Items Tagged With reviews

Jon Whiten recounts his recent project building a Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC...

"I recently built a MCE2005 machine and have been using it for a few weeks now. The system is basically a P4-3.2Ghz, 1Gig Ram, 80Gig HDD, ATI 9200 Graphics with DVI and Svid Out, 2 x BlackGold DVB-T TV Cards, Dual Layer DVD Writer, Soundblaster Audigy and MCE Remote control...

Rather than wait another few weeks to publish my Home CCTV Server review I've decided to make t a two part affiar. Part one is now on-line...

"I have had CCTV at home for 8 years now in one form or another. Over that time camera performance has increased, whilst prices have fallen. Par for the course where most technology is concerned I suppose. A year or so ago I bought a Samsung CCTV switcher from eBay to view our cameras by modulating its output round all the TVs in the house. Using its simple timer it switched between each camera at a set interval, while this worked it was frustrating as the camera you wanted to view was rarely the one that was on the screen at that particular moment in time. The eBay acquired switcher died a month or so ago and so the search for the "upgrade" was on"...

Submitted by Simon McCaughey - The idea of the Showcenter is to make media files stored on your PC available for use on your TV in the living room. I don't have (and can't get) broadband, so my selection of media is limited to a few ripped DVDs, loads of MP3's, and about 1000 photos. My main objective was to remove the DVD player and VCR from the living room, so I only have a TV, HiFi, TiVo and Showcenter...

The UK Home Automation community have been meeting annually since 2001. The "UKHA2004" event was held on the 15th and 16th May 2004, in Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Hatfield, near London. This year we booked the three largest conference rooms in the Hotel. The Pioneer and Endeavour suites were used for exhibitor's stands. We had 18 companies and individuals demonstrating their systems. The third room, the Comet suite, was used for presentations.

My review of the show is now online (7,500 words plus pictures and links). If you'd rather read the review offline, on your PDA, or print it, then an Adobe Acrobat PDF version is available for download...