is that it only works with SageTV – sorry MediaCenter, XBMC and other HTPC users.
The second downside is the one that has kept me from using SJQ until now – this program isn’t the easiest thing to configure and set up. It’s not impossible by any means, but it takes some real work and reading to learn it. Lots of steps are to be taken to get this program to do what you want it to. But don’t let that stop you. Once I took the time to delve into SJQ and learn how to make it do what I wanted it to it’s something even I could figure out.
I highly recommend you take a few hours to learn it and set it up to use with your SageTV setup. I’ll provide a basics guide to getting started with SJQ next, but I’ll warn you now – you really should read the documentation all the way through. In the meantime here’s a screen-shot from the web interface showing SJQ working through my long list of recorded TV shows
![4487743091_f86e944079_o[1]](https://lh4.ggpht.com/_V48_SiJm-_g/S7iZqk8tCdI/AAAAAAAAEcQ/MLSwXiKm7NA/s1600-h/4487743091_f86e944079_o%5B1%5D%5B4%5D.png "4487743091_f86e944079_o[1]")
Read more about SageJobQueue at the SageTV Forums. And stay tuned to GeekTonic for a how-to on SJQ
Little People, Big World on TLC Monday
NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (7pm on Animal Planet – Available in HD) – Season 8 premiere
Sunday Best (8pm on BET) – season 3 premiere
Good Luck Charlie (8:30pm on Disney) – New series
How to Make It in America (9pm on HBO – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale
Adventure Time With Finn & Jake (8pm on Cartoon) – New series
Little People, Big World (8pm on TLC – Available in HD) – Season 5 returns from hiatus
Runaway Squad (10pm on A&E – Available in HD) – New series
Southland (9pm on TNT – Available in HD) – Season finale
Top Chef Masters (11pm on Bravo – Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere
Shear Genius (10pm on Bravo – Available in HD) – Season 3 finale
LisaRaye: The Real McCoy (9pm on TV One) – New Series
Gator 911 (9pm on CMT) – New series
Garage Mahal (9pm on DIY) – Season 2 premiere
Danger Coast (9pm on DIY) – New series
Private Chefs of Beverly Hills (11pm on Food) – New series
Renovation Realities (9pm on DIY) – Season 4 premiere
If you follow GeekTonic for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click here if you would like to get a regular e-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News
Each week GeekTonic covers the TV scene with a complete listing of premieres, finales and specials for the week and this is a week brings back a few science fiction shows I’m following including Fringe and V.
Fringe returns on Fox Thursday
NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST
New Pollution (8pm on FuelTV– Available in HD) – Season 4 premiere
Bubba’s World (10pm on FuelTV – Available in HD) – New series
10 Things I Hate About You (8pm on ABC Family– Available in HD) – Season 2 returns from hiatus
Greek (10pm on ABC Family– Available in HD) – Season 3 finale
Saving Grace (10pm on TNT– Available in HD) – Season 4 premiere
Frontline: The Quake (10pm on PBS – Available in HD) – The real, realityTV show Frontline goes to Haiti a few days after the earthquake in Haiti on January 12th. Prepare to see some very difficult film.
Future Food (10pm on Planet Green– Available in HD) – New series that attempts to mix environmentalism and food. Yum???
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – Season 9 premiere
Little Chocolatiers (10pm on TLC– Available in HDh) – New series
V (10:02 on ABC – Available in HD) – Season 1 returns from hiatus
In Plain Sight (10pm on USA) – Season 3 premiere
Bones (8pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Season 5 returns from hiatus
Fringe (9pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Season 2 returns from hiatus with Doctor Biship telling us more of his story with a “flashback” episode.
Fugitives Chronicles (10pm on A&E– Available in HD) – New series
The Pyramid Code (8:30pm on Documentary Channel) – New series on a channel only a few folks have…
Stargate Universe (9pm on SyFy– Available in HD) – Season 1 returns from hiatus
Merlin (10pm on SyFy– Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere
Miami Medical (10pm on CBS– Available in HD) – Another new medical drama series premiere.
If you follow GeekTonic for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click here if you would like to get a regular e-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News
NOTE: This is a guest post by Mark Terborg (aka eMpTy3000) – a fellow Snapstream BeyondTV user when I first met him. For some basic guidelines for writing and submitting a guest post at GeekTonic can be found here. Or if you’re interested in submitting your photos and write-up for the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase Series, read this.
