We have reviewed the Roku devices before, and the last major hardware refresh (if you discount the MHL-equipped streaming stick) was the Roku 2 XS which we evaluated in detail back in September 2011. Engadget spied some FCC filings early last month, and to no one's surprise, the Roku 3 was officially launched yesterday at the $99 price point. We could write multiple paragraphs about the new features touted by Roku in the new hardware, but felt it would be simpler to present the plus and minus points of the Roku 3 in a point-wise fashion: Positives: Faster CPU for a better user experience. Users are no longer bundled with the same SoC that is part of the Raspberry Pi. We are still looking into details of...
QNAP Introduces XBMC App for TS-x69 Pro / L Series NAS Units
The Atom D2700 series CPUs have proved quite popular in the SMB / SOHO NAS market. We saw vendors introduce models with HDMI outputs as early as December 2011...
7 by Ganesh T S on 2/7/2013
Arctic Introduces OpenELEC-based MC001-XBMC HTPC
Arctic announced the availability of their MC001-XBMC passive HTPC today. Based on the Intel Atom D525 and the AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5430, the unit comes with OpenELEC pre-installed...
17 by Ganesh T S on 2/5/2013
Getting the Best out of an Ivy Bridge HTPC: Windows 8, madVR and More..
The build process and thermal performance of a fanless Ivy Bridge HTPC was covered in detail last month. I had indicated that the piece would be the first of...
140 by Ganesh T S on 1/20/2013
ASRock Vision HT: Ivy Bridge Carries the SFF HTPC Forward
The small form factor (SFF) HTPC market has been steadily growing over the last few years. As mobile processors become more and more powerful, it is becoming easier for...
40 by Ganesh T S on 11/12/2012
Netgear Updates Entertainment Lineup with Push2TV 3000 and NeoTV 300 Series
Netgear has been at the forefront in supporting Intel's WiDi initiative on the receiver side. In fact, they had an exclusive on the first WiDi receiver (Push2TV 1000) for...
31 by Ganesh T S on 9/20/2012
Vizio Co-Star Pre-Orders Open: $100 for the Next-Gen Google TV
The Vizio Co-Star VAP430 made a big splash when it was unveiled to the public during the 2012 CES. With the buzz around the VAP430 having been maintained right...
17 by Ganesh T S on 7/24/2012
Replacing my HTPC with a mini ITX System
Free time is hard to come by these days. Since the beginning of the year I've hit Vegas, Barcelona, Santa Clara, New York, Santa Clara (again), Austin, Seattle, Chicago...
56 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/24/2012
ASRock's High-End Vision 3D 252B HTPC Review
In late 2010, we reviewed the ASRock Vision 3D, and declared it to be the best pre-built SFF (small form factor) HTPC we had reviewed. ASRock duly updated the...
61 by Ganesh T S on 5/7/2012
Intel's Ivy Bridge: An HTPC Perspective
Towards the end of June 2011, we saw AMD trying to create a HTPC friendly solution in the Llano series. By pairing a GPU with the CPU in the...
70 by Ganesh T S on 4/23/2012
Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus: Redefining the Small Form Factor PC
Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs are becoming quite popular as processors become more and more power efficient. Over the last few years, we have had a slew of budget...
44 by Ganesh T S on 4/11/2012
Pulse-Eight Motorola NYXboard Hybrid Remote Review
Pulse-Eight is one of the companies tracing its roots to XBMC, and it is no wonder they have a host of interesting products in the HTPC space. We have...
23 by Ganesh T S on 4/5/2012
Cinavia DRM: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blu-ray’s Self-Destruction
DRM (Digital Rights Management) is intended to protect media from being played in an unauthorized manner. However, more often than not, it fails to serve the purpose. Today, we...
115 by Ganesh T S on 3/21/2012
CyberLink PowerDVD 12: Complementing Your Mobile Lifestyle
Software Blu-ray / DVD players are bundled with almost all OEM PCs and a necessity for consumers who want to enjoy their commercial optical media in the most legal...
42 by Ganesh T S on 1/31/2012
Pulse-Eight USB CEC Adapter Review
Pulse-Eight is one of the commercial vendors tracing their roots to XBMC. Boxee is another company with XBMC roots, but, unlike Boxee, Pulse-Eight concentrates more on the hardware aspects...
22 by Ganesh T S on 1/24/2012
VLC 'Hack' for Encrypted Blu-ray Playback Capability
VLC is one of the most widely used media players. It was one of the first open source media players to get encrypted DVD playback capability, and now, it...
27 by Ganesh T S on 1/23/2012
Dune HD Pro : A Premium Entertainment System using the Sigma Designs SMP8910
Dune HD is one of the most respected middleware developers in the media player scene. By exclusively restricting themselves to Sigma Designs, they have managed to produce an...
2 by Ganesh T S on 1/12/2012
Google TV Goes ARM with Marvell's ARMADA 1500
It wouldn't be far off the mark to call Google TV as one of the unmitigated disasters of 2010 - 2011. Through the failure of the Logitech Revue, it...
36 by Ganesh T S on 1/5/2012
Netgear NTV200 : Over-the-Top Streaming for Non-Networked TVs
The current flux in the television market is embodied by the emergence of two closely related categories, namely, the Smart TV and the connected TV. While the former category...
24 by Ganesh T S on 12/22/2011
Syabas Launches Popcorn Hour C-300
Syabas launched the second generation version of their BDA licensed unit, the Popcorn Hour C-300 today. The previous version was based on Sigma's SMP 8643, and the C-300 is based...
6 by Ganesh T S on 12/6/2011