Heron Fidelity

Mobile device manufacturers are making it easier to connect their desirable hand-held high-resolution screens to a HDTV - an item increasingly likely to be listed among a mobile device owner's possessions.  Micro HDMI output is available on several handsets and tablets providing an easy connection using a simple converter cable.

What's new-er is MHL or Mobile High-Definition Link: a standard that can squeeze HDMI from unexpected places including the popular micro USB port found on many smartphones.  The MHL spec is similar to HDMI in the home with up to 1080p60 video and 7.1-channel sound from capable devices.  MHL also incorporates the all-important ability to recharge a device when connected and in use.

My experience with MHL on my Samsung Galaxy SIII has been rewardingly easy.  Branded and generic MHL adapter cables are available online - a 2-meter adapter cable (pictured above) cost me about $11.  Add a wireless Bluetooth keyboard for easy texting, Tweeting, and web surfing from the comfort of your favorite spot.  With many HDTVs providing at least one USB port, I'm able to connect the HDMI/USB end of the adapter to non-MHL TVs and still receive adequate power to charge the mobile device.  MHL-enabled HDTVs should provide adequate power without the need for the additional USB connection.

MHL also leverages CEC (Consumer Electronic Control) allowing for HDTV remote control commands to be passed to the connected device potentially simplifying app use in a home theater environment.

While few if any mobile apps provide native 1080p video output or more than 2-channel stereo sound, the convenience and performance of having an already-customized device at the ready to enjoy with a simple cable connection may bring some entertainment joy to road-weary business travelers and parents alike.

Gaming on the big screen was fun - widescreen games scaled very nicely to full-screen, and vertically-orientated titles were enjoyable too albeit utilizing far less of the available screen space.

Compared to the plethora of app-enabled televisions that currently exist, a cheap cable plus a kick-ass MHL-enabled smartphone equals one of best app experiences I've had on any HDTV.  If your smart device supports MHL, grab a cable and get connected!

Test notes:

• 1080p30 output reported from Galaxy SIII
• Non-MHL HDTV used for testing (HDMI+USB supplying additional power)
• Mirroring of Galaxy SIII display on HDTV

The audio/video professionals at THX have unleashed an interesting app named THX Tune-Up for smartphone-wielding home theater purists who want better performance from their gear.

Tune-Up is currently available on the Apple Store and it is scheduled to arrive in Android-ville in March.  The app is free to download during its first week after which it will be priced at a modest $2.

For iOS devices, THX Tune-Up is compatible with the iPad 2 or later and the iPhone 4 or later.

Setup is simple: connect your compatible Apple device to your AV gear via HDMI using the Apple Digital AV Adapter, or connect wirelessly to a gen-3+ Apple TV.  An Equipment tab is there to catalog your gear, configure the audio output format, and select how you want your mobile device to connect to everything.

The Adjustments tab contains the classic THX setup tests...now in mobile form!  Picture and sound tests can be individually selected.  Tune-Up's color and tint tools utilize the mobile device's camera to capture and compare what the TV is doing to a filtered view seen on the mobile display.  I found that slightly squinting at these color patterns made it easier to see when they closely matched, but the very slow frame rate of the filtered view (iPhone 4 tested) made it mildly awkward to use.

I was somewhat surprised that Tune-Up lacked a sharpness setup tool, but the edges of its contrast setup test pattern proved adequate for evaluating this often abused setting.

The app's Extras tab features a selection of 2D and 3D trailers, a THX 'moo'-can simulator, and (my favorite) a button to unleash a 5.1 surround sound Deep Note.

Bottom line: THX Tune-Up is my favorite home theater calibration app to date!

See Robert's Favorite Home Theater Gear!

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Updated July 3rd, 2015

It's been about three years since I replaced a cable television DVR (digital video recorder) that I was renting with a custom-built PC (original article archive: part one and part two). It was the introduction of multi-tuner CableCARD host adapters that made it easy to turn a Windows PC into a powerful home theater centerpiece that convinced me to craft my own super-DVR. That initial build using the unlikely union of an Intel Atom processor and Nvidia ION graphics technology resulted in excellent energy efficiency and solid 1080p video playback, but the system's ability to smoothly multitask was constantly challenged.