I got into the HTPC game with Beyond TV in 2007 and used BTV until October 2009 when Windows 7 came out when I switched to Windows 7 Media Center. The remote that I’ve used until just recently was the original ATI Remote Wonder which came with an All-in-Wonder video card way back in the day.
The ATI Remote Wonder was kind of a pain to get working in Windows 7 and I had to use some other software out there to remap all the keys to do what I wanted them to do. The ATI Remote Wonder is only an Radio Frequency (RF) PC remote and has no Infrared (IR) functions. I had been looking at the Gyration Media Center Remote for a little while, but I didn’t want to shell out the cash. There was a post on GeekTonic for the Gyration remote at TigerDirect for $30 so I decided to pull the trigger.
The Gyration Media Center Remote has three good things going for it.
1. Gyroscopic air mouse
2. Long range RF connection to the PC
3. Learning IR remote
Gyration Air Mouse
The gyration air mouse is impressive. It is much easier to use than the mouse controls on the ATI Remote. Basically you can hold down the mouse button (right above the green button) and move your wrist around and the pointer mimics your moves very accurately. If you will be using the mouse for longer than a quick click you can double-tap the mouse button and then it will track all your movements until you tap it again. The double-tap makes it incredibly easy to drag windows or scroll bars or just use the mouse for a while. It functions similar to a Wii-mote, but instead of using IR tracking it uses gyroscopes.
There are advantages and disadvantages of using gyros instead of IR tracking.
Long Range RF Connection to the PC
RF connections are always nice! It works easily from the next room and easily goes through walls. Depending on your house layout it claims it will work up to 100 ft. away.
It connects via USB and has no drivers or installation needed. This is good and bad. The good part is obvious. You just plug it in and go. The bad part is that there is no way to natively configure the buttons. I have, however, found a free easy to use program that will allow you reprogram the buttons which I mention below. The usb receiver does have a very bright orange/yellow led light that may be annoying to some people.
Learning IR Remote
The IR remote functions are adequate. It has an automatic IR code scan that works pretty well. You can also enter a specific IR codebase for a given component type (included in the manual). It has buttons on the remote to switch between the following IR modes: TV, AUX, and CAB/ SAT. The nicest thing about the IR portion of the remote is that it can learn IR codes.
IR Disappointments
One of the main things I wanted this remote to do was control Windows Media Center (which it does great!) and control my Pioneer VSX-816 Receiver.
The main feature I wish this remote had that it does not is the ability to program IR codes for the volume (or any other button) while in PC mode. Since it does not have this feature I have to press the “Aux” button just to change the volume on my receiver and press “PC” to go back to control Media Center. I believe this would have been a fairly simple thing to do with this remote that would have added a lot of benefit.
When using the auto-programming feature of the IR remote under auxiliary mode there were several different codes that it used that seemed to control my receiver. A few of them would turn my receiver on and off, but none of them would control the volume. So I thought, “At least this remote has IR learning!” So I started to try to have the remote learn the IR codes for volume. I followed the directions for learning and I still to this day cannot figure out why I can’t get the learning to work on the volume buttons on auxiliary mode. It tells me that it learned it, but it just won’t control the volume. It will work, however, if I teach the volume codes to different buttons such as the channel buttons or the up and down direction buttons, which is what I have done. I don’t know if this is just a problem with my remote or what.
Button Reprogramming
I’ve found one free program (of I’m sure many) that will let you reprogram the “PC” buttons on the remote. It works very well and lets you do some pretty complicated tasks. It is called LM Remote Key Map found here: http://www.lmgestion.net/@en-
I’ve used this to change what a few buttons do. Here are a couple of examples of what I’ve programmed it to do:
If you have an extra IR blaster (which I do not) you can use this program to blast IR codes to your receiver or whatever you want. This would solve my problem with controlling my receiver’s volume when the volume buttons are pressed in PC mode.
LM Remote Key Map could also help you if you are using another HTPC program where the normal button designations don’t work.
Button Layout
The button layout is very good. It is much different than my old ATI Remote so it took me a while to get used to it, but overall it seems like they have placed the buttons in good locations. You can see for yourself in the image.
Conclusion
The Gyration Media Center Remote is a great remote. I am very happy I switched from my ATI Remote Wonder. It has great range, fast response time, and great mouse control. Gyration also provides a simple installer on their website that will allow you to use the number keys as triple-tap keys inside Media Center so you can input text a little quicker.
