TDL Video

Using a Small Form Factor PC as a Media Center System

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:13:00 GMT

For the last few years I have been using my Xbox 360 as an extender connected to my TV and have been really enjoying the Windows Media Center experience. But times are changing and there are more and more services come to the browser so when I got chance to try a Niveus ZONE I hooked it up to my TV.

I really like the flexibility having a PC connected to the TV brings and its just as simple to use as the 360 so the WAF has not suffered.

So I am going to do a series of videos looking at the pros and cons of using a PC and this first one looks at some of the reasons why I moved

(sorry the audio level is so low)

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Vidabox Remote Keyboard Unboxing

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:59:00 GMT

If you have a HTPC and are looking for a neat keyboard solution checkout the Vidabox remote keyboard. The keyboard is a lightweight RF keyboard complete with Green Button and Media Center friendly transport controls.

In this video I take a look at the latest version of the keyboard and connect it to my HTPC

The keyboard costs $89.99 and as a reader of TDL you can get a 10% discount if you use the discount code ‘digitallifestyle' during the eShop checkout to save 10% off the VidaBox keyboard or SLIMv3 case!

Download WMV – Download M4V – Watch via Youtube

Zune HD Unboxing Part 2: AV Dock

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:50:00 GMT

One of the great things about the new Zune HD is the new HD AV Dock for connecting the Zune HD up to a TV via HDMI. You can use the Zune HD almost like an Extender. In this video I take a look at the AV Dock, connect it up to my TV and take a look at the Docks UI

Watch part 1 here

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Zune HD Unboxing

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:39:00 GMT

I really like the new Zune HD, the hardware is impressive and the UI is very slick. In this video I unbox the device and take a look at the new Zune. In part two I will look at the new HD AV dock

Download WMV – Download M4V – Watch via Youtube

Internet TV Beta for Windows 7 Media Center

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:39:00 GMT

The new Internet TV Beta for Windows Media Center showed up this week on my systems and to my surprise it has UK content. It has full TV shows, news, music videos and movie trailers and a UI that is pretty nice.

This video takes a quick look at the beta which is available for Windows 7 RTM and RC

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First Impressions and Unboxing of The Xtreamer

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:41:00 GMT

The Xtreamer is a £99 media streamer capable of streaming HD content around the home. It works with network shares, UPnP servers and local storage plus it will play MVK files so its great for watching downloaded content.

In this video I unbox the unit, connect it up to my network and try streaming content from my Windows Home Server. Using the network shares I could get it to play MKV from my WHS without any issues (better than I could with an Apple TV but more on that in a future video). I had less success using UPnP servers but I will investigate that for a future video.

The device does feel a little cheap but for £99 what do you expect and while the UI is not up to Windows Media Center it is useable. Checkout the video and I will do a follow up video soon.

More details from TheXtreamer.com

BTW The video was made with the new Windows Live Movie Maker which I can't say I was to impressed with

Watch via WMV - Watch via MV4

Niveus ZONE unboxing and first impressions

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:40:00 GMT

Niveus produce great hi-end equipment and recently they have launched a compact (6”x6”x2”) network media player called the ZONE. The idea being that you have multiple ZONEs around the home to consume content from any PCs.

In this video I unbox and have a first look at the Niveus ZONE box connected up to my receiver and TV. The ZONE has a Bluray drive and comes with Niveus Movie library software that handles local and networked movie content.

More details at Niveus

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First look at Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (beta) Windows Media Center Addin

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:11:00 GMT

One of the main features of features of the new Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 beta is the much improved Windows Media Center integration. Not only is there a 10 foot version of the Home Server Console there is automatic archiving of Recorded TV shows. In this video I take a look at installing the addin and have a look how it works.

You can download the beta from https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

I see Adam has a video up of it too on DMZ

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Streaming content from Windows Media Center with an G1 Android phone

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT

One great new feature of Windows 7 is “Play To” and DLNA support, Windows Media Player can operate as a media player, server and controller and the Xbox 360 Media Center extender sessions can be controlled via DLNA. Because WMP is using DLNA you can use it in conjunction with other DLNA devices and not just Microsoft devices, so when I got my new G1 phone (based on Google’s Android OS) I searched for a DLNA app. The application I found is called AndroMote which works as a media player and controller, from the app you can select music, videos or photos on a media server and then choose to play the content on the phone or another DLNA device. I used AndroMote to stream music from my Windows Media Center PC to a notebook and to an Xbox 360 extender session, you can create playlists and control volume on the remote device.

