computoman

Home media streaming devices are available everywhere from about fifty dollars to upwards of two hundred dollars. They all vary to which video services they support. Even then you may have to pay extra for some services up and above what you pay your internet service provider. Aka hidden costs. There are several shortcomings and advantages for all the units. This is really not a detailed comparison of the units, That changes so often, almost impossible to document. The first gripe I have about the media streaming devices is that you have to have an umbilical cord to the internet for the units to be usable. Even Roku requires a special application to be used for compatibility with the MythTV project.  MythTV is for the most part an open source computer based DVR. Maybe that is why AT&T now offers a free DVR (read the fine print) to combat such projects. If you have to have an umbilical  cord on the units then your use of it (i.e what you watch and etc is not private)...

Traditionally if you wanted to use multimedia content, you would download the media and then play it with a local program. That is all fine and well, but what if you have several systems such as the ps3, xbox360, Roku, and a host of other devices. Instead of copying the files all over the place, we can use a server and keep the media all in one place. One way to serve the media is to use what is known as upnp. This protocol now comes pretty standard on most servers. Think that Roku uses something called Plex, Plex can also be installed on traditional servers last I looked. What usually happens you point your device to the upnp server and the server will list the media files for access. Pretty nifty! Don't usually have much video to store, but lately I have been downloading quite a few files. Wanted a way to take advantage of upnp. We use XBMC to view or listen to media. Xmbc will even go to the internet to allow you to view video. We also make our own videos that we wo...

Raspberry Pi to get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (popular touchpad operating system) .  Talked about the Raspberry Pi (SOC or system on a chip computer) before in an earlier article. According to several news sources such as  http://www.zdnet.com/raspberry-pi-to-get-android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich-7000001980/ .  Although Icecream is not the latest version of Android, it is still new enough to be very viable. Hopefully Android version 4.1 will be available soon. What is really interesting is that you can already run an optimized version of Debian linux ( http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads ) on the unit. With a composite video out port, you can connect it to most portable DVD players (with composite input) or older composite monitors. That means you can have a computer for under fifty dollars.  Since you can easily strap the Raspberry Pi behind a portable dvd player or a low cost portable touch screen, it as a home made touchpad will be surely competition for all t...

The times and technologies are getting closer to an all on demand entertainment interfaced life. I have had a Roku box for over a year now and was very surprised how many new channels are now available. We have had Netflix set up on the Roku since we first bought it and I tried Hulu for a while, but I didn’t really think there was much more available. I found out that there are hundreds of new streaming channels out there now, quite a few free ones also. I stumbled onto HBOGO and found out that since I have a subscription through Dish TV, I can get HBOGO for free through my Roku box. While I was setting up the HBO feature on the Roku box I found the “ Channel Store” search feature on the Roku that I really wasn’t even aware was there. I also found free showtime shows were also available. It looks like that more and more channels will be showing up on Roku and other set-top boxes to the point where you will be able to get all your programing from them. There are four big interne...