Anybody have any experience with them? Educate me please. I'm looking for alternatives so that I don't have to pay that damn cable company $40 to watch the History channel.
Anybody have any experience with them? Educate me please. I'm looking for alternatives so that I don't have to pay that damn cable company $40 to watch the History channel.
Looks like it just controls your existing cable or satellite box while allowing you to access those streams and recordings via the web. In other words, its a small form factor PC with an IR blaster and a webserver. Not incredibly difficult to do with a Windows PC, there's likely even a handful of Linux distro's already available that do similar.
http://thegreenbutton.com/blogs/chris_blog/archive/2007/11/02/219018.aspx
I think the way around it is to buy something with an HD TV tuner and internet capabilities so that you can use a product like Boxee, XBMC, Media-Portal, Hulu Desktop, etc to access content and provide a simple user interface via IR remote. Yep, a PC.
PC + desktop form factor case + black paint = HTPC case.
Add DVD or Blu-Ray ROM drive to play movies, music, etc.
Add wireless remote (hit up eBay looking for cast off HP IR remotes, they even come with the IR Blasters and Media Center compatible remotes)
Add HD capable Tuner card, plug in HD antennae, get HD over the air and basic cable channels via the existing cable.
Add HD capable video card to get HD content to display on anything with an HDMI port with HDCP If you don't have an HD capable TV/Monitor, use a Video card with S-video/composite out and dream about HD content)
Add large hard drive(s) to store recorded shows, ripped CD & DVD's and downloaded content.
Install operating system and software of your choice.
Windows 7's Media Center interface is pretty good, but the DRM built-in to Windows Vista and 7 make watching DRM protected content a pain at times.
Media Portal and Boxee are both related to XBox Media Center (XBMC) and are open source with tons of add-ons.
Hulu Desktop is pretty handy and works natively with the Media Center remote controls. It can be integrated into some of the other Media front end solutions.
Combine with NetFlix and other webstreams and you can get nearly anything you want.
Except that the cable company still controls access to the History channel, so you'd have to pay them or deal with illegally downloading the content via bittorrent or put up with watching the content on History's website.
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