I found the app worked well most of the time but was a little quirky, it worked best with music and pictures and there is a limit of 5 items in the playlist on the free version the full version is 2.9u euros and I have a video of it in action. The video was recorded with a FlipHD and its a little blurred but you will get the idea

Download WMV – Download M4V

First Impressions of a HP DV2 Notebook

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:59:00 GMT

HP’s DV2 is a thin and light notebook computer with 12.1" screen, very sleek design and comes with the 500GB drive. It’s slightly bigger than a Netbook and as small as my HP Tablet PC so its would be great for carrying around and as it comes with Windows Vista Home Premium it includes Windows Media Center

AMD sent me the DV2 to review and so far I have only had chance to take a quick look at it, it could do with Windows 7 installing on it so I can compare it to the rest of my machines (and get rid of the German version of Windows!)

All the specs are available on HP's site and the US price is $699.99 and in the UK £466.97 on Amazon

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First look at a Air Mouse GO Plus Mouse for HTPCs

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:58:00 GMT

When you have a HTPC there is nothing worse that trying to use a mouse on your knee or sofa, there are track ball solutions but they still need a flat surface and keyboards with built in trackpads but they are very fiddly to use, this is where the Air Mouse comes in. As well as being a traditional laser mouse it operates in the air using a Gyration control. It its a bit like a Wii controller but pin point accurate, it also has gesture controls and assignable controls.

In this video I take a look at what is in the box and take a look at how it works

The retail price for the package is £89.99

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Windows 7 running with a DVB-T HD Homerun

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:39:00 GMT

In my previous video I looked at using a DVB-T HD Homerun with Windows Vista but I was having trouble getting it working with Windows 7. So I installed build 7077 of Windows 7 and the HD Homerun worked straight away. So this is a first look at a HD Homerun on Windows 7 and I also take a look at the new MHEG text features in Windows Media Center in Windows 7

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Unboxing and a first look at a HD Homerun DVB-T Edition.

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:08:00 GMT

The HD Homerun is a network based TV tuner compatible with Windows Media Center, its been around for a while in the US and this is the new DVB-T version that works with Freeview. The unit is a dual tuner devices that you connect up via an Ethernet cable to your network and by installing the drivers on the PC Windows Media Center thinks that the its a locally connected tuner. This is great if you can’t position the PC where your aerial cable comes in to the house and its a great solution to share the TV tuner. The retails price is £159 which may be a little steep for a dual tuner but the network functionality really does add some value

In this video I unbox the unit and run through the setup process. I did have issues with stuttering with some of the BBC channels which I suspect is a networking issues and I have not had time to diagnose yet, I have not got it working with Windows 7 yet I am still working on it…

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How to install the new Windows Media Center addin for Windows Home Server

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:14:00 GMT

The new Power Pack 2 update for Windows Home Server includes a Windows Media Center addin that enables Media Center to consume content stored on the Windows Home Server. Prior to PP2 you had to jump through some hoops to get it working involving shares, permissions and registry settings

Power Pack 2 is a free update for Windows Home Server and you can find out more details on this weeks edition of The Media Center Show

The Addin is very easy to install but I thought it would be worth taking at look at how to install it

Download (WMV) – Download (M4V) – Watch via Youtube

Unboxing and First Impressions of a AMILO Notebook Sa3650 with GraphicBooster

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:42:00 GMT

This video is an unboxing video of Fujitsu Siemens AMILO Sa3650 which comes with what Fujistsu calls a GraphicBooster which is a external box that has an extra graphics card built in to it. The box connects via a special cable and has 2 USB ports, a HDMI port and a DVI port, which makes it a great docking station. The idea behind the device is that it gives you the extra graphics power when at home or the office while keeping the notebook with a lower powered graphics chip in it. With the three external monitor ports you can drive four screens on at once!