I recommend the Gyration Media Center Remote to anyone with a couple of exceptions:
1. If you want a remote that will control your receiver volume instead of your pc volume be warned that you either have to switch modes before adjusting the volume, somehow use AC3Filter and disable AC3 pass-through on SPDIF output (does not work with my soundcard), or use an IR blaster to tell your receiver what to do.
2. There may be an issue where the IR portion of the remote does not learn correctly. The remote also locked up on me a couple of times when trying to learn. (Simply remove the batteries and put them back in).
All in all it is a fantastic remote for the $30 I paid for it!
Note from GeekTonic: Want to know how good of a deal that was? That same Gyration Remote is $99 at Amazon and difficult to find elsewhere – not available at TigerDirect any longer. Although you CAN get the same remote control for 43.99 at Amazon if you don’t mind it being a Refurbished Gyration Remote
About the author: Mark (eMpTy3000) lives in Northwest Indiana with his wife, two year old daughter, and eight month old son. He has always been interested in computers and electronics and went to a local university and landed his current job as an IT Administrator while still attending school. He stumbled into the HTPC world after buying a KWorld ATSC tuner which included a trial version of Beyond TV and has never looked back since. Mark found out about GeekTonic while browsing and posting in the Snapstream forums and now reads GeekTonic regularly. Mark has since switched to Windows 7 Media Center and immediately began working on programming an add-in to help him rip and compress/convert all of his movies with a simple click of a button. Check out Auto Rip n Compress over at the Green Button. You can find at the Green Button and/or find him on Twitter (markterborg).
Each week GeekTonic covers the TV scene with a complete listing of premieres, finales and specials for the week and this is a week with many premieres and a few gems. Not a lot of new shows, but there are a few premieres this week.
Fly Girls premieres on CW Wednesday
NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST
Gene Simmons Family Jewels (9pm on A&E – Available in HD) – Season 5 premiere
Breaking Bad (10pm on AMC – Available in HD) – Season 3 premiere
Kirstie Alley’s Big Life (10pm on A&E – Available in HD) – New realityTV series
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (10:01pm on ABC – Available in HD) – New Series
Dancing With the Stars (8pm on ABC – Available in HD) – Season 10 premieres with Tom Bergeron & Brooke Berk hosting. The new batch of contestants include astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Olympic skater Evan Lysacek, Former "Beverly Hills 90210" star Shannen Doherty, the most recent "Bachelor" (Jake Pavelka), comedian Niecy Nash and actress Pamela Anderson, among others.
Nurse Jackie (10pm on Showtime – Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere
United States of Tara (10:30pm on Showtime – Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere
Be Good Johnny Weir (10:30PM ON Sundance – Available in HD) – Series finale
Indpendent Lens – Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas (10pm on PBS – Available in HD) filmaker Monika Navarro looks at the Immigration Debate.
Fly Girls (9pm on CW – Available in HD) – Season Premiere of yet another reailtyTV series. “Fly Girls” is The CW Network’s new reality docu-series that takes a look at the lives of flight attendants on Virgin America. Yup, that’s what our TV world has come to.
Chandon Pictures (9pm on Sundance – Available in HD) – Series Premiere of a new, 8-part comedy series. This comedy is a spin-off of an Austrailian short film. The story follows the adventures and mishaps of a struggling production company called Chandon Pictures .
Victorious (9:30pm on Nickelodeon) – Series Premiere for the tweeners. Tori Vega gets the chance of a lifetime, after filling in for her sister’s performing act, she is given the opportunity to attend the elite Hollywood Arts High School.
If you follow GeekTonic for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click here if you would like to get a regular e-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News
Most everyone can watch the NCAA Tournament on their TV sets these days thanks to their local CBS channel. But what if you want to watch the game that isn’t being “focused on” by the CBS affiliate in your area? Well one choice is to fire up the laptop and watch it on CBSOnline.com and choose the game of your choice to stream to the computer. But what if you want to pick and choose the game for your TV set? Well that’s possible with three of the leading HTPC software programs.
SageTV has a very nice PlayOn add-on that gives you access to all of the online content available to PlayOn including the NCAA Tournament games. You’ll need to get your free trial of PlayOn or purchase it, then install the free, SageTV PlayOn plugin and your set.
For more about the latest update to the PlayOn Plugin for SageTV head to the SageTV Forums.