For version 2.0 of my home theater PC (HTPC), I vowed to maintain excellent energy efficiency while significantly improving its performance.

TV Picture Setup Guide

Cord Cutting Guide

Parts list
The complete parts list for my current HTPC build:

Case: Thermaltake Luxa2 LM100 Mini - discontinued but some refurbished units remain
CPU: Intel Core i3-2100T - an i3 is plenty powerful for HTPC duties
Mobo: Intel DH67CF Mini-ITX - this mobo had consumer IR built-in
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB)
Storage: SSD (boot) + HDD (DVR)
ODD: Slim BD/DVD/CD
Bluetooth Adaper

I've come to appreciate the design of the Thermaltake Luxa2 LM100 Mini case - it's brushed aluminum exterior ages gracefully, masks fingerprints and dust, and provides a perfect home for a Mini-ITX mobo and related components. With the LM100 now discontinued, I'm on the hunt for a successor.

With two years of near-continuous operation to its credit, HTPC v2.0's performance gains over its predecessor are a credit to its Intel Core i3 2100T (Sandy Bridge w/35W Max TDP) processor and solid state drive (SSD) - SSDs make any computer feel twice as fast!

Robert's Favorite Home Theater Gear

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Cooling upgrade
A hot-running tuner card prompted a case cooling upgrade: additional (2) 50x50mm fans to fill the remaining exhaust ports at the rear of the chassis (also preventing backflow). The Thermaltake LM100's air inlets are located on the bottom of the case in the motherboard mount area, and the new fan setup reduced the tuner's operating temperatures from 65-70C to a far cooler 40-45C without an obvious increase in fan noise. 

Hardware and software
My tuner hardware includes the following:

Ceton InfiniTV 6 PCIe - 6-tuner CableCARD host adapter
SiliconDust HDHomeRun EXTEND - 2-tuner over-the-air (OTA)
SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME - 3-tuner CableCARD host adapter

All of this hardware needs good software to make it work:

Windows 7 64-bit - Windows 8 with the Media Center Pack option works too
My Movies - how I manage my movie collection
ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater - No longer updated (see note below)
Ceton Companion - my favorite smartphone remote control app
SoundGraph iMON Manager - VFD and IR remote signal management
SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive - a great virtual drive program

Note: ArcSoft has abandoned TotalMedia Theater leaving CyberLink PowerDVD Pro, Ultra, and Live as the remaining recommended options for PC Blu-ray disc playback.

Add to this several terabytes of network attached storage (NAS) for my music, photos, and movies and I'm one happy (couch) camper.

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2015 Vizio E-Series TVs

Control
Control-wise, I'm using the aforementioned Ceton Companion application as well as a Logitech Harmony 650 universal remote control. The Bluetooth adapter also allows me to easily connect a wireless keyboard when the need arises. Also, I've recently added the Logitech Harmony Smart Keyboard that provides Bluetooth and RF control options as well as an updated smartphone control app - it's proven to be a terrific HTPC control option.

Costs and options
The cost of this system at the time including software easily exceeded $1000 - not a trivial expense even if amortized over several years of use. For HTPC v3.0 (hint, hint), I'd consider reducing costs by eliminating the slim optical drive altogether as I find I seldom (never) use it. Use of NAS storage for TV recordings could eliminate an extra HDD from the system further reducing costs and space requirements. At that point, I'd consider an optimized micro-PC like the new Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) as it features similar computing power as my current HTPC in a package that is but a fraction of its size.

For more information about my HTPC setup, please read this follow up article exploring a brief experiment with Windows 8.

My adventures with the Windows 8 operating system (OS) have led me to finally upgrade my main work notebook, that was running Windows 7, with Microsoft's latest and greatest. Prior to the OS upgrade, I backed up my data (I love Dropbox), updated my SSD's firmware, and secure wiped the drive for the heck of it.

My notebook isn't exactly cutting edge gear anymore at just over three years old and equipped as such:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T6500
• 4GB DDR2 RAM
• 120GB SSD (an upgrade I did last year)
• AMD Radeon HD 4500 Series Graphics

The solid-state drive (SSD), in particular, was key to speeding the install process on this not-so-older notebook.  Post OS install, the few finishing touches included a couple of driver updates, a visit to Windows Update, and the addition of Windows Media Center - still a free addon for a limited time!

