It appears that Netgear has quietly added a new product to their wired home networking line that may be of interest to some. The new addition is the MoCA certified Netgear Coax-Ethernet Adapter Kit (available now for pre-order | MSRP $229) designed to turn your coaxial cable (aka your home’s TV cable) into a high-speed Ethernet network connection. Ideal uses for the adapter kit include bringing connectivity (up to 270 Mbps) to Ethernet only HDTVs, Blu-ray players, DVRs, or game consoles. I don’t know about you guys, but the price seems kind of steep when you can get a Wireless-N adapter solution for less than $100. But then again you might have a McMansion that gets poor wireless coverage and wasn’t equipped with Ethernet ports in every room. [via]

Aside: Neither D-Link nor Linksys have a similar Coax-Ethernet adapter listed in their offerings at this time.

Thinking of adding storage to your PC or Home Server? Then hold off until you see the WD Caviar Green 2 TB hard drive on the store shelf. Western Digital claims that not only will you be getting massive amounts storage from their product but you’ll also be getting superior performance, energy efficiency, and ultra quiet operation in a SATA HDD designed to significantly reduce wear over long periods of use. Sounds like a winner to me. MORE »

Interesting…. The guys at VUDU have decided to get in the the iPhone App game and release a free application [iTunes] that allows users to browse and search VUDU’s movie catalog and then make selections to rent or purchase on the spot. The idea here is that you can manage your VUDU box or boxes back at home and make selections on-the-go that will be downloaded and ready for viewing when you get back home. Initial reaction in the company’s forum seems to be positive and users are claiming that the application is pretty snappy and works well over 3G. And some users are already requesting additional features they would like to see rolled in like Wish List support and Movie Rating functionality. It seems VUDU has struck the right nerve here with their users.

Related: Official iPhone App Discussion and Support Thread

If you’ve been curious about the direction of Windows Home Server, you’ll be interested to see [WMV HQ] what the Director of the platform, Todd Headric, has to say to On10.net regarding its evolution both in terms of capabilities and product form factors. Servers on display range from a single drive Pico-ITX inspired VIA box similar in size to the Roku Digitial Video Player to a server rack mountable 16 drive bay monster from Niveus Media packing 24TB of storage. Todd also highlights some of the new Mac-centric features in HP’s ex485 / ex487 MediaSmart Server line, which won “Best in Show” at Macworld earlier this month.

Our friends at Missing Remote have posted a how-to guide and an accompanying script created by MCE MVP developer, Andrew Cherry, that essentially creates a Boxee TV shortcut in Windows Media Center (located under Pictures+Videos, as well as, the Program Library) which will minimize Media Center when Boxee is launched and maximize it again once the program has been exited. The intention here is to create a seamless transition between the two applications, thus improving the users experience. The attached video demonstrates the new Boxee TV function in action.

Windows 7 Senior Program Manager, Gabe Frost, demonstrates Windows 7 “Play To” functionality to the crew of On10.net [WMV (High Quality)]. For those unfamiliar, Play To is a new function introduced into Windows 7 that allows one to send a media file (from the same PC, shared media library derived from networked PCs, or a dedicated home server / NAS) for playback or display to a DLNA / UPnP device like a music streamer, digital media adapter, or photo frame with a simple right-click of the mouse. In fact, you can send different audio tracks to multiple devices or a single song to a group of devices (UPDATE: Gabe Frost provides a quick clarification on this in the comments below). In addition, Frost briefly explains what “Wireless Protected Setup” is (aka Wi-Fi Protected Setup, WPS) and how easy it is to use to add devices to the network securely. He also demonstrates shared media and search functionality in Windows Explorer and Windows Media Center. All great stuff! Note: shared content is now aggregated in real-time when content is available on the network – and no more drive mapping! MORE »

Terrific news for our Linux HTPC enthusiasts. ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) version 1.0.19 has added 1000 new features including support for HDMI audio pass through via kernel 2.67.27-x. Previously getting audio through HDMI had been a bit of a chore. Now, hopefully, we’ll see a new surge in custom Linux HTPC builds and OEM set-top devices designed to serve HDTVs. [via]

It’s obvious that in recent months the Boxee platform has been growing in popularity on the PC and Apple TV. Unfortunately, many people inquire if there’s a game console add-on (related) or a dedicated box they can use to connect directly to their TV with little cost or configuration. At present, the answer is NO to both. However, that may soon change. The Boxee Team is currently asking users and any interested parties in a blog post survey what their interest level would be if the company came out with a dedicated box and what the right price point would be. The team is also inquiring about ideal hardware solutions and which game console people would like to see Boxee ported to.

Aside: Boxee has just announced ABC TV programming access integration.

Got $20? You might be interested in picking up DivX’s latest software release, DivX Pro 7 for Windows XP/Vista (32-bit). The new application is capable of encoding 1080p HD video in H.264 with multichannel audio (AAC) and subtitle tracks all in the smoking hot MKV audio/video container. The company actually calls this new configuration the DivX Plus HD format — so keep an eye out for it when you make your next CE device purchase that supports DivX. MORE »

SnapStream has posted a quick how-to guide for users in a mixed PC home environment. The guide details how to set Beyond TV’s browser “play” links function to be compatible with the VLC player on the Mac (and probably on a Linux PC as well). Once that’s done, users can seek inside a file, fast-forward, rewind, etc. The process is actually pretty simple and takes seconds to configure. Just configure the “play” links setting to ASX Remote Playlist and set VLC as the default player for your web browser to open ASX file types. That’s it. From then on you’ll be able to select and view all standard definition MPEG-2 and MPEG-2 transport streams recordings captured via clear QAM and OTA digital TV sources by Beyond TV.