Fanless Media Center Box 280
An anonymous reader writes "I didn't know that Hush Technologies made Media Center PCs, but they do. Here's a review of one of those beautiful fanless machines running media center 2005. Could this be the perfect media center box?" It's certainly perfectly expensive.
1,791.38 GBP (Score:5, Informative)
PCworld.com just reviewed 9 MCE machines (Score:5, Informative)
PCworld.com review [pcworld.com]
I have 2 MCE machines, 1 in the bedroom (Antec Overture case), and one in the living room (the CyberPower model listed in the PCworld review), and while they aren't really that quiet, it doesn't bother anyone once the TV has been turned on.
Re:physical location (Score:4, Informative)
MythTV? (Score:3, Informative)
The question for me is
1) Can it be a MythTV backend (doing the capturing)
2) More importantly, can it be MythTV frontend?
Myth is client server out of the box... put the backend (with the many hard disks, tuner cards, etc) in a closet somewhere. Then buy a nice cheap box to just serve video to the TV. Sometime silent. :)
Mirrordot Link (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MythTV? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it can do both backend and frontend. The highest spec machine is the 1.2GHz nermeiah core. Put a reiser and a PVR 350 in it, 256MB RAM (more is a waste of time according to the myth website), a DVD writer, and one of them 400GB disks and you're set. Oh, and it looks gorgeous, you would not want to hide it away in a cupboard. They'll even sell it to you set up like that, for about $2500
As you note, you can set up mythbackend on another machine somewhere and run mythfrontend by the TV (perhaps on your xbox). But... this thing is silent and low power consuming, it makes a lot of sense for it to be the machine you're leaving on 24/7. Especially since it is fast enough to handle your mail and web server, etc.
Re:nice, wish I could afford it (Score:3, Informative)
Seems like a bit of overkill (Score:2, Informative)
Another option.(Cheaper) (Score:2, Informative)
Why not run this [silentpcreview.com]
with mythtv [mythtv.org] or freevo? [sourceforge.net]
Not that I've done it myself yet.
Re:Different processor for heat requirements? (Score:2, Informative)
extrusion (Score:4, Informative)
These "side panels", cooling ribs would be a better term, are not created by cutting it out of a solid piece of aluminum. That would be horribly expensive, no, this is created by extruding the aluminum. In layman's terms, it's like that thing (in dutch it is called a "slagroomspuit" but my online dictionary doesn't know the translation) you use to put nice shaped whipped cream on a birthday cake. But in this case, you keep the nozzle steady, make the opening a kind of comb shape and of you go. Meters and meters of a profile that just needs cutting to get these cooling ribs.
Re:physical location (Score:4, Informative)
people have bridged mediamvp's over a wifi networks, fwiw.
GBPVR [gbpvr.com] integrates nicely with mediamvp and its own backend PVR/scheduling/htpc-esque functions and is free as in beer.
ymmv,
e.
Re:This is certainly pretty... (Score:3, Informative)
I think it's ugly and overpriced. Doesn't match anything else in the living room, might as well put a beige box in there since it'd match just as well. With the vents on top you couldn't even put anything on top of it for risk of over-heating.
Want to see what a beautiful media PC case looks like? Try the Overture Quiet Media Desktop Case [compusa.com], or perhaps the Silverstone Aluminum Home Entertainment Computer Case in Black [tigerdirect.com] or maybe the SilverStone LC10M Home Theater PC Case /w front VFD (Black) [xoxide.com]. If you're on a budget the Antec MINUET Piano Black Slimline PC Case [directron.com] looks really nice for only $60 with Antec quality but you'll need a Micro ATX board.
Re:Why painted heatsinks (Score:3, Informative)
Re:glass is an insulator (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why painted heatsinks (Score:4, Informative)