Notebook Specs:

13.3” display (1280x800)
AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-86 (2.4GHZ)
2GB Ram
320gb drive
DVD burner
802.11a/b/n
ATI Radeon HD3200

The Booster has

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 (512mb)

More details on the spec at fujitsu-siemens.com

I was going to try getting a game running on my TV to test the gaming performance but I couldn’t get it to work (MS Flight Sim kept crashing)

Download (WMV) – Download (M4V) – Watch via Youtube

Freesat Running on Windows Media Center with Windows 7

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:14:00 GMT

One if the new features of Windows Media Center in Windows 7 is native support of DVB-S (digital satellite), with a DVB-S enabled tuner card and a satellite dish you can pickup hundreds of free channels using FreeSat (in the UK). In fact a nice feature is that you can have a hybrid tuner card that can pickup DVB-T services like Freeview and DVB-S channels at the same time.

As I don’t have a dish setup at home I haven’t been able to test it so Ashleigh (the ape on Twitter) sent me a video of FreeSat in action on his Media Center system. In the video you can see all the channels available, BBC HD and the multi-tuner setup. One thing I forgot to mention in the voiceover is that the little padlock symbols on the TV channels in the guide indicates an encrypted channel

The tuners used where two Pinnacle 7010ix tuners

Download (WMV) – Download (M4V) – Watch via Youtube

TunerFree MCE on a Windows 7 Netbook

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:34:00 GMT

TunerFree MCE is a Media Center application that enables streaming of TV content from the like of BBC, ITV and Hulu all to the 10 foot Windows Media Center UI, You don’t need a TV tuner just an internet connection. Martin Millmore the developer of the application will be on a future edition of [tmcs] but I wanted to give an over view of it’s features so I installed it on my Samsung Netbook and recorded in action running under Windows 7. I am amazed how well it works even on the little NC10, I was watching live TV and stream TV shows from Media Center. UK users get BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. US users get all the fantastic content available on Hulu

This video takes a look at the UI and how it runs on a Windows 7 Netbook

It's free download from TunerFreeMCE

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HP TX2 TouchSmart Notebook Unboxing

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:33:00 GMT

HP’s TX2 TouchSmart is a multi-touch dual digitizer enabled Tablet PC, aimed at consumers it makes a great entertainment PC. The dual digitizer means that you use the touch screen with your finger but when you use it with the special pen it switches off the touch detection and uses the active digitizer making very accurate for writing in the screen. So you get the best of both world, touch and a great inking experience. It also has nice speakers making it good for watching Media Center content.

Here is my unboxing and my first impressions video:

Direct Download (WMV) – Direct Download (M4V)

Product Features

12.1" Diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Integrated Touch-screen, Convertible Display (1280 x 800). Panel rotates 180 degrees and folds flat. Rechargeable Digitizer for handwriting capture included
ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 Graphics with 64 Display Cache Memory AMD M780G with 64MB GDDR2 (sideport memory) with up to 1982MB total graphics memory
LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
320GB (5400RPM) Hard Drive (SATA), 4096MB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm); Max supported =4096MB
Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN & Bluetooth

More details from HP.com

Windows 7 Feature Focus: Play To

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:00:00 GMT

The 3rd feature focus video looks at Play To in Windows 7, this along with HomeGroup is one of my favorite features of Windows 7. If your testing Play To with DLNA devices please update the Play To Wiki with your findings

I am planning to do some more Windows 7 videos soon so if you have suggestion for areas to look at let me know

Download (WMV) – Download (M4V) – Watch via YouTube

Windows 7 Feature Focus: Windows Media Center

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:11:00 GMT

In the 2nd feature focus video I take a look at some of the new features in Windows Media Center. Including how Media Center works with a touchscreen and some of the new UI elements.

