While part of the blame is having recorded some movies I plan to watch eventually, I realized the storage space on my DVR is quickly running out as a result being sucked in to some of these new shows:

The River (ABC) – Mixing what feels like elements from The Blair Witch Project with Lost, this show had me glued fifteen minutes in. Given this show is shot like a documentary, all the various camera angles can be confusing but once you adjust, it really adds to the experience.

Alcatraz (FOX) – In 1963, 302 guards and convicts mysteriously disappeared only to re-appear in present day still looking as they had 50 years ago…and ready to pick up where they left off. While a bit formulaic, the how & why’s of their disappearing act is a mystery I’m ready to sit through and watch.

Smash (NBC) – With shows like The Voice, Glee, and American Idol, it feels like network television has picked up the ball combining music & TV that MTV dropped years ago. Taking place on Broadway, this show centers around a cast working on a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe.

Spartacus: Vengeance (Starz) – Picking up where the first series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand left off, this tells the tale of the ancient hero Spartacus and his band of merry men as they continue their gladiator rebellion against Rome. The show is graphically violent, sensual, but with an amazing story.

House of Lies (Showtime) – This is a touching tale about a series of consultants who are amoral, unscrupulous and just a fun bunch to watch. Dialogue is snappy and I love shows that break the fourth wall and talk to the audience. I also love shows that incorporate Alternate Reality Games and create fun websites like this.

Napoleon Dynamite (FOX) – Seven years later, the original cast from the film are back and in cartoon form. What’s not to like?

The midseason schedule usually ranges from January to May so there are still a couple shows that haven’t started yet but I’m anxious about.

Missing (ABC) – The son of a retired, widowed, CIA agent goes missing while studying abroad in Europe. Quite possibly every parent’s nightmare, but with spy stuff, exotic locations and Ashley Judd, this could be a great series.

Touch (FOX) – I’m mildly concerned because Tim Kring brought us Heroes, which had great promise but failed miserably.  The upside is anything with Kiefer Sutherland I’m a fan of. So with a story about him as a father of a mute, 11-year-old boy who only communicates through numbers, I’m fascinated to see how this all works. I will always miss Jack Bauer (and these Jack Bauer facts) but I’m excited to see where this tale takes me.

As you can see, I’ve got a lot of TV to catch up on and there are still more shows I didn’t list! So while I’m getting short on storage space, what shows can’t you live without? Leave a comment below, on Twitter or on Facebook.

Related Posts:
TV on the Go

As such, it makes perfect sense to see some of the innovations that are coming from manufacturers specializing in audio & video during CES this week.

GoPro:
Touted as the “Worlds Most Versatile Camera,” this is a product that may actually back it up. The HD Hero 2 comes locked & loaded with up to 1080P, 30 FPS, 32GB of memory and depending on shooting output, 4-6 hours of recording time.  Able to be mounted on your motorbike, surfboard, or Vespa, with this camera you’ll be able to capture and record every action shot you’ve ever dreamed.

Coming soon will also be the ability to live stream so your friends back home will be able to watch as you skydive from that Cessna at 30,000 feet wearing nothing but boxer shorts to win the bet.  Look for the HD Hero 2 available now for $299 in either the Motorsports, Surf or Outdoors editions.

Fujifilm:
Winner of CNET’s Best of CES for Digital Imaging, the FUJIFILM X-Pro1 is a technological accomplishment with new features including 3 single-focal length lenses to maximize performance. The FUJIFILM X-Pro1 also has a new sensor that nixes the need for an optical low-pass filter allowing the camera to capture a full, “unfiltered” lens performance.  Take that!

Dolby:
Unless you’ve not watched any film or TV in the last fifty years, everyone knows Dolby almost as a household term, and that’s not including the song by this guy.

With the recent announcement to provide “Immersive content anywhere, anytime on any device” Dolby Laboratories is making looking to make sure that the audio euphoria you experience while at the movies or your home theater system is also available for you while you’re on the go.

The crisp clarity of Dolby technology when experienced on a tablet is almost chilling.  You really get the full, immersive experience how it was intended to be.

