While last month was 1 year since setting up EyeTV, this month makes 1 year since going live with my DVR project.

December was Doctor Who Month at the Spice's, with $35 spent on Doctor Who: The 50th Anniversary Collection (whole collection) and The Time of the Doctor (just the episode). This puts the savings for December at $111 and the cumulative savings at $1411. When I started the ball rolling on this project, I thought I'd save about $800 a year - boy was I wrong

I'm almost to the halfway point of paying off the hardware investment, there's a balance of $1536 remaining (if I hadn't bought the Drobo the balance would be at $52).

Speaking of Doctor Who - a while back (in 2008!) I'd picked up The Beginning, a DVD set of the first 3 Doctor Who stories (from 1963). I finally got around to watching it and enjoyed the episodes so much that I've acquired the rest of season 1. I may write up some blog entries about this later.


Had a pleasant surprise today. Most of the series I record I watch in order. Since reruns of older shows don't always air in order, I often put a show on the back-burner while waiting for an episode to air. I've been waiting a few months for I Can See For Miles from season 6 of That '70s Show and it finally broadcast last night. It's on a different channel(57-1) than before(20-1), and it's now in High Definition and it looks damn good.

I was an early adopter of HD and was always disappointed with Fox for broadcasting the show in Standard Definition. I suspected they'd used video tape, which would preclude ever having it in HD, but apparently they filmed it and finally decided to remastered it. Not everything is HD though - the scene transitions (which often show cast members in front of a psychedelic background) show very obvious upscaling from 480i. You can also see That 70's Show in HD on Amazon and Netflix (but not iTunes) if it's not being broadcast in HD in your area.

I've also added OpenEmu to my Mac mini. It's a consolidated emulation that's kinda like MESS, but without the convoluted setup (I've always thought MESS was appropriately named ) It has a super easy to use interface and it automatically configs controllers such as the PS3 controllers I use with my mini. I've only set up a few games so far to try it out, but have been pleased with the results.

Game Gear:


Sega Master System


Sega Genesis