Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Macbook Love
film_man_pdx wrote: I've had an Avel LinkPlyer2 for about 3 years or so, too. I just loved the device even with all its clunkiness. I had about 4 computers streaming to it. Coupled with a good bit torrent client, I have had not much need for premium cable or a dvr. Just download an xvid rip and stream away! I recently retired the AVLP2 because I do most of my streaming downstairs in the family room through either the XBox360 or the Playstation 2. My wife bought an HDTV LCD for the bedroom over Christmas, so I purchased an AppleTV for it. I really thought the AppleTV sucked until boxee came along. Boxee makes the AppleTV worthwhile for me and I would not have purchased the unit if boxee were not available. My favorite feature of boxee has been the utilization of dvd menus from ripped content on a networked computer somewhere in the house. Never got dvd menus working on any of the firmware releasse for the LinkPlayer2. Boxee streams wonderfully. I don't have any need to share with community, and it is not a feature that attracts, but maybe over time it might work out if my friends and family join the boxee community. 2 months ago, NONE of my relatives were on facebook, now just about everyone is and we all are sharing like crazy. Boxee is in alpha on all platforms, yet I've seen better performance in this alpha product than I have in many so called release version. Happy viewing, all. (end of unsolicited product endorsement) One of the reasons I keep using the Linkplayer2 (other than network streaming) is despite having both an HD-DVD and Blu-Ray player my 53 HD set is over 8 years but component only. The early firmwares of the Linkplayer2 allowed upscaling of DVDs over component. Of course the whole initiative of not allowing upscaling over component simply shows the ignorance of Hollywood executives when it comes to technology. After all they've decided NOT to downrez over component on Blu-Ray most likely since they were told that there were few component sets around anymore and that the actual argument that someone would be able to pirate off the component ports was pretty lame since the only VCRs that would record off component were $5000 and the tapes very expensive. At some point I'll upgrade the TV to an LCD set. And with Fry's selling off HD-DVDs at $5 each I actually have more of those than Blu-Ray and it is funny that most of the HD-DVDs have better encoding than the Blu-Ray disks. And many of the movies on HD-DVD haven't made it to BD yet. I was just thinking one product that doesn't exist is a DVR that just records the streams and modulates them back to an ATSC signal and play it over the RF cable since the new sets can decode those. Though I can find plans for the European standard modulators no one has figured out how to do a cheap ATSC or 8VSB circuit. Right now what makes DVRs expensive is they are computers and need enough horsepower to decode the stream to a 1080 line frame buffer which is then sent out over component or HDMI. With an ATSC modulator people could get kits that would turn old computers into DVRs since that wouldn't take much horsepower and big hard drives don't cost much anymore. I don't know about the social networking thang, I'm on LinkedIn but a friend invited me there. I think it is all just another fad we'll all laugh at 10 years from now. Of course if you look at FFL.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Macbook Love
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: Alex, did you see Jim Karpen's article about Boxee in this month's Source? http://boxee.tv/. Looks like an interesting thing to play with if you have a Mac connected to your TV. Doesn't work with PCs yet. Yeah, I saw it. Didn't really grab me.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Macbook Love
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: Rick Archer wrote: Alex, did you see Jim Karpen's article about Boxee in this month's Source? http://boxee.tv/. Looks like an interesting thing to play with if you have a Mac connected to your TV. Doesn't work with PCs yet. Devices like this have been around for awhile. They just are becoming less a geek item and advertised to the general public. I've had a AVel Linkplayer2 for over 4 years. It plays a lot of media via server that is on my PCs including my Linux box. It also plays some web shows directly off the Internet. It also plays HD content off data DVDs and used the first generation Sigma Designs chip set which the second generation wound up being in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players. Western Digital has a box that will play files off USB sticks (in case you don't have a home network) and my player even does that too. My local Fry's has a end cap of these kind of devices from Hava, D-Link, Buffalo, etc. I've had an Avel LinkPlyer2 for about 3 years or so, too. I just loved the device even with all its clunkiness. I had about 4 computers streaming to it. Coupled with a good bit torrent client, I have had not much need for premium cable or a dvr. Just download an xvid rip and stream away! I recently retired the AVLP2 because I do most of my streaming downstairs in the family room through either the XBox360 or the Playstation 2. My wife bought an HDTV LCD for the bedroom over Christmas, so I purchased an AppleTV for it. I really thought the AppleTV sucked until boxee came along. Boxee makes the AppleTV worthwhile for me and I would not have purchased the unit if boxee were not available. My favorite feature of boxee has been the utilization of dvd menus from ripped content on a networked computer somewhere in the house. Never got dvd menus working on any of the firmware releasse for the LinkPlayer2. Boxee streams wonderfully. I don't have any need to share with community, and it is not a feature that attracts, but maybe over time it might work out if my friends and family join the boxee community. 2 months ago, NONE of my relatives were on facebook, now just about everyone is and we all are sharing like crazy. Boxee is in alpha on all platforms, yet I've seen better performance in this alpha product than I have in many so called release version. Happy viewing, all. (end of unsolicited product endorsement)
