TVSquad

Apple has left some fairly noticeable heel marks on the free throw lines of the computer, digital music and the cell phone industry.

So what technology business does Steve Jobs have next on his "To Dominate" list? Why TV, of course. What did you think I was going to say? Toasters? Did you not read the name of this blog?

A financial analyst with the Piper Jaffray investment banking firm speculated that the company is eying at taking a stab at TV technology by releasing its own high definition television by 2011.

Is Best Buy just using good business sense or are they being mean?

Yesterday their web site listed a 52-inch Samsung HDTV for only $9.99. That's three dollars off of the regular $12.99 price! Well, no, it's actually $1600.00 off of the regular price. It was a typo, obviously, but several people did order the TV at that price (some even ordered two) before it was taken down. But Best Buy says it's not going to let those orders stand.

Does the thought of this face in 720 lines of crystal clear resolution make the soup you had for lunch a week ago rise in your gullet?

If so (you extremely shallow human being who will spend life alone until you die), then you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that Jimmy Kimmel's first foray into high definition television was quite an improvement.

He even showed his viewers just how beautiful the difference was by making the switch live on the air during Tuesday night's episode.

As we all know, and are probably tired of hearing because it makes us so damned depressed, the recession is hitting everyone hard. Businesses are closing left and right, people are losing their jobs, and unemployment rates are hitting levels not seen since the days of leg warmers, headbands and tainted Tylenol. It's bad enough that even if people still have a job, their employers are taking extensive belt tightening measures to make sure they are prepared for the worst.

One of the things being eliminated from families' budgets during this belt tightening is their cable or satellite hookup. With costs that can total over $100 a month, families are just not ready to dump that kind of cash on something they feel doesn't have any value. That doesn't mean they are going without television (especially after the DTV switchover) and turning to a simpler life of canning vegetables, making quilts, and attending square dances. Rather, they are switching off their hi-def flat screens, turning on their computer flat screens, and getting their TV fix over the Internet.

So you've got that new high definition television in the living room, your 120 gig TiVo recording all of your favorite shows and a cable box with more channels than a Roman aqueduct.

Think you've reached the pinnacle of home entertainment? The Consumer Electronics Show would beg to differ.

Some 3-D TV's popped up on the convention floor and the advent of the burgeoning technology is starting to create a bit of buzz that it could become the next step over HD TV.

As I think about the past year, in both my life and in the world of TV, there's plenty I have to be thankful for. The life stuff is obvious: health, family, my girlfriend, a roof over my head, food on my plate, and a job that I enjoy. But the TV stuff isn't quite as obvious. So, as the balloons float over midtown Manhattan and people get ready to gorge themselves, here are a few things that made me happy to be a television watcher this year:

The election - Yes, it was too long. And, yes, it was exasperating at times. But it was the source of a lot of entertaining television. Of course, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and SNL were in top form (Tina Fey became a huge star, thanks to Sarah Palin). But entertainment came in many forms this election season, from Katie Couric's skewering of Palin to David Letterman's spat with McCain to just about anything that came out of Joe Biden's mouth. Finally, I have three words of infinite entertainment for you: Chuck Todd's goatee.

This news might actually get me to start watching Heroes weekly again.

This week, Hulu.com bulked up its free HD Gallery to include new episodes of Heroes, The Office, 30 Rock and all of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in 720p high definition. I just streamed "It's Coming," last week's ep of Heroes, and it looked great on my 25-inch iMac. I'm no tech wiz, but I can easily see the difference in visual quality between the site's HD offerings and its regular streaming content. (Too bad HD can't work the same magic on Tim Kring's script.)

I don't have an HD TV. I usually watch my favorite shows on an out-of-date 20-inch box. So, from my perspective, Hulu's HD content looks pretty amazing. It's the greatest thing to happen to TV since last night's ep of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Yes, I have a short attention span.

As you can tell from the screengrab, Cannon PC isn't ready to sell a consumer model with 6 CableCARDs just yet. But the company wanted to show that it is possible. Windows Vista Media Center only includes native support for 2 CableCARDs, so the trick isn't just designing a system with a huge hard drive, massive amounts of RAM, and space in the box for 6 tuners. The company also had to adjust the software to allow additional CableCARDs.

You can see the results yourself in a YouTube video posted by Cannon PC.

You know that shiny new personal video recorder you got from TiVo or your cable company? You know, the one that records high definition movies and TV shows in crystal clear quality? Yeah, well the MPAA isn't so thrilled about those high quality recordings that you make from "free" over the air broadcasts.

Sure, you pay by watching (or skipping) the commercials or subscribing to cable/satellite channels. And movie studios get paid a wee bit o' cash every time a deal is struck to broadcast a movie. But the MPAA wants the FCC to allow the use of technology called Selectable Output Control that would block your PVR from recording some HDTV movies.

The MPAA filed a petition with the FCC last month asking for the abillity to prevent users from recording movies that are broadcast before they are released on DVD. The idea is that if you can record a higher than DVD quality video before it's available for purchase, why would you go out and purchase it? So obviously, the solution is to prevent you from using perfectly legal technology to record it. Never mind the fact that the film studios could easily avoid this problem simply by moving up DVD release dates and/or refusing to sell broadcast rights before the DVD release.

