The Amitech Homecenter 500 is a small sleek PC with impressive features:

• Intel® Core Duo T2300E
• 2 GB DDR2 RAM
• 160 GB 2.5” S-ATA hard drive
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 graphics
• Gigabit LAN and wi-fi (54 MB)
• Analogue TV tuner
• 4:1 memory card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS-pro)
• 4xUSB, 1xFirewire
• DVI-out, S-video out, composite out
• SP-DIF digital audio, analogue audio out
• DVD player

The small box is meant to replace all the existing hardware in your living room – from your DVD player to your PVR or VCR and to bring in all your music, home videos, photos and even the internet making the sofa your favorite place to be. The Homecenter is designed to work with Windows Vista and takes full advantage of the extensive Media Center features built into the new operating system. If you have an XBOX360 lying around it will link seamlessly with the device enabling you to spend even more time staring at your TV while the wife takes care of the family.

Product page (in Danish, Norwegian or Swedish – your choice)

A caveat; attempting any of these hacks will void your warranty. Having said that, let’s go!

First off, you have to go through the physical act of removing your drive and mount it on true-blue Mac desktop or laptop.  The best place to learn the exact details of Apple TV surgery are at the Awkward TV wiki.  If you’re not willing to do the research weaKnees.com has an Apple TV Upgrade Kit available with a 160gb harddrive, Torx T8 tool and detailed photo instructions.

A vanilla Apple TV doesn’t run anything but Quicktime files, which is fine if all you want to do is stream your iTunes library from your computer to your television.  But if you want to watch Xvid, Divx or other popular formats, Perian is the plug-in you’ll need.

But just watching video is just the beginning with a hacked Apple TV, which is essentially a scaled-down Mac built to occupy space in your living room.  Enterprising hackers have already come up with ways to view RSS feeds, emulate old video game systems, full versions of the Mac OS X operating system and even run World of Warcraft.  There’s also a bounty out sponsored by Appletvhacks.net and FatWallet to get the Apple TV to recognize an external USB drive, though as of yet no solution as been found.

Of course, Apple could simply update the device’s system software and negate the hard work of a large community of tinkerers, but they’ve indicated they aren’t preparing to take action against the hackers anytime soon.

Norwegian internet magazine Forbruker.no (means “consumer”) has tested the new Apple TV.  They are not impressed.  Their teaser poignantly states: “We tested Apple TV.  It was not a TV revolution”.  Lack of file support, iTunes only content and no TV functionality are among their complaints.  Read on to get a shorter English version of the article.

Read our full analysis here.

From Forbruker.no (Norwegian)

Akash reviews Logitech Harmony 1000 remote. This is the remote to rule them all – it will control everything in your home entertainment system and everything in your house as well. But is it easy to use? Watch and find out.

The devil is in the details. As with the introduction of most new technology the electronics retailers are making a killing on the sale of HDMI cables for your newly aquired PS3, HD-DVD / Blue Ray player and / or HDTV flatscreen. The people over at ArsTechnica.com recently published an excellent article on the topic of overpriced cables. But there is an even more important factor that needs to be addressed here:

When it comes to HDMI all cables are equal (or at least almost equal).  The old claim of superior (and more expensive) cables just doesn’t hold up in the new digital reality. Read on and learn why price does not equal quality.

Most newer HDTVs and HD-DVD and Blue-Ray players come with HDMI in/outputs and while the PS3 is currently the only gaming console to support the standard rumours say a new version of the XBOX 360 will soon join the club. With the transition to HDTV as the new  television standard the industry is moving away from component and other cables and toward a new type of cable called HDMI or High-Definition Multimedia Interface . Unlike older cable standards this one carries both high-definition video and audio in one neat package. Therefore it is an excellent way to reduce the cable clutter in your home entertainment centre. But you have to be careful when buying the cables or you will get ripped off.
In the past the claim that better cables meant better quality held through. This was because the signals transferred through the cables were analog – meaning that the signal itself is is the image or audio being transferred. This meant that if the signal deteriorated due to inferior cables the end result – the sound or picture – would deteriorate as well. But in the digital world everything is different. The signal sent between digital devices is a series of 0s and 1s that are interpreted by the devices. Therefore signal degradation has very little impact on the end result. A weak 0 or 1 is still a 0 or 1.

The best way to see the difference between an analog and a digital signal is to think of the difference between an old record and a CD. When you play the record a needle picks up minute vibrations in the record and amplifies these vibrations before reproducing them in the speaker. That is why when a speck of dust or a small scratch appears on the record you can hear it loudly through the speaker. A CD on the other hand does not contain the sounds themselves but a digital interpretation of the sounds. The information on a CD is actually just a series of holes that the player interprets as a 0 or a 1. The sound is produced when a computer interprets this information into sound. That is why even a scratched CD can play without fail and also why deep scratches make the CD unplayable because too many 0s and 1s are obscured.

Now back to the cables. As I said before, in the analog world the quality of your cables is very important. But in the digital world it is of little importance as long as the signal reaches it’s destination. Therefore the claims of “premium digital cables” and “better sound and picture” is little more than an advertising gimmic. For regular length cables the end result is the same whether they cost $20 or $200. The only difference is how hard the salespeople laugh at you when you leave the store.

Cable quality does start to matter if you are sending the signal over a longer distance (more than 3 meters) but even then the more expensive cables are not necessarily better.

A good rule of thumb is to buy the cheapest cable available from a store that allows you to return in within a set time and test it to see if the signal does infact deteriorate. Digital signal deterioration will appear as either popping audio or weird squares or “twinkles” in the image. If you don’t experience these things your cable is fine. If you do experience interference upgrade to a slightly more expensive cable. But no matter what the sales people say there is no reason to buy the most expensive cable unless you want to throw your money away.

One final note: Monster cables have long been hailed as the best on the market. This company is now touting their HDMI cables as supperior to any others on the market. The reality is that there is no difference between their cables and ones that are half the price or less. Unfortunately people still believe the advertising gimmics. But don’t be fooled. There really is nothing to gain from a more expensive cable.