TVSquad

Sure, your TiVo HD can record 2 HDTV programs at the same time. But slap the upcoming Seagate Showcase external hard drive on your PVR or home theater PC and you can record up 12 at once. You know, if you've got 12 CableCARD or ATSC TV tuners.

The Seagate Showcase is basically a fancy new hard drive enclosure with a snazzy new Seagate Pipeline HD Series hard drive which can handle up to 12 simultaneous HD streams without cracking a sweat or making loud whirring noises. The Showcase comes in capacities of up to 1TB, which should be enough to store 200 hours of HD video or 1000 hour of standard definition video.

The box is designed to be compatible with Motorola set top boxes sporting eSATA ports. It also has a USB 2.0 port which means it should work with other devices including computers running Windows Vista with Windows Media Center.

The Seagate Showcase should be available this fall. No word on how much they'll cost.

[via Gizmodo]

Comedy Central's intermittently funny stand-up showcase Comedy Central Presents is returning January 12 for its eleventh season. The first episode, airing at 10pm, will feature comedian Marc Maron, a personally favorite of mine. This will be followed by Last Comic Standing winner John Heffron at 10:30pm, to whom I'm indifferent. Other comedians to be featured this season include Maria Bamford, Tom Papa, Nick DiPaolo, Chelsea Handler , Finesse Mitchell, Mitch Fatel and Howard Kremer. Yes, some of them have performed for the series before.

I like this show, though it's not on my Tivo's Season Pass since I have to carefully pick which episodes I want to record. Marc Maron and Maria Bamford will get Tivoed for sure, but Tom Papa and Finesse Mitchell I can do without. It's called choice, and that's what makes this country so awesome.

As I've been reading the news stories surrounding Bob Barker's retirement, I've been noticing that people have been confusing two elements of the The Price is Right that have similar names. In fact, that confusion has been in place for about thirty years, perpetrated by bloggers, columnists and news anchors: the misidentification of TPiR's final round as "the Showcase Showdown."

The confusion flummoxes the best of them, including our friends at BestWeekEver.tv, who put together a list of ten reasons why they'll miss Bob (must be an homage to our The Five list of reasons why we'll miss Bob). In item number 3, about Bob losing his patience, writer Michelle Collins states, "Often seen when people have difficulty coming up with a bid during the Showcase Showdown." Um, Michelle... that's not quite right.