There you have some of the highlights in audio, video and photography straight from the show.  Check here for more CES highlights and let us know your thoughts below on or Twitter.

Cambridge Audio has a nice suite setup with audio and video players.  Their Azur 751 BD player is simply amazing with a very crisp audio and video. I was equally impressed with their Magic 6 Network Music player that boasts 20,000 radio stations for streaming and USB audio.

Brik Instruments has a nice ensemble of hardware including converters, equalizers and amplifiers. Yet what really struck a chord with me (Get it? Struck a chord? Never mind) is the Internet radio. With the ability to surf over 10,000 built-in stations, the one feature that really hooked me was the Bluetooth capabilities allowing you to play music from any device including smartphone or tablet.

Music Culture Technology wins for ambience. Their suite was playing jazz so smooth, it was like being lured by a siren.  Sitting down to speak with their reps, I was able to find out that the hardware making my eardrums sigh in contentment was the MC331 3-way Speaker system they had alongside the MC811 Power amp and MC501 Player. This set will cost you around twenty grand, but I assure you, it’s worth it.

Music is definitely part of our culture, and in the storage space, almost a given. We take it with us on all our devices be it smartphone, tablet or even just an external drive just to hold it all. And with these players, regardless your preference, it’ll all sound sweet as candy.

Which of these devices tickled your fancy? Comment below our send us a message on Twitter.

Image (cc) CEA

Being the new guy to an organization comes with a number of perks that are not often talked about. One of those perks is being able to play the “I Don’t Know” card. (Yes, I know this has a limited time use, but let’s go with it a bit.)

Seagate recently announced that the GoFlex Satellite drive as an honoree for this award from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). With enough space for over 300 HD movies, the ability to simultaneously stream to up to three devices and the “take-it-anywhere” functionality, I can see why this is a big deal.

But is it? Being the rookie on this all-star team, I wanted to get a better sense of why this award is such a big deal, so I took a look at the 2012 CES Honorees. I have to tell you, there are some cool toys in this toy chest. There are a slew of categories for this award ranging from In-Vehicle Accessories to Health & Wellness to what you would naturally expect in Computer Peripherals and Gaming Hardware.

I’m starting to get it. This is some cool tech that does a good job pushing technological advancements beyond that of a cooking oven where you can download a recipe on the spot. (Yes, this exists! Thanks, @theLGgirl)

For example, I like what Ford Motor Company is doing with their mobile app where you can control certain car functions directly from your smartphone. (I’m crazy for apps). I hope other car manufacturers keep a close eye on this advancement and follow suit. With all the tablets on the market, I’m interested to see what the Sony S1 brings to the table that’s fresh and different. Even the new LG refrigerator with Blast Chiller Technology would definitely come in handy when my soda hits room temperature while pulling an Xbox LIVE all-nighter. Suffice it to say, I should probably speak to my boss about a raise at some point to afford all these wonderful advancements in technology. <insert from boss – a little early to be making such a request>

Image (cc) Foursquare

However, I digress and I get it now. The Consumer Electronics Show taking place this coming January in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the pinnacle showcase in the electronics industry where every company brings their best and brightest to showcase for consumers. CEA Innovations honorees are the crème de la crème from the show and are the “must have” products for the year. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense why Seagate can justifiably toot their horn about being recognized for the GoFlex Satellite drive.

So why should I care about the Innovation Design And Engineering Award? Well truth be told, you don’t have to.  But if you’re like me and like the cutting edge tech, the new, the shiny (and if you’re reading this, you probably do), then you’re an early adopter who likes to keep up on all the latest toys to stay ahead of the masses. You’ll be the person telling your social circle about the latest products, which are a hit and those that are a miss.  And like me, when you’re showing off your GoFlex Satelllite to your friends and family, you’ll make a point of telling them it was an honoree for CEA’s Innovation Design and Engineering…then wait for the “Ooh’s and Aah’s” knowing how cool that really does sound.