Direct Download (WMV) – Direct Download (M4V) – Watch via YouTube

Windows 7 Feature Focus: HomeGroup in Windows Media Center

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:05:00 GMT

I thought I would record some video showing some of the new features in Windows 7 and in the first video I take a look at HomeGroup and how the content sharing feature works within Windows Media Center. In future videos I am going to look at some of the other new features in Media Center and take a look at “Play To” in Windows Media Player

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Windows 7 running on a iStyle Media Center system

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:41:00 GMT

On my last video I looked at Atomic Systems’ new iStyle Media Center system and while I had the review unit I thought I would install Windows 7 on it to see how it performed. I did a clean install of Windows which found all the drivers needed and installed no codec packs, what was very nice how many video file types Windows 7 would play without the need for any 3rd party downloads

Direct Download (WMV) – Direct Download (M4V)

Review of Atomic Systems’ iStyle Media Center PC

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:39:00 GMT

Atomic Systems’ new iStyle is a very small stylish system that is unlike many other I have seen. It’s an Intel Atom powered slim line PC that with the wall mounting kit would make a great Media Center system.

The system is is configurable via the web site and the unit I got to review had the following spec:

Intel Atom Duel Core 330

DDR2 2GB 667

160GB

Slot loading DVD-RW

TV Tuner

Wireless keyboard

Vista Remote

Windows Vista Home Premium

In this video I take an overview of the system and look at it’s performance with HD content, I have follow up video out soon with the system running Windows 7

Direct download (WMV) – Direct Download (M4V) – Watch via youtube

Random collection of videos from CES

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:21:00 GMT

While at CES I carried a little Flip Mimo around with me and recorded various random clips from the show floor. Here are the things included in the video (or order of appearance)

Bloggers
HP photo frames, netbooks and TouchSmart
Logitec Harmony 1110
Lenovo notebook with slideout side monitor
Windows Media Center
Touch on Windows Media Center
Windows 7 Touch demo
Zune
F1 at Intel
Toshiba Windows Media Center Extender
A Robot of some kind
Microsoft Auto

Direct Download (WMV) – Direct Download (M4V)

Vidabox vPad8 Touch Tablet at CES

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Vidabox had a great suite at CES, they have a great range of products for high end installs including a 16TB RackServer, wall mounted touch panels and a great 8 inch touch tablet called the vPad8.

In this video Steven Cheug gives us a demo of the vPad which can control multiple Media Center systems, TVs, Home Automation and even comes with My Movies built in.

Download (WMV) – Download (M4V)

Allio 42-inch HDTV with Integrated PC and Blu-Ray Player

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:17:00 GMT

If you want the full power of the PC on your TV but want to keep things simple then the Allio all in one HDTV PC could be want you want. On the show floor I saw a demo of the Allio 42 inch unit and the Allio 32 inch which has an integrated touch screen. The Allio works great with Media Center and its a great way of getting web content on to the TV without having to have any special UI

Download (WMV) – Download (MV4)

Specs:

Systems start at $1,599.99

Six configurations of The Allio HD TV / PC are available, with features and pricing to fit any budget. The entry-level 32” and 42” Allio with an Intel 2.5 GHz PDC E5200, 250GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, DVD/CD support and Vista Home Premium retails for $1,599 and $1,999. The middle system in the series adds PVR and Blu-ray support and an upgraded 2.54 GHz Core2Duo E7200 processor for $2,199 and $2,399. The flagship Allio system ups the ante on the intermediate option, upgrading the RAM and storage to 4GB and 1TB, respectively, for $2,399 and $2,799.

Grid Search Demo at CES

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:20:00 GMT

I have talked about Grid Search on the podcast before and today I met Jonathan Bowes from Grid Search at CES. Jonathan game be a demo of how it works and its an application that needs to be seen to understand. You can very easily find the segment in a video you want to watch, watch pulp fiction and jump straight to the Gimp scene in 3 button presses :)

More info at www.GridSearch.TV

Download (WMV) – Download (M4V)

Using Touch with Windows Media Center in Windows 7

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:55:00 GMT

I think Windows Media Center is the best way to experience touch in Windows 7, the big buttons are ideal. In the beta build of Windows 7 Microsoft have enabled the touch with in Media Center and it works very well. This video shows if off much better than I can explain it.

Direct Download (WMV) – Direct Download (M4V)

Windows Media Center content sharing in Windows 7

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:02:00 GMT

One of the main benefits for Windows 7 for Media Center users is the Home Group feature. This enables content sharing between machines and you can use the Play To feature to play music or video on another devices or PC on your network. Today at CES Microsoft’s Mike Seamons demoed the features and I must say they are looking very cool.

