Smart Home Blog

Company from Boston Myka offers a simple way to watch video files downloaded from the Torrents directly on your TV. The box looks like Mac Mini (this is my favourite form-factor for media client). So, it won’t break your living room interior. The Myka comes with Ethernet or WiFi to connect to Internet and with an internal hard drive with a choice of an 80-gigabyte, 160-gigabyte and a 500-gigabyte model. So, you will able to download video content and store in the box or watch directly on TV. The box sports HDMI, Composite, S-Video and SPDIF ports. It supports HD (up to 1080i), MPEG4 and various well-known audio and video codecs.

Myka will be available in the summer of 2008. But you can do pre-order now - $299.00, $349.00 and $459.00 for 80GB, 160GB and 500GB respectively.

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As you may know LinuxMCE in the version 0710 supports two personal video recorder systems: MythTV and VDR. This brief howto will help you setup VDR.

Installation

VDR can be chosen by two ways. The first one is initial configuration after installation. During setup the media center property you should choose VDR and not MythTV. The second way is to tick VDR and tick off MythTV on the Software modules page - Wizard –> Media Directors. In both cases VDR will be installed automatically and will start after installation.
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If you’d like to have personal video recorder (PVR) but wouldn’t to buy an expensive one or build it by yourself the new Conceptronic Grab’n’GO Multimedia Recorder & Player is probably what do you really need. Thanks to built-in storage and integrated analog TV tuner the device allows to record TV shows, pause LiveTV, create a recording schedule. Additionally, it can record video from DVD player, set-top box or camcorder.

It’s planing that Grab’n’GO Multimedia Recorder & Player will be shipped with HDD in 500Gb which should be enough to store more than 228 hours in high quality video and more than 656 hours in low quality. It also acan be connected to the PC via USB to copy media content (XviD, AVI, MPEG 1/2/4,JPEG, MP3, WAV and VOB are supported) from/to device.

The CM3PVR is now available, with a retail price starting from € 269,- incl. VAT (500GB).

[via eHomeUpgrade]

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The open source software to watch Internet TV Miro was lunched recently. It turns your PC into full-featured media center. The main idea of Miro is offer en easiest way to browse, search, watch and store a video content (even HD) delivered by internet connection. Using Miro it’ll be easy to watch and store video from sites like YouTube or Google Video. It offers a simple interface to download video files from BitTorrent. It can be stored and played after on your PC. Also you’ll be able to watch thousands Internet channels, video blogs or podcats. Additionally, Miro can play Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID video files stored on your PC.

The first version of Miro is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. So, you have a various choices

[via eHomeUpgrade]

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That weather station can display its data directly on your big plasma instead of small monochrome LCD monitor. It includes a temperature sensor together with radio transmitter, wind sensor and rain sensor. The information can be transmitted up to 60 meters (196.85ft) to the indoor receiver for displaying. The receiver, connected to the TV using RCA cable, analyzes 11 weather conditions and generates easy-to-read weather report.

I’m also thinking about creation of personal weather station. But my choice won’t be TV one. Because for me much more important to connect the weather station to the PC. In that case using special software like Oww and home automation system like LinuxMCE you can show weather report on PC, TV, Internet Tablet or smartphone.

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