My Media Delivered

News: Every video/audio format on your Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, iPhone and more

Just came across this new application called tversity.  It’s a media server for Windows that streams every single video format to just about every single device regardless of the codecs used.  The best part…it’s absolutely free.

News: D-Link media streamer gets Hulu on your TV

This is really awesome news.  Free flash HD TV shows streamed to your TV. This is currently only being worked on for the D-Link DSM-330 media streamer.  With flash support on a media streamer, you’ll suddenly have access to tons of new content as many sites today stream their video via flash.

From Engadget HD:

D-Link’s $230 DSM-330 media streamer has always been among the most flexible set-top boxes out there, and it’s just gotten even better, with the latest DivX Connected server software bringing Flash video support to the device. It’s not quite browse-and-play — every site requires a specific plug-in — but Hulu, College Humor, YouTube, ABC News, and Vimeo are already working, and there are more on the way. That’s pretty tempting for two bills, but we’ll stick to rocking PlayOn with our 360 and PS3.

News: Apple updates iTunes to 8.0, adds HD TV shows.

Apple has just updated iTunes to 8.0 this week, along with bringing NBC back to the iTunes store. With their return come all their top shows in the newly released HD format.  I excitedly downloaded the first season of Battlestar Galactica since I never fully finished watching the show.  If you purchase the HD format of the show, Apple sends you the SD version as well for use on your iPod or iPhone.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, I can’t seem to get the new HDTV shows to stream to my Apple TV.  There are ongoing discussions in the support forum on Apple’s website.  I’m sure they will fix this soon.

Other new features of iTunes are the Genius Sidebar, where you can get recommendations to new music based on your tastes, not unlike Pandora without the streaming. Also included is enhanced accessibility, the grid view, and a new visualizer that’s really cool.

News: Digitalreviews.net Reviews Popcorn Hour A-100, A-110, and B-110

Digitalreviews.net takes a look at all the currently released and legacy Popcorn Hour hardware. 

In March we took a look at the original Popcorn Hour A-100 and it quickly became our in-house media playback device of choice. Sure, it wasn’t perfect – but its near flawless display of 1080p content, along with its incredible ability to playback almost every file we threw at it, made us sit up and take notice.

Now, less than five months later, Syabas has announced two new Popcorn Hour models which we have been lucky enough to get our digital hands on.

News: Open Media Library (easy access to all formats of DVD rips via Media Extenders)

This is really awesome. This software streams any format of DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray rip straight to your Media Extender (Xbox 360). Of course, it does require a PC to stream the data over to the Xbox.

Try it out here: Open Media Library.

Seen first at EngadgetHD.com.

News: DVD Catalyst 3.5 (1-click DVD rip software for the PC)

From the DVD Catalyst Website:

DVD Catalyst 3 converts movies quickly and easily into a format that can be played on a portable device (Apple iPod, Apple iPhone, Sony PSP, Creative Zen, Smartphone, PocketPC and more) It offers a multitude of different video types it can create, allowing it to even create video files for non-listed or brand-new devices. 

DVD Catalyst 3 incorporates an extensive feature list, with many unique, handy and industry-first options to make your conversions as easy as possible, while providing you with the best possible quality. 

DVD Catalyst 3 uses the award-winning open source mplayer/mencoder projects for detection and conversion, which allows DVD Catalyst to convert just about anything to any format without the need of having codec’s installed on your computer. 

*Converts to all common video file formats, including AVC, H264, MP4, DIVX, XVID, WMV, 3GP, MPEG * Includes an ever expanding list of conversion profiles for all the popular devices on the market, including Pocket PC, Smartphone, XBOX 360, Playstation3, PSP, iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iPod Touch, iPhone, AppleTV, Archos, Zen. If your device is not listed, you can try using a profile from a similar device, or modify the settings according to its specifications. 

Looks like a winner to me. First seen on Lifehacker.

How To: Backing up your movie collection

Why would you need this:

If you’re anything like me, and you rip your movies at the highest quality possible, you’ll never want to lose your data.  Those large file sizes and long rip times should never have to happen again. If you lost all that data, think of how long it would take to re-rip your whole DVD library.  That’s why you want to back up your files.

How to:

Lets face it, inevitably your hard drive is going to go kaput.  Wouldn’t you feel better if you had a backup of all that data?  These days, hard drives are cheap, but finding a good backup solution that works for you could still end up being costly. I’m going to look at two solutions here.  One’s cheap and requires some initial set up from you, and the other is a little more costly, but is a no brainer for security and ease of use.

The first solution is to just go purchase a second hard drive, in most cases you’ll be getting an external USB drive of some sort. Get something large and cheap, hopefully large enough to hold your collection.  Drives come in sizes up to 1TB currently unless you buy a RAID set up (see step two). A 1TB drive can hold roughly 200 5GB movies.  Obtaining the drive is the first part, the second will be to install an application that you can use to automatically copy the files over to the drive for you. On the Mac, I would recommend something like SuperDuper! It features basic scripting where you can set it up to backup your files in the middle of the night when you’re away from the computer. This is a fairly secure method, however there’s always that .01% chance that both drives fail at the same time. Eww.

The second solution is a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) setup. For a setup like this, I’m going to recommend a Drobo storage device. The benefits of a setup like this is immense. First off, this isn’t a backup solution, it’s a storage solution that provides redundancy if a drive fails.  No backup’s necessary. You’ll store your whole library on this device. It’s a set of four drives in one storage unit.  The magic of Drobo is that if one drive fails, another drive has it it mirrored, and you just pull the defective drive out, and stick a new one in.  What’s even better about the Drobo is that you can swap in drives of any size.  Let’s say you stuck in a 500GB drive because it was cheap, later on if it fails or you just want more storage, yank the drive out and stick in a 1TB drive. The drives can be hot swapped, you can use any size, and you don’t have to worry about losing data, the Drobo takes care of everything for you.  The only down side is that a fully loaded Drobo with 4 drives will cost you $750 or more depending on the size of the drives you use.

Leave a message in the comments if you have a solution that works for you. Now go back up your media!

Informative: AwkwardTV Wiki (Apple TV Hacks Wiki)

The Awkward TV Wiki is currently one of the most comprehensive websites dedicated to hacking the Apple TV. The site covers almost everything you can do with your Apple TV including version one, two, and even non-hacked Apple TVs.

Hacked Apple TV’s can offer a few advantages over a non-hacked ATV.  With certain plugins installed you’re able to watch DVD Video_TS files directly on the unit, sort of like a DVD jukebox, but no DVD’s necessary. You can install OS X on the unit and use it as a computer.  There are even web browsers available as plugins too. The biggest advantage yet might be that you can install extra video and audio codecs onto the ATV and avoid having to convert every video file you download.

Glossary: Dolby Digital (AC-3)

From Wikiedia:

Dolby Digital, or AC-3, is the common version containing up to six discrete channels of sound, with five channels for normal-range speakers (20 Hz – 20,000 Hz) (right front, center, left front, right rear and left rear) and one channel (20 Hz – 120 Hz) for the subwoofer driven low-frequency effects. Mono and stereo modes are also supported. AC-3 supports audio sample-rates up to 48kHz.

Fun Facts:

Batman Returns was the first film to use Dolby Digital technology when it premiered in theaters in Summer 1992. The LaserDisc version of Clear and Present Danger featured the very first Home theater Dolby Digital mix in 1995.