For those that don’t know MyMovies was previously a movie collection program available to Windows Media Center users alone. SageTV user PluckyHD has been hard at work porting MyMovies over to SageTV. After much effort he has opened a public beta of his MyMovies plugin for SageTV meaning SageTV users too can enjoy MyMovies.

The MyMovies for SageTV plugin looks awesome as you can tell from the gallery below. Some short video previews are also available on PluckyHD’s YouTube channel.

If you’re a SageTV user ready to jump in or just want more information on the new plugin, head over to the SageTV forums.

Apple users are once again spoiled with cool looking merch now that the Apple Magic Trackpad has been released. Weighing in at $69, the Magic Trackpad is essentially the same touchpad found on the MacBook Pro yet it’s almost 80% larger. Its build is sleek — aluminum with a glass surface. This desktop mouse replacement supports multi-touch and click, scroll, swipe and rotate finger gestures as you would expect from Apple.

The Magic Trackpad runs on 2 AA batteries and connects wirelessly via Bluetooth. I’m pretty sure this could also work on a PC as long as some appropriate software was created to support the gestures. Perhaps a media center will do it first. There has been a little chatter in the Plex forums as a few users hope for some integration with Plex for Mac OS X. It would be very interesting to see a media center app support finger gestures that you would normally see in today’s smartphones. Make it happen, Plex team!

Buy Now: $69

A new version of the popular open source DVR software MythTV has been released. This is a bugfix release from version 0.23.

From the MythTV developers’ announcement:

A recent bugfix required that we upgrade the version of the communication protocol used between the various MythTV components. In order to allow users to keep track of this change, we are pleased to announce that 0.23.1 has been released, which includes the [aforementioned] bug fix along with many others.

The emphasis is on many others. This release covers changesets 24509 through 25396. You do the math.. That is a lot of updates. The complete list of changes in both 0.23 and 0.23.1 can be found in the Release Notes on thier wiki.

MythTV users, head on over to download the latest version.

All the major hard work and long hours are over. While the sun was still down here in the U.S., Team MediaPortal announced the release of the final version of MediaPortal 1.1.0. We now are able to present you MediaPortal 1.1.0: the best release in our six year history says infinite.loop, proudly in their news post.

MediaPortal 1.1.0 Final introduces the following changes over MediaPortal 1.1.0 RC6:

• [general] Change logverbosity to “info” for the 1.1.0 final version (chemelli)
• [Skin Engine] Reinstate the skin version check for MP 1.1.0 and increase the skinversion in references.xml
• [general] Update MediaInfo to 0.7.34 (chemelli)

Head over to the MediaPortal’s post for installation notes and to download the latest and greatest MediaPortal release.

Seagate is really on the move–having added another product to their GoFlex line yesterday. The new kid on the block is the GoFlex home which aims and claims to simplify house-wide, network storage. Seagate claims that “with just two cable connections and a simple, illustrated, step-by-step installation tool that gets the device up and running in minutes, the GoFlex Home system solves the household storage puzzle in a snap.”

With the GoFlex Home, users can backup their data from a Windows or Mac OS X computer automatically using the included backup software. Alternatively, the GoFlex Home is also compatible with Apple Time Machine which is huge for Mac users. The GoFlex Home comes in 1TB and 2TB flavors. This can be easily increased by dropping in a larger hard drive size or connecting additional USB drives to the device. The USB drive also supports sharing a network printer.

At the moment, the GoFlex Home is available for purchase on seagate.com for $159.99 for 1TB and $229.99 for 2TB.

Press Release

Seagate Debuts GoFlex Home: Easy-To-Use Centralized Storage For The Whole Family

Wireless Backup, Sharing and Streaming of Music, Photos, Movies and More from Multiple Computers in the Home

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. – July 19, 2010 – Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) today unveiled the newest addition to its GoFlex ™ family of hard drives—the GoFlex™ Home network storage system. When this easy-to-use device is connected to a wireless router, an entire household can centrally store, easily access and continuously back up files wirelessly from both Windows® and Mac OS® X operating systems on the home network¹. The new centralized storage system simplifies the backup process by being compatible with Apple® Time Machine®, as well as including a version of the backup application for both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. With the GoFlex Home storage system, families can also wirelessly stream photos, movies and music to most network connected DLNA devices, such as game consoles or a GoFlex™ TV HD media player , from any room in the house. With just two cable connections and a simple, illustrated, step-by-step installation tool that gets the device up and running in minutes, the GoFlex Home system solves the household storage puzzle in a snap.

Seagate’s new, easy-to-use, centralized storage system for the family—GoFlex™ Home

Available in 1TB and 2TB capacities, the GoFlex Home storage system provides plenty of room to help safeguard precious digital memories for the whole family and is ideal for use with home laptops, netbooks , or other devices with limited storage. Unlike other single-drive network solutions, its modular design also enables the included drive to be upgraded when needed by simply removing the drive from the base (no tools required) and replacing it with a higher capacity GoFlex™ Desk hard drive. Families can also add more storage to the GoFlex Home system by simply connecting additional drives to the USB port. Additionally, this same USB port can be used to wirelessly share a USB printer with every computer on the network.

