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Cocoal.icio.us: A Cocoa del.icio.us Client for Mac OS X

“Microsoft Corp. has strategically nurtured its Windows Media Player, making it by far the world’s most dominant program for playing digital music and video on computers. Rival RealNetworks Inc.’s product ranks a very distant second. It’s not just that Media Player has long been bundled with the Windows operating system, giving consumers an easy way to handle multimedia files without the need to download others. There’s another big reason: Many…

“All told, we like SageTV, and believe it’s a competent application that does what it says it does. That said, we’ve also spent time with BeyondTV and ShowShifter, and find those applications also have their strong points as well. To SageTV’s credit, it combines the ability to present all media types – TV, video, DVD, music and still photos – with a reasonably easy UI and a client-server architecture that lets any PC on your home network use…

“What does Web Media do? The Web Media plug-in brings all streaming media to your Windows XP Media Center Edition! Add your favorite Internet Radio stations and you favorite Internet TV stations and put them in the categories you like. You can configure six categories with an unlimited number of stations in it and all configuration is done within the Media Center interface. You can use your remote control to navigate your categories and stations,…

My friend Andy showed me the US Patent Office’s public search engine. Here are all pending TiVo patents and here are all of ReplayTV’s pending patents.

A lot of people received a PVR like TiVo, Replay TV or a Windows XP Media Center for Christmas and are thinking "OK, now what?"  We at PVRBlog, aside from wishing you happy holidays, want to provide a sort of introduction to using your new device.  Inside this post we’ll be linking to tips and guides for your new PVR to help you get started.

TiVo

TiVo Customer Support

TiVo has done an excellent job answering common questions.  They also have  some good tips and tricks to check out.

Tivo Community Forum

This is the most popular TiVo forum, chances are any question that hasn’t been answered on the Customer Support page is answered here.  Don’t miss this post of common questions and these tips for new users.  Also, be sure to search their archives before posting a question.

TiVo Central Online

You can schedule your TiVo through the web using this site, which might be a good way to set up your Season Passes

TiVo Rebate Center

Don’t forget to send in those rebates!

The 30-Second Skip

Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select.  This button combo on your remote will enable a hidden 30 second skip button.  Personally I prefer using the fast forward, but a lot of people like using this, so try both and decide for yourself.

PVRblog’s TiVo posts

Because we’ve written a thing or two about these TiVos too.

ReplayTV

ReplayTV Owners Home Page

A overview of offiial resources and support options.

MyReplayTV.com

Schedule recordings for your ReplayTV over the internet through their web site.

ReplayFAQs

Lots of news and information for ReplayTV owners, including the titular FAQs.

ReplayTV & Showstopper PVRs - AVS Forum

Community forums for ReplayTV owners to post questions and discuss.  Be sure to read their FAQs and search before you post a question, it’s probably already been answered.

PVRblog’s ReplayTV posts…

… which we really should flesh out more.

Thanks Ben for your help filling out this section.

Windows XP Media Center Edition

Using Windows XP Media Center Edition

I don’t know much about the Windows Media Center community, but this looks like the best place to start.  They have links to a getting started guide, and a comprehensive community portal.

The Green Button

This is the Media Center equivalent to the TiVo Community boards mentioned above.

microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter

Microsoft’s Media Center newsgroup, an official forum from Microsoft to talk Media Center and get help from other users.

Addicted to Digital Media, Matt Goyer’s blog and Chris Lanier’s blog

Two blogs from people on the Media Center team and one from a “Media Center MVP,” they regularly write about Windows Media Center Edition.

PVRblog’s Windows Media Center posts

Which also feature stuff from Thomas Hawk.

Thanks to Thomas Hawk for his help on the Media Center links (and you should check out his site for more info about Media Center). I invite PVR fans to add their own picks in the comments to this post.  If you still have a question that hasn’t been answered, submit it to Ask PVRblog and our smart readers will do their best to help you out.