I then visited the SiliconDust website and download their awesomely easy-to-use 1-file installer that detected and guided me through the initial configuration of the HDHomeRun PRIME (CableCARD) and DUAL (ATSC; over-the-air) tuners that I have linked to my home network via this sweet powerline networking product.

It took only minutes to setup and configure the tuners...5 tuners in total that my notebook can access and use anytime its connected to my home network.

Also, I cannot stress enough how much faster it is to install Windows using a USB flash drive compared to a DVD - it took less than 10 minutes (9:54 on the stopwatch) from the click of the mouse to selecting a desktop color scheme in the presented Personalize setup menu.  I'm growing fond of these 8GB SanDisk flash drives!

Updated October 7, 2014 to note that Windows 8 support has improved

Today, I made the decision to transition my home theater PC (HTPC) back to Windows 7. Microsoft's new operating system has been terrific in terms of stability and ease of use, but a few nagging issues prevented me from using my HTPC the way I could under Windows 7.

For the curious, here was the final straw...

I'm going going back back to Windows 7...That lovely message appeared after adding the SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME CableCARD tuner to my setup...inducing a mix of fast-fading rage with some sadface. By the way, I absolutely love how there is just one file on the SlilconDust software page that installs and updates the entire lineup of HDHomeRun tuners! Seriously, it's a bit of programming magic that I've come to appreciate!

Note: Ceton has since added Windows 8 support for most of its InfiniTV CableCARD tuner products.

See Robert's Favorite Home Theater Gear!

ISO issues
One other major issue that I've had with Windows 8 since the beginning of testing is that the OS crashes/reboots whenever a large ISO file is mounted to a virtual drive. My ISOs are stored on a local NAS, and I've experienced this issue using virtual drive programs such as SlySoft's (otherwise) excellent Virtual CloneDrive program.

I could forsake the luxury of a 9-tuner HTPC (7 CableCARD + 2 OTA) and make the sacrifice to the Win8 gods. Sigh. Never. I'd rather have my lossless video library (powered by MyMovies) working properly and the choice of having a bajillion CableCARD tuners all recording at the same time - if my HTPC's Core i3 can handle it! Oh for the love of Mini-ITX and ultra low-power CPUs!

The SliconDust HDHomeRun tuners were ready to go from day one with official Windows 8 support, and I'm still waiting for a similar update from the good folks at Ceton.

Heron Fidelity's Cord Cutting Guide

Update - November 3, 2012: The ISO-crashing issues that I experienced appear to be related to Virtual CloneDrive and not Windows 8's integrated image file support. I tested the playback of several successfully mounted Blu-ray movie image files and ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater v5.3.1.172 gave me this error each time:

Playback of the main .m2ts file from the mounted images using TotalMedia Theater or VLC worked, and playback of mounted DVD image files in TotalMedia Theater functioned just as if a physical disc were present. The version of TotalMedia Theater that I'm running in Windows 8 is newer than the version I ran with my Windows 7 setup. I was planning on rebuilding my HTPC from a clean Windows 7 install, and I'l be checking ISO file playback first thing upon reinstall.

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Update - October 7, 2014: The now abandoned ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater (and likely all remaining consumer Blu-ray player software) added Cinavia anti-piracy technology to all versions after v5.3.1.146. ISO files created from Cinavia-enabled discs will eventually cease playback and display a related message. Software such as SlySoft's AnyDVD HD and DVD-Ranger's CinEX HD utility offer a work-around for dealing with Cinavia-enabled content. Also, SlySoft has since updated its excellent Virtual CloneDrive (virtual optical drive) program to improve compatibility with Window 8.

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I remain convinced that that Microsoft's latest OS offers an efficient, well-implemented, customizable, Windows environment infused with touch interaction. I'm also finding few limitations for the OS in more traditional computing environments - my workstation and notebook PC configurations could easily be mistaken for Windows 7-based systems at first glance.

Thankfully, installing Window 7 or Windows 8 via USB flash drive to a SSD boot drive takes only minutes...please stay tuned.