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Tech News & Commentary
Bob in South Bend, Indiana listens on 94.9 WSJM “The News and Talk of Michigan’s Great Southwest” and asked: “I have a DVR box through Comcast. I want to know if there’s any way to save the shows I have recorded, to an external hard drive. The DVR has a USB port on the front, but I’ve not attempted to connect my hard drive to it yet. There’s a lot of shows on the DVR I would like to save in case I ever switch cable providers or if my DVR decides to fail on me.”
Unfortunately Bob, the USB ports on the Comcast DVRs are disabled, so you won’t be able to use it to transfer your content.
The reason the USB port is there in the first place, even though it has no function on the Comcast boxes is that the DVR models used by Comcast are available for use by other service providers and individual consumers who may wish to use the units with the USB ports enabled. An active USB port on one of these DVR units could be used to adjust settings on the unit, upgrade the software that the DVR unit uses, to add peripherals such as a keyboard to the unit or to add additional storage space to the unit via an external hard drive. However, none of these are an option with the Comcast service.
The only way, really, to get video off the DVR is to connect it to another DVR, and play your shows back in real-time. They don’t make it easy, for fairly obvious reasons.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Victor in Buffalo, Missouri listens via the App asked: “I’m looking to upgrade my smart TV. I have a Vizio, which you recommended. I want one of those media boxes that will do Airplay off of my iPad. I know the Apple box will do it. Do any of the other brands do it wirelessly? Maybe I can use my Samsung phone on it, or another brand tablet. Which ones do you think will do that or which is the best to get?”
SmartTVs are hard to recommend. There seems to be a new one every day. Samsung announced a new GoogleTV-based SmartTV that’s expected to be out “later this year,” but knowing GoogleTV’s history we probably shouldn’t tell you to wait around for a new GoogleTV version, the company doesn’t seem to be super serious about it.
If you want to stick with Vizio, they have a very interesting, 55” thin SmartTV that comes with built-in access to Amazon’s on-demand library, Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, iHeartRadio, Skype and many other services, the model is called M550VSE and you can find it for around $1000.
There are a few 3rd party receivers that will work with Airplay, but the odds of them getting updated by their individual manufacturers as Airplay changes with each iOS update are low, so your best bet is probably to use an AppleTV with the rest of your set up.
There are Android apps that will let your Samsung phone beam content to an AppleTV, though how well they work depends on how they get along with your particular phone, they’re great on some phones and not that great on others.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Stephen – Calling in via the FREE “Into Tomorrow” App asked: “I’m thinking about jumping ship to the iPhone and my question is about apps. I keep hearing there aren’t as many apps for the iPhone as there are for Android, but every app I see for Android seems to have a version for iPhone. Is there that much difference to accessibility of apps?”
There are actually more apps for iPhone than there are for Android, you’re likely to find a replacement for every app you normally use, the truth is both Android and iPhone have a ridiculously high number of apps, so odds are you’ll find plenty of potential replacements for any app you regularly use.
App accessibility shouldn’t really keep you from being able to switch to an iPhone. Let us know if there are particular apps that you can’t find and we’ll try to help.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1973 the second International Funkausstellung, today known as IFA, in Berlin saw the market introduction of the first home video recording system in the world, the VCR system by Philips and Grundig. Home video recording had been made possible by an invention of Telefunken engineers, helical scan, which allowed the machines to record in very small tracks without cross talk. Telefunken and Teldec, the joint record company of Telefunken and Decca, introduced the first picture disc named TED. The TED disc was read with a pick up needle like a long play audio record.
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| Jim Bak, Senior Manager, PR & Marketing – INRIX | Marc Karasu, VP of Marketing – Manilla.com | |
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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Corrosion Technologies: Several bottles of CorrosionX — A few squirts of CorrosionX clean contacts & connections & keep them protected for months (in salt spray environments) to years.
Ergotron: A Universal Tablet Cradle — This accessory converts a monitor mount to hold a tablet or eReader. Works with most popular tablets and eReaders, including Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.
iolo Technologies: Copies of System Mechanic 11 – PC Tune-up Software
SMS Audio: “Street By 50” Wired headphones in black or white. We brought ’em back from 50 Cent and our interview in Berlin.