The Media Viking

PopBox Delayed and Downgraded

vidkun — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:02:00 +0000

I wrote previously about a new set top box device that I was looking forward to, the PopBox from Syabas. Upon it initial announcement this little box sounded like it was going to be the great new end-all device for the home theater. Well as we get closer to its imminent release, Syabas has announced [...]

Back to the Future on Blu-Ray, Finally!

vidkun — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:55:39 +0000

Is anyone else as stoked as I am to hear Back to the Future is finally coming blu-ray!? As others recently reported, Universal Studios is finally giving us this classic trilogy in full HD goodness. What is even better though, is that they are apparently doing quite a bit to actually make the release worth [...]

Site Maintenance

vidkun — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:50:18 +0000

Thank you all for your continued support here at The Media Viking. The site will be down for a few hours throughout the day for some maintenance and upgrades. We will be back as quickly as possible. Thank you again! Coffee makes the world go ’round…

Home Theater PC Build, Pt. 1

vidkun — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:50:52 +0000

So the majority of the parts of come in for my home theater PC build. I’m still need to get some more memory for it and some form of remote. A number of people have mentioned the Logitech diNovo Mini to use as a remote as well as a bluetooth keyboard and mouse if needed. [...]

Sony Annoys Me!

vidkun — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:58:21 +0000

This will be a rather short rant, but Sony has officially annoyed and pissed me off! Playstation 3 owners have been damn near begging and pleading with Sony for a firmware update that adds support for MKV files for…..well since the PS3 was first released basically. All of their pleading has been in vain and [...]

Mvix Ultio Pro Media Center

vidkun — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:24:35 +0000

Well it would appear as if set-top boxes are popping up left and right around here. The sad part is that they all only differ slightly, but none get it all correct. That said, the Mvix Ultio Pro Media Center comes pretty close from my initial impressions. It will stream your media from across the [...]

New Shows and Services

vidkun — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:03:33 +0000

I’ve been caught up with a few mini-projects the last week or so, as well as a new show. As I mentioned before, I am researching and picking the specs for my new HTPC build. For pricing reasons, I’m now considering reusing an old Athlon X2 CPU, mobo, and ram to drastically cut down on [...]

HTPC and Bitstreamed Audio Guide

vidkun — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:05:20 +0000

It seems that one of the biggest struggles we face in the HTPC arena is getting our high definition audio codecs properly passed from our home theater PC to our ears with the absolute best quality possible. Typically this has been done via multi-channel LPCM over an optical connection to an AV receiver. Now that [...]

Psycho Killer Clowns

vidkun — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:10 +0000

Hollywood has plagued us with two major trends over the past decade: increasing prices inversely proportional to the amount or quality of offering and a complete lack of imagination demonstrated by a seemingly never-ending release cycle of (usually sub-par) remakes. Now I know a lot of people out there (mostly in the “Hollywood biz”) are [...]

Klipsch HD300 vs. Onkyo SKS-HT540

vidkun — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:25:22 +0000

This post will be continuing on from my previous post about new projects to start the year of right. I mentioned that I would be addressing the lack of proper audio equipment for my home theater setup. In order to do so, I have locked on to purchase an Onkyo TX-SR607 A/V Receiver. That will [...]