Windows MediaCenter also has a PlayOn plugin you can use VMCPlayit or tubecentric.tv to stream to your MediaCenter powered TV. You can also use the “On Now” feature of Media Center with the “Sports Strip” described on Pete’s Windows Live Blog to check out the game scores.
As of this month, Boxee has March Madness Live content streaming available as well. Plex has had NCAA Tournament streaming since last year.
After witnessing thousands of readers interested in the NCAA Tournament Excel download, I have a feeling these HTPC March Madness features will be pretty popular as well. Go Mizzou!
Newegg (affiliate) has my favorite tuner of all time, the SiliconDust HDHR dual QAM tuner for $99.99 and free shipping through March 28th.
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Network-based Dual Digital HDTV Tuner Ethernet Interface $99.99 (124.99 less $25 with code CDYG45) with Free Shipping. The code is good through 3/28 so don’t wait.
Next best price is Amazon.com for $121.36 and free shipping. Not a bad deal at all, but still not as good as NewEgg.
To follow deals just like this one, subscribe to GeekTonicDeals
Thanks to JarkHD for the tip!
For all of the HD sports I consume over the year, one of my very favorite sporting events is the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Even if you don’t have a favorite team in the tournament this year, you can follow along by making your picks for the bracket. To help you along in that process, I’ve updated the excel spreadsheet I use each year (suitable for any Basketball Geek) that lets you select your picks from a drop-down and easily print & save your picks. It’s free, easy and will soon be pre-filled with all of the teams in the 2010 NCAA Tournament bracket.
Get your download of the Excel March Madness 2010 Bracket here.
If you just want a web-printable bracket with the teams filled in and not a spreadsheet, there’s plenty of choices for you including the following:
My favorite team (Missouri) will play the role of underdog regardless of how far they go, but MrsGeekTonic will be cheering for her #1 Kansas Jayhawks throughout the tournament. If you have a favorite team or matchup please share in the comments.
This week brings some newcomers to TV including the long awaited “The Pacific” on HBO, “Sons of Tucson” on Fox, the NCAA Basketball Tournament and the return from hiatus for FlashForward. Each week GeekTonic covers the TV scene with a complete listing of premieres, finales and specials for the week and this is a week with many premieres and a few gems.
Sons of Tucson Premieres on Fox Sunday
NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST
NCAA Basketball Championship Selection Show (5pm on CBS – Available in HD) – Time to see what teams make the NCAA Division I tourney and which brackets they play in.
Ultimate Recipe Showdown (6pm on Food Network – Available in HD) – Season 3 premier
Minute to Win It (7pm on NBC) – A new gameshow on NBC hosted by Guy Fieri. Competitors race through 60-second games that pay a $1 million prize.
Sonny With a Chance (7pm on Disney) – Season 2 premiere
Ultimate Power Builders (8pm on Planet Green – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale
Sons of Tucson (9:30pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Series premiere for the new fox comedy. The plot is this: The Gunderson brothers hire a man (Tyler Labine) to pose as their father while their real dad is in prison.
The Celebrity Apprentice (8pm on NBC – Available in HD) – Season 9 begins with contestants Bill Goldberg, Curtis Stone, Bret Michaels, Carol Leifer, Sharon Osborne, Summer Sanders, Selita Ebanks, Darryl Strawberry, Holly Robinson Peete, Maria Kanellis, Michael Johnson, Rod Blagojevich, Cyndi Lauper and Sinbad. As we’ve seen many times before, the realityTV show is a popular way for has-beens or never-been stars to get attention again.
Hannah Montana (8:30pm on Disney) – Series finale
The Pacific (9pm on HBO – Available in HD) – The highly anticipated, 10-part WWII miniseries finally arrives on HBO. Think of this as the “Pacific” version of Band of Brothers. This is THE reason I subscribed to HBO recently and based on what I saw of “The Making of the Pacific” it shouldn’t disappoint.
America’s Worst Driver (9pm on Travel Channel – Available in HD) – Season premiere of the show that searches for America’s worst driver. That’s seriously the concept of this show.
Antonio Treatment (9pm on HGTV) – New series
Fatal Attraction (9pm on Animal Planet) – 3-part mini-series that looks at people who want to be around dangerous animals.
Zeke and Luther (6:30pm on Disney XD – Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere
Jessica Simpson’s The Price of Beauty (8pm on VH1) – Series premiere where we hear style tips.
