Episode 31: How To: Roll Out LCD Wrinkles! Hillcrest Labs Loop Pointer, YouTube Hack: HTML 5 vs. Flash, Top 5 Coen Brothers Films! [Discussion]

[jackierulesall]

Control Your HTPC with a Ring. Even More OTA HDTV solutions, the Blu-ray releases for February 9th, 2010, Smooth out a flawed LCD display, hardware acceleration with Flash!

Watch or download now!

[patrickheron]

Hi, greetings from sunny ukland just thought i would throw in my suggestion for the gyration GYR3101CKCA air remote and keyboard see http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16823172015 as a htpc input solution.
Being a geek my htpc tri boots win7 ubuntu/mythtv and the beta2 of linuxmce and i have to say this product has worked flawlessly, not to mention being plug and play.
You have one dongle for both items a hard keyboard cover to protect from those coffee table dangers its rf and can learn to control multiple devices.
PS as a side note i use wmc for most of my media needs but when it comes to recording tv myth is the way to go (no ms closed formats and mythweb is awsome)
ohh and boxee works great on all platforms

[wv1973]

I also posted this reply in the other HTPC thread, but I've been looking at this remote for a while. It appears to have both a mouse and keyboard solution wrapped into one little package. If you could give it a try with your HTPC I'd love to see the results.

Wade from Montreal

diNovo Mini from Logitech

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/ke.../3848&cl=us,en

[xfuuey]

+1 for The Big Lebowski. my favorite movie. had it in hd-dvd...would love to see it on blu-ray

[softfgk]

i have been using a Vista machine for HTPC for an year now and I go to say i experimented with all kinds of remote and finally settled on a firefly RF remote.
It is an RF remote so no more pointing BS.

HDMI video plus optical sound for now.
Got to get a new ATI GPU to get the full HDMI+Dolby Master over HDMI one of these days.

I run 4 apps mainly (when i get a BD drive i plan adding one more for BD playback)
MEdia center for my dual OTA HD tuner
HULU desktop app
BOXEE mainly for everything online (including the revision3
XBMC for all my archived contents

All are controlled using Eventghost and a little bit of scripting inside eventghost.
you can launch control and close these apps with the remote.

The mouse and keyboard is not a good choice for video watching exerience. You got to be able to hit pause play FF record etc. An RF or wireless keboard mouse combo is nice to have But the main control should be a remote.

[abrickler]

I am running Boxee and SageTV currently and using my Harmony One to control it all. But I would like to have keyboard at times.

I have been look at the Lenovo Multimedia remote. http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...1&id=3079&pg=2 It is on sale at Techdealdigger.com (http://www.techdealdigger.com/pr/che...ard-deals/2736)

One other thing that I have been waiting to check out is the Boxee Box remote. Which has a keyboard built into the back of it. Aslo I am waiting to see Centon 4 tunner cable card works out when it comes out next month.

You can watch hdtv without a computer, all you need is a hdtv converter and tv or a monitor with composite input. I think the real question is If you want to save what you can watch, does require or not required some kind of computing device whether or not it has a keyboard or a monitor. A dvr is just a single purpose computer. In some scenarios I can see where that might be needed for reasons of control. I watched the supoerbowl with just a b&w portable tv with hdtv converter. You do not need a dvr.

We use mythtv with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Works just perfectly.

[quagga]

My TV-MacMini does have an addresso wireless keyboard/trackball combo plugged into it but really, I never use it. If I need keyboard and mouse, I'll just remote in from the Macbook Pro which is always on my coffee table / lap while watching TV. Now for a really good movie I might have it closed but it is always there ready to go ...

The addresso I have has the big unsightly usb dongle as well. Something to consider. Although if you have bluetooth, you could just get a bt keyboard to have around somewhere. I think remoting in or using the mouse sharing program Synergy is just less cluttery.

I find the standard remote with a 10 ft interface be that Plex/Boxee/XMBC or some knockoff of those is the most natural way to interact with the machine.

[maver]

I have an old Vaio IR remote that should only work with gigaplayer (sony's little tv app) but win7 installs it as a HID and using Event Ghost I get it working with XBMC, then I custom program that remote into my harmony 890, which then using RF to a IR blaster inside the cabinet.

My main problem is the cabinet gets way to hot, and I want to put the HTPC to sleep, problem is win7 doesn't have a "allow this device to wake the computer" option for the remote HID driver. So everytime I want to watch a movie I've got to get off the couch to take it out of standby.

Does anyone have any tips to help me on remotely waking my computer?

[phishee]

Robert and Patrick:

Since you are on the eternal quest for the perfect Home Theater PC Remote, I can recommend one I tried recently in my Mac Mini setup. I also tried the Hillcrest Labs Loop Pointer but felt it was lacking in the "feel" department. From my experience, I enjoyed the ability to hold the GlideTV remote in the palm of my hand while the Loop Pointer fatigued my wrist and was simply more difficult to navigate menus. Let me know what you think. I have posted links to both of my reviews below:

http://www.minihtpc******/2009/12/11...igator-review/

http://www.minihtpc******/2009/12/17...ointer-review/

(minihtpc dot info is the URL) - I don't know why it is not linking correctly.

Thanks - Keep up the rockin' shows!

phishee (Brandon)