Gadget Wisdom

We’ve spent a lot of time, of late, talking about the excitement of the latest version of MythTV. But it is an exciting topic. Video under MythTV is especially important. On the DVR side of things, MythTV has significant attraction. But as a media center application for the playback of video files, the competing software packages change, to software like XBMC and Boxee.

In version 0.22, MythTV unveiled MythUI, which is a complete rewrite of the Myth user interface. New themes were released and several old ones modified. Last night, we did a series of screenshots to show off some of the theme magic available.

Terra(The New Default Theme)

If you enlarge the image, you will notice that JAMU has added the episode metadata, including description, to these episodes of St. Elsewhere. There is discussion of adding additional options for screenshots for MythVideo(the feature is there for Recordings). If you look at the above image, every episode is using a stock poster.

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Graphite

Graphite is being shown off as another new theme for MythTV 0.22 which shows off several of the new features you can enjoy, namely posters and fanart in the Watch Recordings menus. If you note the picture below, you’ll see the ABC show Castle, has a poster, and each episode has an autogenerated screenshot.

The next two images show the background art available in this theme for shows. All of the art shown was imported by the JAMU script.

Here is the popup, with the extra art and metadata, for a movie we brought in, and a TV episode. It offers a lot of information, which can be used to sort videos by year, genre, season(if TV show), etc.

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Here is an alternate display of a directory of movies under the Metallurgy theme, also a theme newly included into MythTV 0.22. As you can see, the automated process didn’t bring in posters for everything. This can be corrected manually, by entering in additional information to better identify the item.

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All in all, MythTV offers an exciting new and themeable interface that brings it on par with XBMC and Boxee, products that are not in the same category as MythTV, but perform some of the same functions. MythTV still has a ways to go in some areas, however, but it has come a long way.

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Over the weekend, Epix HD launched. The network is a joint project of MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate and offers some of their not-yet-on-DVD movies. One of the nice things is their website will offer on-demand 720p streaming to all subscribers.

Of course, Verizon FIOS is the only network offering the channel, which will cost $9.99 a month. Epix had hoped the channel would be on the standard tier. Meanwhile, to try to find out how many people are interested, Epix is offering 72-hour passes to anyone.

We don’t have FIOS. It would be a serious consideration if we could, considering our issues with our current provider. However, we can try out the service, as can you. We’ll be giving it a shot this week and will keep you posted.

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We recently came across a review of the Mimo 710 7″ USB-connected monitor. With a current list price of $129.99(may change in the future), this miniature monitor uses a single USB connection for both data and power, offering an 800×480 resolution, the same as a digital photo frame, and weighs only 1.3lbs, making it the perfect accessory for those people who need extra screen real estate, but not a full sized monitor. They can be oriented horizontally or vertically for use.

The $199 740 model adds a touchscreen, audio jacks, a USB port, and a webcam to the package.

Mimo advertises it as extra space for things such as an IM client, widgets, toolbars, etc. As of now, drivers for the display and touchscreen are available for Windows and a Display Only driver for Mac OS X. Drivers are not currently available for Linux, but we have high hopes.

Several reviews suggest this item would be an ideal accessory for a netbook, being as it has a rather small form factor as well, and users may need the extra room sometimes. We could also see it used for people who want a place for the above information, but don’t want to use up the desk space for a regular monitor.

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In reading reports of all the new technology unveiled at CES, we located images of the Asus Eee Keyboard, which is, like the old Commodore 64s, an entire computer system built into a keyboard. We used to love our Commodore 64, and still have it in a box somewhere.

The Eee Keyboard will have a full set of multimedia outputs, including wireless HDMI, which would allow it to avoid being tethered to its monitor. It includes a touchscreen that looks similar to an iPhone built in. There is no word on the price or release date of this item.

If the price is low enough, as it might be considering that is the goal of the Eee line of products, to be Eeeconomical, then this would make for a good multimedia PC option

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We troll the tech websites looking for things we find interesting or potentially useful. Here are a few selections…

• Crunchgear turned us on to this car cigarette lighter with 4 USB connections.Most things can charge via USB nowadays…Cell phones, music players, etc. If you have four devices you want to charge and still have your cigarette lighter free for other things, this is certainly useful. The cost is $22.99 as of this post from USBFever.com with 2.99 per order S&H.



• This tiny keyboard with a retractable USB cable was also revealed to us on Crunchgear. Cost is $25 from Brando.com.hk. It would certainly work better as a wireless keyboard, but something like this is useful to have in one’s arsenal of tools. We keep a toolbox with a spare mouse, screwdrivers, misc. little computer and data cables, etc for when we are off repairing something.
• Ion, the company known for cheap analog to digital converters including Record Players, is releasing a $100 slide and negative scanner called Slides 2 PC. for those of us wanting to get rid of boxes of analog media, items like this that make it simple are worth the investment. Scan your media, archive it, and dispose of the slides. You can even make a DVD. If you don’t want to do it yourself, there are plenty of organizations that will do it for you, even your local Costco.
• This tiny USB powered LCD monitor is useful, although we’ll wait till it is much much cheaper.

For more looks at the stuff we find interesting to consider as part of your hardware arsenal, keep reading…

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Crunchgear posted this amusing image from Russia. It reads, “Windows Vista – The Digital Future Starts Here.”

We’re not thrilled with Vista from the time we spent fiddling with it. It certainly, we admit, has some new features of us, but a lot of things are not as easy to locate in the system as they were under XP.

That aside, Microsoft is advertising on toilets. We can just picture poor Yuri, after a night of drinking vodka, stumbling to the restroom to worship the porcelain deity and…inspired by the ad he sees as he voids his stomach, buying a new computer loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista.

We just love the look of this thing the Unclutterer turned us onto. It is available in white or red and is perfect for places like a guest room or a kitchen. Current list price at IKEA is $59.99. Link to Product Page.