Thanks to David McCabe for being an impromptu camera man

Direct Download (WMV) - Direct Download M4V

First Look at HP’s New Windows Home Server: EX487

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 11:57:00 GMT

HP are launching two new Windows Home Servers, the EX485 (750GB) and the EX487 (1.5TB). These are nice incremental updates to their MediaSmart range, as well as having hardware refresh HP have also updated the software adding a lot of additional features.

When you first see the box it looks very much like the existing MediaSmart Servers but under the covers that are some nice upgrades. The first thing I noticed is that the RAM had been upgraded from 512MB to 2GB which is just what is needed as with all the 3rd party apps available for Windows Home Server 512MB is on the low side especially when AV software is installed,

On the software side this is where HP have really stepped up:

There is support for backing up Apple Macs (OS X 10.5 or later) which I think is a first for an OEM to include in the box, I haven’t been able to test this but HP say it works with Time Machine

HP Media Collector: this scans the network for media files and then consolidates them back on to the Home Server. Photos, music and videos all get copied back to the home server and shared out, this is great when you have media files scattered all over the network and want them back in one place.

HP Photo Publisher: is a services to enable publishing of pictures online to services like Snapfish, Facebook, Flickr and Picasa. Personally I use Windows Live Photo Gallery for this but its a nice addition.

Online backup to Amazon S3: this enables you to backup to Amazon’s S3 cloud storage services so it’s great for off site backups of your critical files. This good idea but I would have preferred the storage to be bundled with the Home Server and not an extra chargeable servers. I am surprised that HP don’t offer a free basic services instead of leaving you to sort out your own S3 account.

Another interesting addition is a Sleep Mode, you can set the box to sleep between certain times and wake up to do backups which is a good idea if you are worried about the power consumption of a Home Server being left all the time.

TwonkyMedia is bundled with the box. This is a UPNP server that adds additional features to the standard Window Home Server offering and seems to replace PVConnect, so far I can’t see any real differences between the two addins.

McAfee Total Protection Services is also bundled, I don’t really bother with AV software on my box but I know some people like it and with the server having 2GB it should be able to handle it better than the 512MB boxes

Overall I would say it’s a nice progression of HP’s MediaSmart range and improves and some key areas from old model .

Here are some of the specs:

• Intel® Celeron™ 2.0 GHZ Intel 64-bit Processor

• 2GB of DDR2 DRAM

• 750GB (EX485 - $649) or 1.5TB (EX487 - $799)

This video is a quick look at some of the features of the unit

Watch via Direct Download (WMV or M4V), Watch via Youtube

Unboxing an Amilo Xa3530 Entertainment Notebook

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:12:00 GMT

If your in the market for a home entertainment notebook then the Amilo Xa3530 from Fujitsu-Siemens may appeal to you. It’s big with a 17.1 inch screen, Bluray drive, ATI Radeon HD 3650 and a AMD Turion X2 Ultra processor so I wouldn’t recommend it for taking on the road but as a desktop replacement it could be ideal.

This is a quick unboxing and first look video, I am going to play around with the notebook so if you have any question send them to the usual address of ian [at] the digitallifestyle.com

Here are some of the specs:

AMD next-generation dual-core mobile processor technology

Windows Vista® Home Premium
17-inch WXGA+ display with BilliantView technology
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3650 with Hybrid Graphics (512 MB GDDR3)
ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 (shared memory)
ATI PowerXpress™ technology
7.1 high-definition audio via S/PDIF
250 or 320 GB hard disk capacity;
optionally dual HDD with Raid 0/1 function and 500 or 640 GB capacity
Up to 4 GB memory*
Integrated SATA SuperMulti-format DVD burner (with double layer support)
Integrated Logitech® QuickCam® (1.3 Mpixel, low-light technology) and digital array microphone for video telephony
Integrated draft-n WLAN, LAN (10/100/1000), Bluetooth® 2.1
Interfaces: HDMI, VGA, eSATA, USB 2.0, IEEE1394 (FireFireWire™), ExpressCard, S/PDIF, 15-in-1 card reader, CIR for integrated remote control
Special Features: silent mode function, pSoill-proof keyboard, integrated remote control, multimedia LightTouch™ bar
Weight: 3.6 kg
Options: Blu-ray Disc™ drive, integrated hybrid DVB-T/analog TV tuner
Product design: reveal white or eclipse black

Watch via Direct Download (WMV) or via Youtube

HP Pavilion dv4-1145 unboxing

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:05:00 GMT

The HP Pavilion dv4-1145 is a nice lightweight entertainment notebook and in this video I unbox and take a first look at the notebook.

