According to this post at The Green Button by Charlie Nilsson, Program Manager for Microsoft eHome Division, Microsoft is working on support for the Tuning Adapter in Windows Media Center to allow MCPC users to handle Switched Digital Video. The Tuning Adapters were approved by CableLabs in July and TiVo has already deployed support. Since the TAs are USB devices, it might seem like PCs would be amongst the first platforms to support them. However, it sounds like it may be a while yet:

Microsoft recognizes the impact of this technology on our customers and partners. We are working to enable support for the CableLabs SDV Tuning Adaptor for Windows Media Center Digital Cable Tuners, ensuring that Windows Media Center users will be able to access switched content.

While we have no further details at this time, we will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

While it is good news that MCPC users will be getting SDV support, I’m sure the users with cable systems using SDV would like to see it sooner rather than later.

It has been just over nine months since the last Galleon update, so it is nice to see that development of this TiVo HME application is still continuing. Galleon is one of the leading applications available for TiVo HME, as well as being one of the oldest - evolving from JavaHMO. The 2.5.3 update includes several changes:

The open source Galleon 2.5.3 media server for TiVo is now available.

This version includes the following:

Version 2.5.3:
———————-
* Update JmDNS package to 1.0 (not using JmDNS from
hme-host-sample-1.4.jar anymore); seems to help on Mac OS X 10.5
* Added TiVo name to detail screen in ToGo app
* Updated weather forecast parsing to handle more cases
* Fixed local radar after change on weather source web pages
* Update help URLs to point at content now on sourceforge.net
* Fixed iPhoto album parser to clean out old albums during library
update.

Known problems:
* not all galleon skins in HD cover the screen–use tivo skins
* still some layout glitches in HD
* still some HD menu highlights are too big for text

You can download Galleon 2.5.3 here.

Picked up via TiVo Blog

Picked up from TiVo Blog.

TiVo is running a promotion through 1/15/09, buy the TiVo Wireless Adapter for $59.99 and get five movie rental downloads from Amazon Video On Demand. That’s a $20 value. (From the fine print it sounds like it is really a $20 credit which can be used for movie rentals, the five movies is just based on a $4 average rental price.)

I guess I can’t call it Amazon Unbox anymore, it is now Amazon Video On Demand. They’ve rolled out the online streaming on demand to the general public, it is no longer just for beta testers. I’ll have to update the blog category… later.

Of course, you can just buy the adapter from Amazon.com for $39.99 and save the $20 up front.

Thanks to Davis Freeberg for the tip on the TiVo promo.