Home Rules (9pm on HGTV – Available in HD) – New series where life coach and former WNBA player Fran Harris explores why a frazzled family is struggling to find harmony at home
NCAA Championship Basketball Tournament (CBS – Available in HD) – The tourney begins and runs through April 5th
Justified (9 pm on FX – Available in HD) – New series about U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a lawman enforcing his brand of justice to put a target on his back with criminals and puts him at odds with his bosses in the Marshal service.
Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too (10pm on Oxygen) – Another new realityTV show
Marriage Under Construction (10pm on HGTV – Available in HD) – New series where newlyweds, Natalie and Rod share the challenge of buying a house and making it a place to call home. With the help of up-and-coming designer the couple decorates and renovates their home.
Addicted (9pm on TLC – Available in HD) – A new 1-hour docu-series following the lives of individuals struggling with addiction as they work with interventionist
South Park (10pm on Comedy) – Season 14 premieres
Ugly Americans (9:30pm on Comedy) – A new animated series with New York overrun with zombies attempting to assimilate into society alongside humans
Scrubs (7pm on ABC – Available in HD) – Season 9 finale
FlashForward (9pm on ABC – Available in HD) – One of my favorites returns from winter hiatus
My First Sale (7:30 pm on HGTV – Available in HD) – Series premiere
Selling New York (8pm on HGTV – Available in HD) – Series premiere
Tough as Nails (8:30pm on HGTV – Available in HD) – Series premiere
Archer (9pm on FX – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale
Healing Hands (8pm on Hallmark) – A made-for-TV hallmark movie where an accident leaves a janitor (Eddie Cibrian) with the ability to heal others
If you follow GeekTonic for the TV Premieres and news, you’ll want to click here if you would like to get a regular e-mail for GeekTonic TV Premieres & News
I was reading through the SageTV forums today and one particular post caught my eye. A long-time SageTV user starts off the forum post like this:
“How my HD100’s have Practically Paid for themselves”
This is one of the key reasons extenders matter. It’s also one of the reasons I use extenders at most TV’s in my home instead of a dedicated HTPC for each TV. Lower power consumption, lower initial cost and ease of use all go into the equation as I explained when I made the case for extenders over computers.
Paul goes on to explain how the energy savings he has experienced by using two HD100 extenders (predecessor to the HD200) has been practically $175 per machine over the past two years. Here’s an excerpt from his forum post:
“I bought 2 HD100’s back in February/March of 2008. I didn’t get in on the first batch, but I did get in on the second. Last night I was wondering how much money I have saved in energy costs using them rather than a full PC.
I have a computer that used to be my main desktop rig that I built originally to be an HTPC, but then decided to instead make it my desktop. Specs as follows:
- AMD Athlon X2 4850e
- Gigabyte 780G MicroATX Motherboard
- 6GB of DDR2800 RAM (originally 2GB)
- 320GB SATA Hard Drive
- DVDRW Optical Drive
- AMD/ATI Radeon 4670 Video Card (replaced onboard video for better 1080i playback)
The system above draws about 130 Watt/hr when idle and around 170 Watt/hr at full load (roughly).
In comparison, the HD100 uses around 7-8 watt/hr at all times – even if we use the 130 Watt/hr idle draw, that means that the full HTPC is using 122 watt/hr more than the HD100. Using 8 cents a kw/hr that I pay here that works out to:
- 122 w/hr x 24 hours = 2928 (roughly 3 KW/hr per day then)
- 3 Kw/hr x .08 = $ 0.24 per day or 0.24 x 365 = $87.60 per year of savings.
Since the HD100’s are now 2 years old, this means that I have seen an energy savings of about $175 each in the 2 years I have had them!! That makes their current net cost to me about $37 each ($200 for the unit + 12 for shipping – $175 in energy savings)!“
The SageTV HD Theater (HD200) uses a slightly higher 8 – 10 Watts compared to the 7-8 watts/hr of the older HD100. Either way, it’s a considerable amount of energy savings compared to a full-blown HTPC in multi-TV setups. Last year I began checking power usage of electronics in the house with a Kill-a-Watt and it’s definitely an eye opener. I’ll do another article to show off the results in my home.
P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor
During my research for two upcoming HTPC feature stories on building an HTPC and HTPC server I came across a couple of nice deals at Amazon (affiliate).
First up is the Apex MI-100 
Next is the Antec 300 Case which would make a nice HTPC server case for $50. It has 3 5.25 external drive bays and 6 3.5 internal drive bays.