I will be giving away this notebook along with many other HP products in the HP Magic Giveaway competition

Spec:

2.00 GHz Intel Centrino Processor Technology featuring Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5800
4096 MB Ram
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
320 GB (5400 rpm) Hard Drive
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit with SP1

More details on HP’s site

Watch via Direct Download (WMV) , Watch via Direct Download (M4V)

HP TouchSmart IQ816 Unboxing

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:12:00 GMT

I love the HP TouchSmart range and this is an unboxing video of the latest model. The HP IQ816 is a sleek all-in-one with a a 25.5” screen, Blu-ray and TV tuner. In this video I unbox the TouchSmart, run through the setup and take a first look at the HP TouchSmart UI

The price on HP’s site is $1,949.99 but I will be giving the unit away as part of the HP Magic Giveaway.

Specs:

Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition with Service Pack 1
Intel Core2 Duo Processor T8100
4GB
512MB dedicated video memory
Blu-ray
TV & entertainment experience
Dual-format NTSC or over-the-air ATSC high-definition TV tuner

Watch via direct download (WMV) Watch via direct download (M4V)

Unboxing a Tranquil SQA-5H Windows Home Server

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:49:00 GMT

Tranquil PC make some excellent Windows Home Servers like the T7-HSA I reviewed in November last year. In October Tranquil launched the SQA-5H (also know as Squash) and last week I nipped down to Tranquil’s office in Manchester and pickup one of the new home servers for a review. This is my unboxing and first look video of the SQA-5H which I was very impressed with.

You can also hear Tranquil’s David Thompson on The Media Center Show #178

For more information go to Tranquil’s web site

Watch via Direct Download (WMV)
Watch via Mpeg 4 (m4v)

Unboxing and a first look at a HP HDX 18 Notebook

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:58:00 GMT

If you looking for an entertainment notebook then the HP HDX 18 maybe what your looking for. One thing for sure it’s not a netbook, with a 1920 x 1080 18.4” screen, Blu-ray and subwoofer it makes a great Media Center machine. Here are some of the specs:

Titanium "liquid metallic" design

A full-size, color-matched keyboard with numeric keypad

A 1080p dual-back-light display

Intel Centrino2 processor

Nvidia discrete graphics

A Full High Definition (FHD) display (1920 x 1080)

A 5400 speed dual hard drive

Built-in Wi-Fi⁵, a low-light webcam, digital microphones,

The starting price is $1399.99 but for one lucky reader it will be free as I will be giving it away on TheDigitalLifestyle.com, make sure you follow me on twitter to get the first info on my giveaway

Watch via Direct Download (WMV)
Watch via MPEG 4 (M4V)
Youtube link coming soon (stupid length limit on youtube!)

Unboxing a HP Mini 1000 Netbook

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:09:00 GMT

There is something about the netbook category that I like, I think it’s the gadget like nature of the devices. The Mini 1000 is HP’s latest netbook model and last night I unboxed the unit I will be giving away as part of the HP Magic competition. My first impressions are that while it’s slightly bigger than my EEE PC 701 the screen is bigger and the keyboard is full size.

The problem I have with the EEE PC is that the keys are slightly too small and if I have any blog posts to do I end up using another machine as I keep miss hitting the keys. However the keyboard on the HP netbook is much better, almost the same size as my tablet PC. I have only had chance to have a quick play but so far I am impressed, I would love to try Windows 7 on it but I will resist the temptation as the unit is being given away.

I tested video playback on it and it worked very well, so it could make a good devices for taking recorded TV with you on the go.

This model is prices in the US at $499 and runs Windows XP with 1GB of RAM

You can win this netbook as well as part of a $6000 prize pack on TheDigitalLifestyle.com make sure you follow me on twitter to get the first info on my giveaway

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STK's BTHS600 Bluetooth Headset.

