Upcoming Tech

In the last few weeks I have come across some interesting news stories related to the future of computers. It always amazes me that technology continues to move forward at such a blistering pace.

Intel recently announced that they will be releasing a six-core processor by the end of this year. While it will initially be a server CPU, I’m sure it won’t be long until it makes it to desktops. In only a couple of years Intel has gone from single core CPU’s to quad-core. Now by the end of this year six-cores. I have to wonder how many cores do we need? Intel obviously thinks we need more. A little over a year ago, Intel claimed that they will be producing an 80 core processor. In fact they already have a working prototype. The prototype is about the size of a typical motherboard at the time, but it is still pretty impressive!

http://www.betanews.com/article/Sixcore_Intel_processors_coming_this_year/1205790710

The ongoing theme in almost every industry these days is going “green”. The technology industry is no different. MSI has announced that they are developing a new CPU heat sink fan that requires no additional power. While it doesn’t take much electricity to run a small fan, every small cut in power usage makes a difference. The fan they are developing uses Stirling engine technology which has been around for centuries. To learn more about how a Stirling engine works, check out this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine. This new fan will use the excess heat from the CPU to run the fan that cools the heat sink attached to the CPU. It makes a lot of sense, and I’m a little surprised that nobody’s thought of it before now.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9051/msi_employees_stirling_engine_theory/index.html

Another theme in technology is making things smaller. Intel revealed recently the size they think the PC motherboard could be shrunk to by 2010. It is crazy to think that everything that currently fits on a motherboard the size of a sheet of paper could be shrunk to the size of a post-it note.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/03/video-intel-reveals-moorestown-pc-motherboard-possibly-worlds/

DIY DVR

For about the last year I have been spending some of my free time playing around with building my own DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Sure I could have gone out and bought a TIVO or purchased the DVR receiver that my dish provider offers, but that would have been too easy. After spending many hours brainstorming different options, and testing a couple I now have a PC based DVR system that does most of the things I was shooting for.

While the normal DVR systems that are offered by your cable or satellite providers work quite well, I wanted a little more from mine. I wanted a multiple room TV recording system that I could share pictures and music over as well.

The only special hardware required for this system is a video capture card. I choose a card from Hauppauge. The card I purchased came with a remote, and USB IR sensor/emitter. I found out quickly that it is much harder building a DVR when your source is either satellite, or digital cable. The reason is that the PC can’t just change the channel on the card, it needs to send a signal to your receiver to change the channel. This is the reason I needed the IR emitter. Other than the card pretty much any PC that isn’t more than 3 years old should work fine. Here’s a picture of the innards of my PC.

As you can see I now have two tuner cards, so I can record two different channels at once. There are single cards available with two tuners, but at the time none came with a remote, and IR receiver/emitter. As you can see I also have some extra hard drives to increase storage. Here is a picture of the connections on the back of the PC.

As you can see one receiver is connected using composite RCA cable. The other is connected using coax, the reason is that currently that receiver is located in another room in the house. Also note on the far left is a video out that runs to one of my TV’s.

One of the things that I was trying for when building this was to avoid any extra cost I could. If I were to use a commercial DVR system, I would have to pay a monthly fee on top of the cost of equipment. The overall cost of my system is quite a bit more than a commercial one, but the computer would have been purchased either way. So really it is only costing me what the tuner card cost.

Since I wanted low cost, I tried GBPVR first. This is a free application that can be downloaded from their site. While I really like the things the software can do, I had too many problems getting it to change the channels on my satellite receiver so I kept trying, but I highly recommend giving it a try if you every build your own DVR. All you can lose is a little time. I tried several other free applications in the months to follow including Windows Media Center 2005. I didn’t have much luck with any of them for various different reasons.

When I decided to upgrade my computer hardware, I decided to install Windows Vista Ultimate. Included in this version of the OS is the new version of Windows Media Center. After about 20min, I had this working with my satellite receivers, and was watching TV through my computer.

For the last month now I have been using Vista’s Media Center, and it does most of what I want. The best thing about Windows Media Center is that I can use my Xbox 360 as an extender, which allows me to do everything I can on my computer from my Xbox. The interface is clean and easy to navigate, I can browse any pictures or listen to any music that is stored on my PC and of course I can watch and record TV.

While there are still some minor things that I would like to have the ability to do with my DVR, I’m getting closer that I was before. I will still try other programs as the features change, but for now I’m happy to have something that works. If you’re interested in building your own DVR, check out this Wikipedia article. This lists most of the DVR applications that are available. If you’re into Linux I highly recommend MythTV, it is one of the best applications available.

I’m sure I missed some details, feel free to leave a comment with any questions and I will try to answer them possibly in another post.

High Def Format War is Over

It’s official, after about two years Toshiba is throwing in the towel and will no longer develop, manufacture, or market HD DVD players and recorders. This leaves the Sony technology, Blu-ray as the winner of the battle.

This news is a little bitter-sweet for me. As a person that has personally seen and used both formats, I was slightly partial to HD DVD. While the actual video files on the two types of disks are virtually identical, the HD DVD user interface and menu system had a few features that I liked over Blu-ray. However, the Blu-ray disks have a larger capacity, so they are able to hold a larger amount of data than HD DVD. The bottom line is that the quality of video output was equally impressive on both formats, so either way the consumers will get the High Def movies they want.

To me it wasn’t so much about which format won. I just wanted the battle to be over to eliminate confusion, and the need for two different players. It will be much nicer for everyone to be able to purchase any movie titles they want in one format. Now people can focus all of their confusion on the HDTV’s that they will watch their Blu-ray movies on.