When you hear the word network, you might think about social networks (for the most part these days), but before the Facebook and MySpace pages, it referred to an infrastructure that interconnected computers and other electronic devices. Networks have come a long way in terms of functionality and simplicity. In fact, there is good chance that you already have a network in your home. No, there is no need to be scared, an IT guy didn’t sneak in the middle of the night and install it… If you have an Internet connection and more than one PC/Mac in the home, you most likely have a router and there is a good chance that it is wireless.  A router is the heart of your home network, it does two main things for you: shares your internet connection with all the computers in your house and it links all those computers (plus other cool devices) together. We all know the benefit of being able to share an Internet connection (especially those of us who had dial-up at one point in our lives), but why would I want all my computers and electronic gizmos connected to each other? To share of course!

When it comes to NAS, sharing can mean multiple things. You can share files, share storage capacity and even share a printer.

Sharing Files

If you have multiple computers in your home, there has probably been many times when you wanted to have one or files on more than one computer (these files can be documents, music, videos, photos, etc). This is the basic problem that NAS solves. In its simplest form, you can think of NAS as an external hard drive that lives next to your router and is accessible by all the computers in your home. And just like an external hard drive, NAS is easy to store and access files – just drag and drop.

Media Streaming

Now that you are in the habit of sharing files, you can take it a step further and allow other devices such as an HD media player to access your media collection. An HD media player is a device that connects to your TV like a DVD player, but can play photos, movies and music from a hard drive connected to it or grab files from your NAS. The beauty of NAS is that you can store all of your media in one place and access it from anywhere in the home. You can have a media player in every room of the house and have them all simultaneously access files from just one NAS device. That means you don’t need to constantly move drives around the house or keep numerous copies of the same content.

Remote Access

Why would you want Remote Access? Most NAS devices, including Seagate’s new GoFlex Home network storage system have the ability to not only store your files, but make them accessible to you anywhere in the world! With just a few clicks, you can listen to your favorite song right from within your web browser or download that presentation you forgot to bring to work. Plus, you can share vacation photos or that huge 14GB HD video file with friends.

Printer Sharing

Most of us have a USB printer at home. We bought it because it was so cheap (until we bought ink for it). It does its job well, but can be a pain when someone else in the house needs to use it, and that person’s computer isn’t the primary computer connected to the printer. If this is a pain point for you, then meet NAS, your new best friend. NAS devices like the GoFlex Home network storage system allow you to connect a USB printer to the back of it and then share that printer with every PC and Mac in the home. It offers the same convenience you have at work where you and your colleges share a printer.

Backup

We all know how important our files are to us and we all know we should back them up, but frankly it’s like flossing. The dentist tells us we need to do it more often, yet we never listen. Thankfully, NAS makes it so easy that you really no longer have an excuse not to do it. With the GoFlex Home network storage system, it truly is a set it and forget it deal. During the initial setup, it installs the included backup software, takes care of the configuration for you and from then on continuously backs up the files and folders on your computer. Plus, just one GoFlex Home network storage system can protect all the PCs and Macs in your home. And better yet, it cost just a tiny bit more than a single external hard drive.

The Fast Talking Drive That Becomes Your Mac’s New Best Friend

The GoFlex ultra-portable drive is the forerunner in the family and as the world’s most versatile drive, allows you to access the drive’s contents with the interface of your choice and experience your content on your TV, throughout your home network or from a mobile device anywhere
in the world! Previously, external drives were shipped with fixed interfaces or for a premium, a few interfaces built into the drive. The GoFlex ultra-portable drive is revolutionizing the industry by offering a way to upgrade the interface you chose to access the drive. The GoFlex ultra-portable drive comes with a USB 2.0 interface and simple to use software to automatically backup and encrypt your files and folders – preloaded so there are no CDs to mess with. But the unique benefit of this drive is its ability to remove the USB 2.0 interface and connect much faster interfaces such as FireWire® 800, powered eSATA – even USB 3.0. Plus, this drive is both PC and Mac® computer compatible. That’s right, we didn’t say or Mac – it’s PC and Mac! This drive allows you to easily go from the PC you use at work to the Mac computer you love at home. And no you don’t have to deal with the less than ideal FAT32 format. All GoFlex drives include a driver for your Mac that allows it to both read and write to a PC formatted GoFlex drive (also known as NTFS). With just a one-time install of the driver on you Mac computer, you can seamlessly go between your Mac and your PC without any headaches along the way.