Antec Three Hundred Computer Case External 3 X 5.25; Internal 6 X 3.5 2*Usb2.0
The Oscars tonight and then a few more premieres, returning shows and even some finales this week. Plenty of basketball for the sports fans as we head towards March Madness too. Each week GeekTonic covers the TV scene with a complete listing of premieres, finales and specials for the week.
The 82nd Academy Awards is on ABC Sunday night
What Would Brian Boitano Make? (noon on Food Network) – Season 2 premiere
Hannah Montana (7:30pm on Disney) – Part one of the finale
Big Love (8pm on HBO – Available in HD) – Season 4 finale
The 82nd Academy Awards (8:30pm on ABC – Available in HD) – I’m not in to awards shows really, but this is one of the big ones and should prove to be interesting. Honors for achievements in film take place at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles; Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin host.
Breaking Bad (10pm on AMC – Available in HD) – Season 3
Yo Gabba Gabba (10:30am on Nick) – Season 3 premiere
Top Gear (7pm on BBC America) – Season 13 finale
Gossip Girl (9pm on CW – Available in HD) – Returns from winter hiatus
Trauma (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) – NBC’s expensive drama that often was compared to “Emergency” returns from hiatus and life support. It was rumored to have been cancelled and then revived by NBC.
Turf War (9pm on DIY) – Sneak peek of a new series on DIY
Make it or Break It (9pm on ABC Family) – Season 1 finale
Wild Recon (8pm on Animal Planet – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale
Food Wars (10pm on Travel – Available in HD) – series premiere. This is a series I’ll be recording just to see some of the dining establishments I’ve been to highlighted on TV.
White Collar (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – Season 1 finale. Another good series on USA.
America’s Next Top Model (8pm on CW ) Season 14 premiere. Just wondering here, if this is really about the modeling world, shouldn’t it be in HD?
High Society (9:30pm on CW – Available in HD) Series premiere of a new realityTV show that follows New York socialite Tinsley Mortimer and her friends.
First Love, Second Chance (10pm on TV Land) – A new realityTV show on TV Land. This one reunites folks with their first love.
Psych (10pm on USA – Available in HD) – Season 4 finale
Billy the Exterminator (10:30pm on A&E – Available in HD) – Season 2 premiere
Sober House With Dr. Drew (10pm on VH1) – Season 2 premiere
Supernanny (9pm on ABC) – Season 6 finale
NUMB3RS 10pm on CBS – Available in HD) – Season 6 finale
The Guard (9pm on ION) – New series on ION
Sons of Tucson (8:30pm on Fox – Available in HD) – Series premiere for a new fox comedy with Tyler Labine.
Apprentice (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) – Season 9 begins
The Pacific (9pm on HBO – Available in HD) – The highly anticipated WWII miniseries finally arrives on HBO. Think of this as the “Pacific” version of Band of Brothers. This is THE reason I subscribed to HBO recently and based on what I saw of “The Making of the Pacific” it shouldn’t disappoint.
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I came across a heck of a deal on the Gyration Motion Sensing Remote – a 2.4Ghz RF remote that is Windows 7 Media Center compatible. This thing sells around $90 normally, but TigerDirect (affiliate) has it for $29.99 right now.
Gyration Motion Sensing Remote $29.99
When you compare the feature-set of popular multi-OS HTPC software, SageTV to the competition it’s pretty difficult to argue against it on features alone as they have about as much functionality and flexibility of any HTPC solution available today. But you’ll often hear complaints about the old or underwhelming user interface on SageTV. We’re beginning to hear and see some information about one of a few new UI projects in the works for SageTV and today the “Project Ortus” team began showing off some of what’s to come for SageTV users.
Project Ortus is a SageTV add-on led by a team of 3rd party developers making a new user-interface add-on for SageTV that includes a brand-new UI. They are still working on this behind the scenes in an alpha testing phase, but are welcoming curious folks to check out a few screen-shots of their work:
As you can see, this new add-on will be offering a very, nice, new look for SageTV. The public beta is slated to begin in approximately four months (timing could change) from now.
Keep in mind, this is only one of a few different projects like this going on for SageTV – and the company SageTV is also working on their own new UI for the next version of SageTV – SageTV 7 as mentioned here at GeekTonic this January. And even beyond these options, there will continue to be different “skins” to further customize the look of your HTPC setup to your hearts desire.
I’ve been toying with the idea of dropping a SSD drive in my HTPC setup for a while, but the price has always held me back. Andy (known as babgvant on the web) takes a look at using SSD’s verus HD’s in your HTPC.
