As the HDTV continues its march into living rooms, the New York Times points out that most new HDTVs need to be calibrated if you want to the best picture. The article points out several options for how you can go about calibrating your HDTV, from paying your electronics store to do it for you (the expensive way) to DIY calibration using the THX Optimizer, a tool built into many DVD menus. Since many of you have probably gone done this road already, let’s hear how you calibrated your HDTV—including what tools you used and how you feel about the results—in the comments. For a more granular approach to fixing specific picture problems, check out how to troubleshoot your HDTV picture. This Is Not a Test: Calibrate Your HDTV [NYT]
Keep your toddler from stuffing a peanut butter sandwich into your DVD player with a few kid-proofing home theatre system tips from Wired’s How-To Wiki. They recommend using an enclosed cabinet for your gear, stowing power cords as out of reach as possible, and actually using the safety strap to anchor that big TV to the table top. If your TV or piece of furniture did not include one of these, go out and buy one. Most hardware stores carry them and they are inexpensive insurance. If a five dollar piece of nylon, two screws and five minutes of your time can prevent junior from pulling over your two thousand dollar flat screen, shattering it into a gazillion pieces and quite possibly injuring himself in the process, wouldn’t you go for it?
Yes, I think you would. How do you keep the expensive home theatre system as childproof as possible? Share your secrets in the comments. Kid-Proof Your Home Theater [Wired How-To Wiki]
March Madness is in full swing, so if you’re keen on catching and staying on top of all the action as it happens, don’t forget that you can catch the games live online this year, either through your browser from CBS or with the freeware application, Joost. Alternately, you can follow the scores and fill out your own bracket with the Google Docs NCAA tournament bracket.
US-centric: March Madness is just a week away, and this year you’ve got more ways than ever to catch the action no matter where you are. First, the freeware TV-over-the-internet app Joost (remember our full tour and review of Joost) has partnered with CBS to stream all of the games live to the Joost client. It’s Joost’s first major experiment for live video, so if bugginess is too much to bear, you can also head to the official March Madness on-demand web site, which will stream nearly every game online for free. Looks like online video is making life better every day for the sports fanatic. Joost [via NewTeeVee]
NCA March Madness on Demand [NCAA]
Catch your favourite TV show online, regardless of the network, with web site Prime Time Rewind. The site, which aggregates online TV from all the major networks, provides a love-it-or-lump-it cube interface that displays shows by genre or network. If you find a show you want to watch, just click click the Play Show option and Prime Time Rewind embeds the same video in your browser that you’d watch directly on the network web site. It’s not the friendliest or most intuitive of interfaces, but the site does offer a lot of content, and if all else fails with the cube, there’s always the search box. Prime Time Rewind [via ReadWriteWeb]
Windows only: Freeware application Zorro aims to take distractions like flashy ads out of your online video watching experience. It does so by blacking out all content that isn’t your video, including your browser window, so it’s just you and your video. Zorro is brilliant in its simplicity: it’s basically a see-through application window, so you launch it, resize it so whatever you want to isolate is inside Zorro’s boundaries, and hit escape to black out everything outside the Zorro window. It could even work as a distraction-stopper for any application you want to bring focus to, like the many distraction-free word processors. Zorro is freeware, Windows only. Zorro [via Confessions of a freeware junkie]
Whether you’ve got an original Series1 TiVo or a brand new Series3 model, if you’re a die-hard TV lover you may regularly be bumping up against your storage limits. If so, web site NewReleaseVideo’s in-depth guide to upgrading your TiVo’s hard drive might be just what you’re looking for. The process from start to finish isn’t for the faint of heart, requiring a few special tools and some work in a Linux live CD environment, but if you’re serious about increasing your TiVo’s storage capabilities, the guide is also extremely detailed and beginner-friendly (though unfortunately photo-less). If you’ve ever upgraded your TiVo’s drive, tell us how the process went for you in the comments. If hardware hacking isn’t your thing, check out how to stream any video from your computer to your TiVo or your fellow readers’ favourite TiVo tricks. How-to TiVo upgrade [NewReleaseVideo]
Have the slowly-falling prices and space-saving appeal of a flatscreen TV finally broken down your money-saving instincts? Wired’s How-To Wiki has a few tips to help you mount your premium panel yourself and not have it look like, well, you did it yourself. The wiki is still young, but already contains some great guidelines and a few reader-submitted tips, including advice on how to run your cables through a mounting bracket and behind other gear: (You’ll need) a spool of nylon string, a steel washer, and a magnet taped to a pencil or a coat hanger. Tie the washer to the end of the string then drop it from the top hole and use the magnet if needed to pull it out. The string can also be used to measure your needed cable length. Put a piece of tape at the top marking how much you need, don’t cut it, pull it out the bottom till you get the tape mark.
Got any handy advice for anyone else looking to put a screen through their wall? Share your sage advice in the comments. Photo by THINKING IN ƎƧЯƎVƎЯ. Hang a Flatscreen [Wired How-To Wiki]
Setting up a new HDTV requires a bit more nuance than your old TV probably did, so Forbes.com has rounded up 10 tips for improving your HDTV picture to help you get the most from your new box. For example: It’s important to change the TV’s picture settings, which include brightness, sharpness and contrast, in order to find the balance that looks right to your eyes. Out of the box, an HDTV’s picture settings aren’t tuned to look good in your living room. They’re configured to look appealing and eye-catching in a store.
If you recently snagged a sweet new flat panel, let’s hear how you achieved optimal picture and performance in the comments. Photo by William Hook. Sharpening Up Your New HDTV [Forbes via Curbly]
Windows only: Freeware application DVRMSToolbox analyses Media Center-recorded files and marks the start and end point of commercials so you can quickly skip over commercials and go straight to the content. Similar to previously mentioned Lifextender in its commercial skipping capabilities, DVRMSToolbox keeps your files in tact and marks the commercials instead of deleting them entirely (like Lifextender does) so there’s less chance of an inadvertant cut. In addition, DVRMSToolbox can convert DVR-MS files (the default recording type of Media Center) to MPEG or WMV files for portability to other devices and other useful features. For a simple guide to getting started with DVRMSToolbox’s commercial detection, check out CyberNet’s introduction. This Media Center favourite is freeware, Windows only.
DVRMSToolbox [via CyberNet]