The GoFlex ultra-portable drive can also connect to other GoFlex Storage System products, enabling you to access the contents of your drive on your TV, from any networked PC or Mac in the home and mobile devices while on-the-go via the Internet. More to come, stay tuned…

Desktop Drives Also Get the Custom Treatment

The GoFlex Storage System is mainly about the ultra-portable drives and their ability to move about so that you can access them the way you
want, wherever you are. But the GoFlex family also includes the GoFlex Desk external drive, a high capacity drive that well you guessed it, is made to live on your home or office desk. The GoFlex Desk external drive has the same great software, PC and Mac integration and upgradability as the ultra-portable drives. The GoFlex Desk external drive can be upgraded to FireWire 800 or USB 3.0. Each upgrade adapter, as we call them, includes an easy-to-view capacity gauge which makes it simply to see how much capacity is available on your drive.

To learn more about the GoFlex family of storage products, make a purchase or find a local retailer, visit www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/external-hard-drive/

Additional titles include:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• GI Joe
• Shooter
• The Hunt for Red October
• The Italian Job (2003)
• Ghost
• Patriot Games
• Beowulf
• Enemy at the Gates
• The Spiderwick Chronicles
• The Love Guru
• Coach Carter
• The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
• Nacho Libre
• Jackass 2.5
• A Plumm Summer
• Carriers
• Dance Flick
• Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

The FreeAgent Go drives are all about storing your entire digital life in a compact, mobile device that can be accessed in the home or on-the-go. For years, we’ve been storing our photos, music and home movies on this device and now we can add premium movies to the list! The promotion not only helps to kickstart your digital movie library by offering the Star Trek title free with registration, it also enables you to choose from 20 other titles to unlock ranging from kids movies to action flicks. By having the other titles pre-loaded on the drive, you have instant gratification should you chose to unlock a few more movies – no need to wait for large files to download!

So how does this compare with other movie distribution methods? As many of you know, Seagate’s product line stretches beyond pure storage devices, it extends to HD media players, network sharing devices and much more. For those customers who already own a Seagate FreeAgent Theater+™ HD media player, you will see an available firmware update (when the device is connected to your home network via the built-in Ethernet connection or the optional WiFi adapter) which enables a number of great new features, one of which is the ability to playback Paramount premium content. By navigating to the settings menu on your FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player, you will find a new setting called “Paramount” which is where you can assign the HD media player as one of the three devices licensed to playback your Paramount films.  But wait, it gets even better! You can also dock your FreeAgent Go drive into the FreeAgent DockStar™ network adapter, which enables you to store your entire digital media collection in a single, centralized location in the home. You can then access the movies from your laptop while on the couch, your desktop computer in your den or from the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player in the living room – without ever moving your drive! If you still think your optical disc can outperform that ecosystem, then how about your netbook? Since most netbooks don’t have an optical drive, this is definitely an option to consider when you want to access an entire library of content while on-the-go.

Ready to pick one up? I know I am! Don’t miss out on the introductory price at www.seagate.com/movies. For a limited time, the FreeAgent Go portable drive pre-loaded with the Paramount films will be priced at only $99.99 USD (originally $139.99 USD) – plus we’re offering free shipping!

Believe it or not, practically everyone can benefit from a new Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive. I mean, we live in a completely digital world today. Everything we do is digital – the pictures we take, the music we listen to, the movies we watch. And having access to all that content is easier now than it has ever been!

The Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive is available in capacities ranging from 250GB all the way up to 1TB. Yes, you read that right – 1TB. All this capacity in a USB  powered portable device that fits in your briefcase or purse very easily!

And to use and enjoy all the content that you have collected and can carry around with you, we have the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ media player, and the Seagate FreeAgent DockStar network product.

