September 26, 2006 - Twenty years ago, TV was this constantly running stream that could only be occasionally interrupted by the home user's VCR machine. Miss it, and your favorite show was doomed to the abyss (or, as fate would have it, TV Land).

While our previous statement may look more at home as the topic of a bad haiku (TV streaming down/captured by the VCR/Hello, live TV) than a tech article, the point is that recording television at the time was possible, but it had its shortcomings. Low-quality visuals, limited recording length, and less-than-full-featured audio were only a few of the weaknesses that everyday folk had to deal with when it came to the VHS format.

Of course, thanks to the advent of digital video recorders, On Demand programming, and AMD LIVE!, these days we can watch what we want, when we want. Those tapes that used to take up your valuable closet space are now about as worthwhile to have around as Courtney Love at an anti-drug rally. Recorders equipped with hard drives that can store hundreds of hours of video and music occupy no more than a shelf or two on your entertainment setup.

Betamax! The future! Now!

AMD LIVE!, one of the few all-in-one media storage and playback setups available in the market today, hopes that its presence will help set future standards for home entertainment. Powered by Windows XP Media Center software, AMD LIVE! aims to make the idea of a home entertainment hub—one centralized location for all your movies, music, and TV shows—accessible to just about anyone. No geek badge required.

Half model, half talk show host, all hair.

Freeing your media from the confines of time is just the first step, because now you can liberate it from the limitations of space as well. No longer just chained to the living room, content from your AMD LIVE!-enabled computer can also be streamed wirelessly to your laptop or other similarly connected handheld device. So long as you have an Internet connection, you can rest assured that you'll never again miss an episode of America's Next Top Model. What? You don't watch that show? Sure you don't.