Items Tagged With media player

Back in the summer I wrote about replacing our aging AV Amp at the heart of our Home Cinema system.  We knew the builders were coming to fit a wood burning stove and so the room needed to be gutted - the perfect excuse to move our home theater into the HiDef world.  The work was completed last December, all except for one vital componant - the new Mac mini.

At last we now have the fantastic user experience of the XBMC days, along with the horse power to play 1080P content.  Here's our quick video on setting the mini up as an HD media player ("basic" 2.0Ghz / 1Gb RAM moodel)...

Interest in Boxee has been growing steadily, especially since it became available on the Apple TV (we contacted Apple PR to ask them their views on installing Boxee on the Apple TV but they replied saying Apple declines to comment on this).  With a quarter of a million users, even before the Windows version has been released, Boxee are capturing people's imagination and with the possibility of new hardware boxes on the horizon with a "Powered By Boxee" logo on them, its time to sit up and take notice.  Read on for Automated Home's interview with Boxee Founder, Avner Ronen...

Fancy a Media Center setup without the need for a Tuner Card?  Well, if you're happy with the online streamed content from the BBC iPlayer and others then this is for you. Recently updated to v2 the free Vista MCE interface for iPlayer now has support for the Windows 7 Beta as well as the ability to stream from the ITV Catchup and Channel 4 on demand services too...

We've been contacted by Control4 in Australia, who were keen to show us how they've integrated XBMC into their professional home automation system...

"Control4 Australia's XBMC interface allows IP control over the open source XBMC media center. Full control can be accessed via Control4's wireless and wired touchscreens, zigbee remote controls, keypads or Control4's onscreen graphical user interface.  What this means is that you can create a full on demand theatre experience with automated blinds, lights and temperature control and touchscreen movie selection or perhaps a multiroom distributed audio/video system.

What do you get if you cross the Logitech Squeezebox Duet with the Innovus Z-Wave House Controller and some custom software?  Home Automation of course!  The new Innovus and Logitech package includes the special Innovus MyHome Plug-in software for the Squeezebox Duet controller...