In the past, I have used BeyondTV with Hauppauge PVR-150 tuners. These were PCI cards and only recorded analog signals. Now that analog TV is dead I needed a HDTV solution. I could purchase newer Hauppauge cards or try something new!

And that something new is the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Dual ATSC/QAM Digital TV Tuner. I have known about the HDHomeRun for a couple of years because of my involvement on the BeyondTV forums, but what got me interested this time was a discussion on the The Home Server Show podcast #63, the HDHomeRun was brought up in a discussion and I liked what I heard. So I decided to give it a try.

So what is the HDHomeRun? It is a digital tuner that allows one to take either a OTA HDTV signal or a clear QAM cable signal and watch/record on your computer using WMC, BeyondTV, MythTV, etc. The cool things about this tuner is that it is a network device and does not need to be installed nor connected directly to a computer to work. The model I purchased has 2 tuners in it. Now any computer on my network can stream live OTA HDTV without any additional hardware. With the 2 tuners, 2 different computers can use the tuner at the same time watching / recording different channels.

Setup was quite easy. I had the device out of the box, connected to my OTA HDTV antenna, connected to my network and plugged in within 10 minutes. Installing the necessary software on my Windows 7 box and configuring WMC took another 15 minutes (this includes scanning for channels and downloading the 14-day channel guide). I was watching live TV minutes later and scheduled The Biggest Loser to be recorded that night.

After coming back from the gym and an hour into the 2-hour show, the family sat down to watch The Biggest Loser – fast-forwarding through the commercials! A cool WMC feature is that clicking the FF button once plays the recorded video at almost 2x WITH SOUND! Nice!

I purchased the HDHomeRun from NewEgg.com for $128.99. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a HDTV tuner solution.

Internet Connection
We are still using a broadband cable connection to the Internet, though it has been upped to 10Mb down and 1Mb up. With 5 computers/laptops and a couple iPods/Zunes/smartphones, the increased bandwidth serves us well.

Phone
The big change here is that I am now using a phone solution provided by my cable provider, but this decision was 100% economic. It is cheaper to have my Internet connection with the phone service than without! Crazy, I know. I elected, though, to have only the “local/state-wide” service and still use Skype-Out for ALL my long distance needs. For incoming calls we now depending wholly on Google Voice. I have been using Google Voice since before it was purchased by Google. Love it! Love it!

TV / Movies / Entertainment
The main change here is that we have dropped Blockbuster and switched to Netflix. I have become a Netflix believer! Incoming vectors for entertainment now include: OTA HDTV; Hulu, YouTube and other streaming sites; and Netflix DVDs and streaming. This is STILL TOO MUCH CONTENT!!!

Email / Productivity / Organization
Everyone in the house is still using Gmail (hosted) for email. While we occasionally need to use M$ Word / Excel / PowerPoint, most everything is done with Google Docs. New this year is that my wife is starting to use Google Calendar. Now that we are using Google Voice 100% and now that Google supports Active Sync (for my Touch Pro2 smartphone), I am centralizing my contact management in Google Contacts (bye bye Plaxo).

Costs
The only cost increase seen this year was the price increase to my Internet connection (+30/mn). I am still realizing savings over what I had 2 years ago!

I cannot imagine going back to the way it was 2 years ago. My family and I do not feel we have missed a thing. I am calling this “experiment” a success!!! Or in Google terms, I am removing the BETA tag 

HTC Bravo

The “Bravo” looks to be a real blockbuster, with the Qualcomm 8250 1Ghz processor we’ve seen in the Windows Mobile-powered HD2, a 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED screen and HD720p video capture. We’ve only got to glance in our inbox to see emails asking, “When will an Android powered HD2 be available?” – this could indeed be the device you’ve been waiting for. It’ll also have a 16Gb microSD in the box, a 1400mAh battery and that lovely HTC Sense interface. This looks set to arrive in April and should have the very latest build of Android. This one really is setting off alarm bells

[2010 HTC Roadmap leak - Fill your boots!]

I had thought that my current motherboard (don’t remember off the top of my head) would support Intel Core2 Duo processors, but it does not. That being so, I plan on dumping Intel and move [back] to AMD. I have been keeping up with Intel processors, but not AMD so I need some help choosing a good AMD processor and a matching motherboard.

I have been using the desktop for general web surfing, Microsoft Office apps, watching Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, occasionally recording OTA TV and occasionally authoring videos/DVDs. I do not see my needs changing much. The Pentium D has performed satisfactory, though anything involving video does stress the system.

So help me out … what is a good general purpose AMD processor?

[update 2009-11-27] Am thinking about this combo on sale at NewEgg ….

Supposedly VZW has not crippled the phone. Hope that is true.

Now, if my XV6800 can hang on for another week or two!!

Check out the post @ BGR.  And the discussion @ Howard Forums.

… attacks work only on WPA systems that use the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) algorithm. They do not work on newer WPA 2 devices or on WPA systems that use the stronger Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm.

So make sure your router is not using WPA with TKIP and certainly not WEP encryption! If you can, switch to WPA2.

I am now in “Pre” mode. I am liking what I am hearing from current Palm Pre users and I am thinking about dropping <gasp!> Windows Mobile and heading to WebOS. Something new, something fresh!! With the earliest VZW can release the Pre being January, can I wait 5 months? I guess it depends on whether my current phone, xv6800, can last another 5 months.

… about the only other thing that might cause me to jump on a non-Pre phone will be if the Android phone VZW is supposed to be releasing Sept/Oct peeks my interest. Right now I do not like the look of the Moto Sholes.

This has got to be the most excitement VZW has seen in a long while … at least from my perspective.

But with choice comes decision. I am one of those guys that cannot choose what to order at a restaurant. I like too many things and want it all! Well, when it comes to tech, mobile tech in this instance, I want it all — but can’t. Very few of us have the dollars to be able to afford multiple devices, unless it is your job like the lucky guys at jkOnTheRun or The Cell Phone Junkie. VZW also makes it harder to own multiple devices since their hardware does not use easy to swap SIM cards like AT&T, T-Mobile and other GSM-based carriers.

But back to decisions … currently I am using the VZW XV6800, which I have had for almost 2 years. Now that I have the GPS enabled, the only real issue I have with the phone is the amount of free RAM. I would like to be able to run PocketPlayer, email and SkyFire simultaneously. SkyFire is quite RAM hungry and eats up the 18MB of free RAM I have once the OS loads up. I just need more RAM.

The HTC Touch Pro 2 is supposed to come with 288MB RAM, 4.5 times what my XV6800 has (64MB). That will be great! BUT …. with so many different platforms on the horizon, is now the time to switch? I have been a Windows CE / PocketPC / Windows Mobile faithful since the original HP Windows CE handheld. That’s almost 10 years!!!

So, in trying to be objective about this, my requirements are …
- enough RAM / resources to run GPS, web, social, etc apps
- must have 3G connectivity
- must support latest Internet tech
- must be able to multi-task

So on my short list at this time are:
- HTC Touch Pro 2
- Moto “Sholes” Android
- Palm Pre

The BIG question is if I can wait until January when the Palm Pre is supposed to launch on VZW. I don’t know if I can. The initial reviews on the Pro 2 on T-Mobile have been quite favorable. I’ll try and stick it out as long as I can ….