Excerpt from the article:
Like rocket cars, moon vacations and watchable online video we all know that solid-state drives (SSD) are the future. Of course it will be a long time before any of us can afford to replace that 2TB drive with one, but with prices for smaller SSD finally approaching a reasonable level it makes sense to start thinking about how to fit one into the HTPC (especially a client).
Read more at MissingRemote.com
With the iPad coming soon talk of the tablet/MID device killing off the Kindle (and other eReaders) has been going strong. I would argue that this talk is premature – especially for those of us who actually still read books on a day-to-day basis. But even still, I’ll admit the iPad will definitely have an effect on the eReader market in some significant way. So how will the Kindle survive? The number one way will be price and that’s a great thing for the reading public.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s Digital Daily blog, the ARM chip inside the Kindle devices has a new chip design that could (I repeat, COULD) drive prices of the Kindle’s most popular eReader device down around $150 or even below. I’ve always said the biggest negative for the Kindle is the high price. Put the Kindle at $99 or even just above that and you could easily pull in those hard-core readers who couldn’t justify the cost before. I’d probably even pick up a third Kindle for our family – one for myself if the price dropped that low.
What do you think? Would a $99 or $149 Kindle be enough to make you buy one? Or do you need an internet device that also functions as an eReader regardless of price difference?
March is here, the Olympics are over and the winter “pause” is over. That means the TV schedule gets back to normal and some new premieres.
Don’t miss the Ultimate Guide to the 2010 Winter TV Season Premieres with free downloads by premiere date & by show name.
The case of NBC’s new show, Parenthood premiering on Tuesday
Winter Olympics: Closing Ceremonies (7pm on NBC – Available in HD) The games conclude with the men’s hockey and men’s cross country skiing finals (noon NBC) and the closing ceremonies (7 p.m. NBC).
The Family Crews (10pm on BET) – The guy who played the father on “Everybody Hates Chris,” Terry Crews stars in this docu-series
Masterpiece Classic: The 39 Steps (10pm on PBS – Available in HD) – A new adaptation of the Alfred Hitchcock espionage thriller classic.
The Marriage Ref (10:30 on NBC) – A new realityTV/Comedy show – this one is has been pushed by NBC all throughout the Olympics with lots of facetime for Jerry Seinfeld since it’s his show. The Marriage Ref features a different set of celebrities taking sides in marital arguments each week with Jerry Seinfeld, Kelly Ripa and Alec Baldwin as “panelists.” Moves to it’s regular time slot on Thursday, March 4th.
Sinbad: Where U Been? (11pm on Comedy) – Sinbad does a standup comic routine
Rules of Engagement (7:30pm on CBS – Available in HD) – Season 4 premiere
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (10:35pm on NBC – Available in HD) – Leno returns to late-night.
The Bachelor (7pm on ABC – Available in HD) – Season 14 seoson finale
Southland (10pm on TNT – Available in HD) – Were you a fan of NBC’s police drama, Southland? You know, the one that NBC cancelled last season? Well TNT has picked the show up with all new episodes for your viewing pleasure.
Madman of the Sea (9pm on Animal Planet – Available in HD) – New nature/realityTV series on Animal Planet
Parenthood (9pm on NBC – Available in HD) – An all-star cast for this new sitcom. On my list of possible good ones although it will be a very tall order to beat out or even come close to the greatness of Modern Family in my opinion. Parenthood stars: Peter Krause, Dax Shpard, Craig T Nelson, Lauren Graham among others. Produced by Ron Howard which makes me set it up as a record on my HTPC.
Players (9:30pm on SPIKE) – New series on Spike… Executive Producer Matt Walsh stars in Players about a happy-go-lucky guy who owns a bar with his conservative brother.
Nip/Tuck (10pm on FX – Available in HD) – Nip/Tuck airs its series finale with its 100th episode
Web Soup (7pm Wednesday on G4 (second-season premiere).
The Locator (9pm on WEtv) – Season 4 premiere
Instant Recall (7:30 pm on GSN) – Series premiere
The Real Housewives of New York City (10 pm on Bravo) – Season 3 premiere
Who Do You Think You Are (8pm on NBC – Available in HD) – A new series with Lisa Kudrow that covers the inside family history of celebrities
Destination Design (12:30 pm on HGTV) – series premiere
Breaking Bad (10pm on AMC – Available in HD) – Season 3
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