The FCC is seeking public comment on the proposal. If you have some thoughts you'd like to share, you can file a comment at the FCC web site. The docket number is 08-82.

A few days ago the Hauppauge HD-PVR started shipping, and now early adopters are starting to try plugging the HDTV digital video recorders into their computers and television sets. The HD-PVR captures high definition video from analog sources. That means you can plug in a component or composite cable from your cable, satellite, or other set top box and save videos to your PC in H.264 format.

Blogger Brent Evans got his HD-PVR yesterday and posted the unboxing video you can see above. He says setup was easy and that the latest beta version of SageTV recognizes the tuner. The software that comes with the HD-PVR lets you record programs, but it does not let you watch live television.

Evans says while his computer seems to have done a decent job of recording HD video, he can't get it to play the video smoothly. The HD-PVR also locked up twice during his initial test, and he had to reboot it by turning it off and on again.

You can find some more first person accounts at the GB-PVR forums. It looks like Brent Evans isn't the only one having some problems. Several GB-PVR user says they've been having problems with recordings failing or the device locking up altogether. In other words, if you've been waiting patiently to get an HD-PVR, it looks like you might want to wait a little longer.

Hauppauge has begun shipping the HD-PVR. This little box is the first consumer level device capable of capturing HDTV from an analog source and performing real-time H.264 compression. What that means is you can hook the $249 box up to your digital cable, satellite, or other set top box and record high definition TV shows on your PC without the need for a pricy CableCARD.

The quality might not be as high as the video quality you'll get from an ATSC, ClearQAM, or CableCard tuner. But the HD-PVR is extremely versatile since it works with a variety of devices. It includes S-Video and composite and component inputs. So if your video device supports any of those standards, you're all set.

The box can handle 1080i and 720p resolutions. Several major media center applications for Windows already support the HD-PVR, including BeyondTV, SageTV and GB-PVR. Windows Vista Media Center support is coming, and MythTV developers are working on adding support to the open source Linux media center application.

If you happen to be shopping for an HDTV and a TiVo HD, Amazon has a deal that could let you kill two birds with stone. Or you know, two digital media products with one credit card payment. Here's how it works. You order both a TiVo HD and a qualifying Samsung HDTV and when you get to checkout, the cost of the TiVo HD should disappear.

The offer's only good through June 9, and the deal is limited to three TiVo HDs per customer. So if you were planning on buying 4 flat screen televisions for $1000+ a pop, it looks like you'll have to pay for the TiVo box to go with that fourth unit.

[via Gizmodo]

Dvico has released the FusionHDTV7 PCI express card, which is a dual HD TV tuner. Dvico claims that this is the first PCIe card capable of recording two HDTV channels (either digital or QAM) at the same time, and I can't think of any others off the top of my head, so I'm going to agree that this is at least one of the first. Like most HDTV tuner cards these days, the FusionHDTV7 can tune into either digital ATSC broadcats or analog NTSC signals.

The card allows you to record two shows at once, record one show while watching a live program on anothr channel, or view Picture-in-picture videos. Of course, you can get all of the same features by buying two cards, but at about $140, the FusionHDTV is probably cheaper than picking up two other cards. And it takes up less space in your PC.

[via The Green Button]

EVGA, a company best known for its PC graphics cards, is joining the crowded field of companies producing USB TV tuners. The company's inDtube HDTV tuner (Get it? inDtube sounds like "in the tube." So clever. Wait, no.) looks like your basic TV tuner with support for ATSC and NTSC signals, and S-Video, RCA, and composite video.

The tuner also comes with a portable antenna, a remote control, and a USB extension cable, as well as an F-Connector to MCX adapter. There's also some basic PVR software if you don't already have an application for watching and recording TV programs. Without even knowing what software the inDTube ships with, I'm going to go ahead and recommend you find smething better like Media Portal, GBPVR, BeyondTV or SageTV.

The inDTube works with Windows XP, Windows XP MCE, and Windows Vista. No word on pricing or availability yet.

[via EngadgetHD]

The upcoming Hauppauge HD-PVR is probably the most anticipated piece of PVR hardware since... well, I don't know. But it's certainly a sexy piece of hardware that a lot of folks have been hoping to get their hands on. The HD-PVR can record HDTV video from analog component sources. In other words, you don't need a CableCard tuner, HDMI, or other fancy tricks to record HDTV on your computer. You just need to run some cables from this set top box to your cable or satellite box. The HD-PVR will then do all the heavy lifting and compress your video using the H.264 codec.

But there does appear to be at least one downside (aside from the fact that analog recordings are inherently lower quality than digital recordings). Chris Lanier points out that Hauppauge will not officially support dual tuner setups for now. That means, if you were hoping to pick up two boxes and record two HDTV shows as the same time, you may be out of luck.

Apparently the drivers for the HD-PVR do support multiple tuner setups. But Hauppauge has not yet tested this configuration, so the company won't officially support this option. That would seem to indicate that Hauppauge could add support when the product is a bit more mature and the company's had more time to kick the tires. On the other hand, it's wholly possible that third party software PVR applications like BeyondTV, SageTV, and GB-PVR could add multi-tuner support before Hauppauge gets around to it.