“With broadband and home networks reaching higher levels of penetration and operating at higher speeds, consumers are increasingly downloading and streaming content into their home and wanting to access that content from anywhere,” said Darcy Clarkson, Seagate vice president of Retail Sales and Marketing. “The GoFlex™ Home system makes it easy for families wanting to quickly and effortlessly backup, enjoy, and share their favorite home movies music or photos from any room in the house. We spent a lot of time focusing on simplicity with this product and believe people will find it very intuitive to set-up and get started. With the GoFlex™ Home system, now home networking is within reach for today’s digital households.”

A recent report by In-Stat predicts the consumer network storage market will continue to grow between 25 and 50 percent over the next five years. In addition, the number of devices connected to the home network, and the number of devices that are mobile or portable, are creating desire for consumers to move in and out of their home networking environment with their content². Using the included remote access and file sharing service on GoFlex Home system called Seagate Share™ service, families can easily access movies, music or photo files stored on their GoFlex Home system from any internet connected computer in the world. The Seagate Share service also allows families to share photo albums, home movies and documents with friends by simply selecting the files or folders they want to share and typing in an email address. Those friends will receive a notification with a direct link to a customized webpage where they can view the shared files.

“Consumers are showing increased interest in downloading and streaming content from the Internet into the home, connecting devices in the home to social networks, and demanding easy access to content both within the household and beyond the reach of home networks,” said Norm Bogen, vice president, Research, Digital Entertainment with In-Stat. “Solutions designed to help access content from multiple devices in the home, distribute it over the home network and stream to other devices and products, will be appealing to active digital media consumers.”

The GoFlex Home system also offers a premium service option—the Seagate Share Pro remote access service—that allows families to access content stored on the drive from mobile devices such as an iPhone®, iPad™ or BlackBerry®, integrate photos or files with F acebook® and Flickr®, and keep friends and relatives updated with the latest shared files using Integrated RSS (Really Simple Syndication) notifications.

In addition to delivering quick and easy wireless, file access, streaming and multi-computer backup of digital files, the GoFlex Home network storage system has been designed with the cost and environmentally conscious households in mind. The GoFlex Home system also includes a power saving (idle) mode that automatically runs after 30-minutes of inactivity and a power switch that allows it to be shut off while families are away for extended periods.
The new GoFlex Home network storage system can be purchased on Seagate.com and select retailers for a suggested retail price of $159.99 for 1TB and $229.99 for 2TB.

About Seagate

Seagate is the worldwide leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at http://www.seagate.com.
© 2010 Seagate Technology LLC. All rights reserved. Seagate, Seagate Technology, the Wave logo, FreeAgent, GoFlex and Seagate Share are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. When referring to drive capacity, one terabyte, or TB, equals one thousand billion bytes. Your computer’s operating system may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity The export or re-export of hardware or software containing encryption may be regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (for more information, visit www.bis.doc.gov) and controlled for import and use outside of the U.S. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or specifications.
¹ The GoFlex™ Home system includes licenses to instant backup software for three PC and Mac computers, and five seats to the Seagate Share™ remote access service. Instant backup software and the Seagate Share service are available through the Seagate Dashboard user interface, available following installation of GoFlex™ Home software. Additional instant backup software licenses and Seagate Share™ Pro remote access service seats are available for purchase in the Seagate Dashboard Application Store at www.seagate.com.
² “Global Consumer Network Storage Market,” by Darryl Sterling, Edited by: Norm Bogen, March 2010

HP Mini 311 Netbook

The main reason I love home theater PCs is that they are multi-purpose and flexible. A HTPC can do what your set-top box can do and more. Likewise, laptops and netbooks are made to connect to external computer monitors, so why not make them even more useful by connecting them to the biggest monitor you own: your HDTV.

I come from modest beginnings to say the least. My first stab at a HTPC was an old IBM ThinkPad T20 laptop I picked up off eBay. MediaPortal, 19″ CRT TV, S-Video and line-in audio were sufficient to me at the time. Later I upgraded to a HP Pavilion dv6119us laptop which came with a cool (at the time) mini remote. Fast forward a bit past several other non-laptop iterations and now my setup is a bit more sophisticated: Antec Fusion Remote case, HDMI to 47″ 1080p HDTV, 5.1 surround sound, Logitech Harmony 720 remote, etc. I use a regular HTPC and laptop separately.

In some ways I miss my old laptop setup though. It had it’s advantages.

Reasons to Use a Laptop or Netbook

1. Cost – It is much cheaper to only have a laptop if you already are a laptop user, rather than owning a laptop and upkeeping an HTPC. A good netbook or laptop can cost you around $400 all the way up to $1700. The same goes with a HTPC depending on how fancy you want it. If you have a sufficient laptop or are in the market to upgrade you can have a HTPC essentially for “free.”