Theater+ can bring all that media back into your life in a very social way by playing your pictures, movies and music on your large screen HDTV in the family room or living room. It has an easy to use interface, content aggregation from the three USB ports (one being the dock specifically for the FreeAgent Go), and an Ethernet port so you can access content from the PCs on your network, or from any network storage or any media servers. It makes a fantastic gift, at a suggested retail price of only $149.99.

DockStar allows you to take your FreeAgent Go (or any other USB attached mass storage device) and make it available on the network in your home, or to anyone anywhere outside your home! It has: simple remote access. Easy sharing. All with a rich media interface. And this is only $99! (includes one year of remote access. Each additional year is $29.99 for remote access and share)

So shop www.seagate.com this holiday season! Let us help you not only with the storing and protection of your digital lives, but also with the enjoyment, access and sharing of all your precious content! Visit us today!

Seagate Technology

By using a Seagate BlackArmor NAS product (a 440/420, 220 or 110), or even a Seagate FreeAgent DockStar USB network dock, you can host all your content – pictures, music, videos and movies – and have it available to your Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ that is attached to your big screen television!

I’ve done this in my home, as well as my brother’s. Networked storage – even networked storage that is simple to setup and accessible outside the home and shareable – serving up all your content to your televisions, each TV enabled with its own Theater+. And for that content that you want tighter control over (not available to everyone on the network), simply put that content on a FreeAgent Go and slide it into the FreeAgent Theater+ when you want to enjoy it.

Thanks to the USB ports on the Theater+, you don’t even need a network to get this capability. You could simply take all your rich media content on your PC, put it on either a FreeAgent Go or any other USB storage device, and connect that directly to your Theater+ to bring it back to life.

With this simple setup, you can have: slideshows of all your digital pictures, complete with elegant transitions and music playing in the background; all your home movies off your camcorders, presented in easy to access menus for simple viewing; your entire music library available to you throughout the home, wherever you have placed a FreeAgent Theater+; all the movies and video content that you may have accumulated from whatever sources you have, complete with full menuing support for content that has it (like your ripped DVDs).

And the costs?  Well, it’s not thousands of dollars, as you might expect. No professional installers are needed. Each FreeAgent Theater+ will set you back $149.99 – you will want one for each television. A FreeAgent DockStar (where you use your own storage, but it is networked) lists for $99.99. If you wanted to move up to a BlackArmor NAS, they start at roughly $200 for a 1TB network attached storage system, complete with media streaming capability.

So….  A simple apartment setup could be as inexpensive as $250 (one Theater+ and one DockStar). A larger system – say a 3 television home – would be between $550 and $650 (depending on whether you go with a DockStar or a BlackArmor NAS 110).

And you can always add more storage. Sure, the costs will start going up, but adding storage to DockStar is as simple as plugging in standard USB drives, such as our FreeAgent Go, or FreeAgent Desk.

And all this is brought to you by Seagate – 30 years of quality and reliability for all your storage need!

How simple is that? Give it a try! Or ask me how you can do it yourself!

Computers…. iPods…. Media Center PCs….. Playstations and Xboxes…. Sonos systems… FreeAgent Theater class products… Netflix and Vudu solutions…

All of these things are parts that can be used in a home digital entertainment system, and there are many more not listed here. But there are many, MANY others!

So I want your help. Tell me, by commenting back to this post, about your home setup. What do you use? What do you like? What do you dis-like? What do you wish were better? And how? What kinds of things do you enjoy? What kinds of things do you wish you COULD enjoy?

Example – In my house, I use a Sonos system to play digitally stored music throughout the house. I use Seagate FreeAgent Theater products to get my pictures and movies to my large screen television, of course carrying them around on FreeAgent Go portable hard drives.  I have all my rich media files (movies, pictures, music collection) stored on a BlackArmor NAS 440.

Now you tell me…. What is YOUR setup like? I’ll consolidate all the replies and post the summary. And then do further work to start building out a community approach to the perfect digital home.