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:27:00 GMT

I was sent a STK's BTHS600 Bluetooth Headset for review and as I can’t get sound working on my Windows 7 equipped Samsung Q1 UMPC I thought it would be an ideal device to pair with the headphones. Pairing the headset with the Q1 was very simple, within a couple of minutes I was up and running. The sound quality is very good, a rich sound and with the cushioned pads it cuts out a lot of the sound from the outside, you can totally get lost in the sound.

The headset is also very comfortable and could be worn for a length of time without any problems. On the Bluetooth side of the headset as I said pairing was easy but I found the volume controls were a bit hit and miss, sometimes they worked and other times they didn’t, that could be a issue with the Q1 so I will have to do some more testing before working out where the problem lies.

The multifunction button works as a play/pause button and turns the headphones on and off, the transport controls worked fine with Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. The headphones also work with Bluetooth enabled mobile phones and you use it for talking calls as it has a built in microphone. I tested it with Skype and the audio quality was quite good, not as good as my USB mic but its useable. It comes with a USB battery charging cable

Specifications: Bluetooth version: Bluetooth V2.1 Support profile: headset, hands free, A2DP, and AVRCP Effective range: 10 meters Working time: Music: Up to 8 hours Talk: Up to 11 hours Standby time: Up to 250 hours Charging time: approximately 2.5 hours Input voltage: ±5.0±0.25VA DC Dimension: 162 x 153.5 x 32mm Weight: approximately 103g

I have recorded a short video review of the headset and headset retails at £39.95

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This video was recording using a Flip Mino and the volume and close up picture quality are not as good as I hoped, I will be reviewing the Flip soon

Running Windows 7 on a Samsung Q1

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:28:00 GMT

When I was chatting with Steve from UMPC portal I promised a video of Windows 7 running on the Q1 and here it is, it’s just a quick look the PDC build of Windows 7 on the Q1. On the video I mentioned the audio problem and I have since given up trying to get the sound working and I am using Bluetooth headphones insted which are working great.

In my next video I am going to focus on the changes in Windows Media Center on Windows 7

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Video: Windows Media Center Sideshow gadgets on Windows Mobile

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:39:00 GMT

I had been meaning to take a look at the Windows Media Center sideshow gadgets for some time now and since Windows Mobile can host Sideshow gadgets I thought I would give it a try on my HP Mobile.

The first part of the installations is to download and install the release version of the Sideshow gadgets for Media Center (64bit and 32bit), when I ran the install it told me I needed the Sideshow Managed Runtime 1.0 which can be download from Microsoft. Once I had the Runtime installed I could install the sideshow gadgets

Then I install the Sideshow Developer Preview on my phone by downloading the update from here and copying WindowsSideShowForWindowsMobile.CAB to my phone and running the install, then I had to pair up the phone with the PC via Bluetooth. I could then go to the Sideshow control panel in Windows and enable the Media Center gadgets.

Once everything was installed I ran the Sideshow application and connect to the host PC. On the Media Center gadgets I could choose whether to connect to my log in on the Media Center machine or an Extender session.

I did have some trouble with the running of the gadgets, sometimes the gadgets would not pull the information back from the host machine and occasionally it would restart Media Center so I would say it's not 100% stable yet but once I had it all up and running I found the gadgets were usefu

In this video I take a look at some of the features of the gadgets including Now Playing, browsing the guide data, playing music and selecting pictures

Note: This was done with the standard version of Media Center and not the TV Pack version which may not work with Sideshow

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A quick look at the Gyration Air Mouse

Videoshow@thedigitallifestyle.com (Ian Dixon) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:03:00 GMT

Gyration's new Air Mouse is a compact mouse that features MotionSense so you can pick up the mouse and control the pointer in the air.One nice feature is has is the ability to control specific Media Center functions with gestures.

The mouse is small and compact and comes with it’s little travel bag, so it would make an ideal mouse to go with a notebook but it would also be good mouse for a HTPC system as you can use the MotionSense to control the pointer in the air, so no balancing a mouse on your knee when your sat on the sofa. The Mouse is listed at £57.63 on Amazon.co.uk

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Sorry the video is a little dark, I think I need to get some lighting sorted out