Add one more to the list of closed-captioned movies from the iTunes Store.

Freedom Writer, starring Hillary Swank and Patrick Demsey, tells a story of a freshman English teacher (Swank) who was assigned to a gang-infested Long Beach, CA high school. After seeing how racially divided these teens were, she gave each of them a notebook so they could start writing about their lives and the daily violence happening around them. Through this process, the students learned to understand and, eventually, accept each other.

Good news is that, now, we have a total of 49 closed-captioned movies available for rent/own. Not bad considering that the list started out at 23 just about a month ago. However, it would be even better if ALL movies can be closed-captioned.

Three more movies have been added to the closed-captioned list today. These are:

• Enchanted (2007) - A Disney movie about a fairy tale comes to life, starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey and James marsden
• Amandla! A Revolution In Four-Part Harmony (2002) - a documentary about the role of music in the South African struggle against apartheid
• Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002) - an Australian drama about an emotionally troubled man encounter with his past.
  

Are you just one of those home theater fanatics that just don't like clutter? What if there is a way to put high-end home entertainment components into one easy to access console? Take a look at ITC One Console from SE2 Labs.

Standard ITC One currently includes the following:

• Microsoft XBox 360
• HD PVR
• Blu-ray Drive
• 4.3" LCD touch screen
  
• Bryston Digital Surround Processor
• iPod dock
• RF remote

And it is about to get even better with an option to add Apple TV 2.0 into the mix, which includes Windows Media Center option.Now everything you need in a home theater system can be easily accessed from one integrated console.

The basic configuration stated above starts at $25,000. No pricing was available for adding Apple TV to the console.

Nate Lanxon of CNET UK mentioned on his blog that the entire Beatles back-catalogue may be the first to be offered in Apple Lossless format.

A much-publicized £200m deal between Apple and Paul McCartney to bring the back-catalogue exclusively to iTunes was rumored to have taken place (although it was denied by Sony/ATV Music Publishing). Lanxon believed that if it is offered on iTunes, nothing less than Apple Lossless format will do. This, in turn, will sell more iPods for Apple since only its players can play this lossless format (with the exception of Sonos and Cowon).

As always, take this rumor with a grain of salt. Talks of getting Beatles back-catalogue have been around for many years now. I guess, we will never know until it finally happens.

Could it be? Peer-to-peer, the same technology that made applications like Kazaa, Joost and Morpheus household names, might come to the Apple TV in the near future. Instead of using the current client-server model, Apple TV can really get a major speed bosst IF it switches to using peer-to-peer technology.

Currently, when a user rents a movie on the Apple TV, the whole movie has to be downloaded from a central server farm that stores the actual movie. With peer-to-peer, snippets of movies can be stored on multiple Apple TVs. When a user wants to rent a movie, these snippets can be transferred to the Apple TV to be assembled as one finished movie. This method will significantly boost the download speed and reduce overall network congestion.

There are drawbacks to P2P, however. Since portions of movies are stored on the local Apple TV, this will take up storage space. This can be potentially bad especially on the 40GB Apple TV. Also, your Apple TV will get less time to "sleep" since the network will keep utilizing it to distribute movies to other Apple TV.

Clint Eastwood portrays a cunning bank robber, Frank Morris, who masterminded an elaborate escape from Alcatraz on the night of June 11, 1962. Once escaped, he along with the other 2 inmates, were never heard from again. However, they were presumed dead by the authority. The escape was one of the two attempts that was believed to be successful.

One of the best things about this 1979 movie is that is closed-captioned - something that is still rare among the movies available on iTunes. This will no doubt make the people that rely on closed captioning quite happy, to say the least.

One more note. At the time of this writing, the rental fee for this movie is still $2.99. However, it should be $0.99 by the end of today. So make sure you wait.

I love my Apple TV. And there is no doubt that I love it even more since I updated to 2.0 software. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. BUT, I have to say, since I updated to 2.0, I seems to have more problems with it than when I was using 1.1.

Here are just some of the problems I am experiencing.

• Apple TV gets disconnected from WiFi network every time it wakes up from sleep mode.
• The user interface is slow to respond. Although the signals from the remote get through, the interface sometimes takes a few seconds to respond (sometimes minutes!).
• Apple TV icons drops from iTunes more often that it used to. This is both on the computer that it syncs with and also the one it streams from.
• It freezes a couple of times a week.

Though all these problems are there, I have no plan to go back to using 1.1 any time soon. I still like to rent my HD movies from my Apple TV.

So, am I just being a whiner or are you experiencing the same thing? Let me know.

 So you haven't gotten around to buying an Apple TV yet?  If you want see what it is like to use an Apple TV without buying one, give ATV4Mac a try.  It is almost like using the real thing.

ATV4Mac is a Front Row replacement that currently only works on Mac OS X 10.4.8 - 11.  You can try it out if you haven't yet upgraded to Leopard or you do have a Tiger partition on your Mac.  However, don't try installing this on a Mac running Leopard, it will definitely host your OS.

A few caveats.  It has only one resolution:  1280 x 800.  Also, quitting the application does not return the screen to resolution to its original settings.

Is it possible that adding DVR features to the Apple TV will turn it into a multi-billion dollar business? At least according to Shaw Wu, an analyst from American Technology Research, it is very possible.

Wu claimed that Apple TV is a "very minor contributor" today with revenue of ONLY $100 -$125 million annually. By adding the ability to record TV shows, Apple TV can turn into a multi-billion dollar business. Consumers "have been clamoring for DVR and/or TV tuner capabilities since the introduction of Apple TV 1.0." Also, the cost in adding DVR features to the Apple TV is very "negligible" at only about $10 - $15 per unit.

AppleInsider also did a poll asking its users if they would be interested in Apple TV with DVR features. The response was very positive with most users responding that they "would have bought one yesterday."

There is no doubt that the number one requested feature for the Apple TV is the ability to record TV shows. Though AppleInsider recently revealed several patent filings that might lead to a DVR-like functionality on the Apple TV, there's no telling when or if that might turn into a reality any time soon.

Fortunately, there are many DVR devices out there that allow you to record your TV shows from your computer. Many of them offer the ability to export directly to iTunes to be synced with the Apple TV. So while we would LOVE for the Apple TV to support DVR capabilities, it is still possible to record your favorite TV shows and watch them on the Apple TV now. And, yes, all this without spending a dime buying those shows on iTunes.

One of the more advanced DVR devices for the Mac is the EyeTV 250 Plus. With this device, you not only get a powerful TV tuner that can receive analog TV, HDTV (ATSC) and digital cable (Clear QAM) signals but also an award-winning EyeTV 3 DVR software. To top it off, it comes bundled with Roxio Toast 8 Basic so you can record your favorite TV shows to your DVDs or CD-Rs to share with others.