2. Small footprint — Laptops and especially netbooks are small in comparison to most HTPCs. This allows them to easily sit on top of furniture in an unobtrusive way. Also, the sleek finishes on these devices will look a lot better than your plain set-top box.

3. Built-in wireless — There is no need to try to add network cables near your TV. You also don’t have to worry about adding a wireless card to a HTPC since laptops have built-in WiFi.

4. Portable — Now your HTPC is not isolated to one TV or room. You can easily move your laptop or netbook to different rooms in your house as needed. If you’re having a gathering at a friend’s or family’s house it doesn’t take much to pack your laptop and cables in a bag and get moving. I do this every once in a while and it’s great to show off.

5. Flexible — You can enjoy pretty much any type of content you want on (again) any TV you want due to the portability a laptop provides. Once you’re done using your HTPC, you can always disconnect from the TV and use it as a traditional laptop for browsing the web, watching videos, or other tasks.

6. Battery — While the typical person can’t power their TV when the power is out, your laptop’s battery can provide you a few hours to enjoy your media and help time pass in the dark. Also, according to Energy Star “energy consumption is high for a notebook, but still at least 50% of a comparable desktop PC system.”

Items You Will Need

• HDMI cable (6ft) or VGA cable if you have an older laptop
• USB TV tuner if you want to watch regular TV instead of streaming.
• Media player or media center software – If you’re new and have laptop running Windows 7 or Vista, just stick with Windows Media Center.
• Obviously a laptop or netbook — ASUS Eee PC 1201N and HP Mini 311 are great for HD content

There are a lot of benefits to using a laptop on your TV. For those of you that have used laptops in this capacity before, what are your experiences? What kinds of laptops work and definitely have not worked for you?

The first Boxee Box by D-Link has been received by the Boxee team straight off the assembly line. Zach Klein, Boxee’s chief product officer, shows the media player in a brief video preview (see below). This is more of a look at the hardware than anything. No real details are provided other than a glimpse of the box, Boxee Box remote, splash screen and fingerprint resistant finish.

We can expect the Boxee Box some time in November per NewTeeVee. NOTE: Wheat Thins are not included!

The first Boxee Box arrived from the D-Link Factory from Zach Klein on Vimeo.

Credit: NewTeeVee

SageTV Program Guide - Photo credit: geektonic.com

After a month since the last beta update for SageTV, the team has announced that v7.0.12 is ready. The new beta introduces a boat load of fixes and enhancements. The following are just a small number of new features new features:

• Automatic rotation of JPEG files that have headers that indicate so
• MKV Chapter support
• Extended theme capability
• Absolute minimum font size can be set
• PGS (bluray) subtitles in MKV (only playback on HD extenders)
• Workaround for ATI driver bug in 4xxx series GPUs w/ EVR
• ZLIB data compression on the placeshifter UI channel
• Unlimited video buffering in placeshifter client
• Lockout of setup menus using parental controls feature
• Fixes issue with ‘metadata cross-linking’ that was exposed by the BMT plugin

Along with these features, this beta version has added roughly 100 bug fixes and enhancements. Needless to say, the SageTV team has been busy. Check out the release notes on their v7.0.12 forum post to see what I mean and grab a download.

Source: SageTV

SageTV has released two more firmware updates for the STP-HD200 since I last shared. These software versions are 20100713 0 and 20100716 0.

Changes for beta version 20100713 0 include:

1. Add 5 seconds timeout for pgs streams since they are sometime incomplete
2. Fix various pgs bugs
3. Try to improve output resolution detection compatibility
4. Add mkv chapter support in media player mode

Changes for beta version 20100716-0 include:

1. Fix dvd subpicture decoding
2. Add experimental dvb subpicture decoding in transport streams (Need server version at least 7.0.12 and reindexing)
3. Add forcergb option to custom video modes to force rgb colorspace output on hdmi.

Head over to the SageTV forums to download the newest beta and for instructions on how to install.

Source: SageTV

Team XBMC has gone against their word, but in a good way. Previously they only distributed their awesome Official XBMC Remote for Android app on the project’s Google Code page stating “once we’re happy with it, we’ll put it on the Android Market.” Well, apparently Team XBMC is as happy with the app as I am because they added it to the Android Market today.

Official XBMC Remote for Android is not the v1.0 version they scheduled to hit the Market but it’s more than good enough to be appreciated by the masses. The current version is v0.8.1 beta which introduces the following changes over v0.7.1:

• Added: Customizable home screen.
• Fixed: Potentially wrong sort order when queueing songs.
• Fixed: Wrong rounding in movie ratings.
• Fixed: Various other bugs

Holding off adding the app to the Market was understandable, well, because people can be idiotic and leave nasty ratings on a work-in-progress beta app. Don’t be that way. If you have questions or issues with the app, hit up the XBMC forums and you’ll be taken care of.

Android owners, use the QR code below to download the app. Enjoy and share you love (or hate) for this app in the comments!

Read more at XBMC.