Fanless Media Center Box

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.

physical location

[iclod]

There are two critical requirements for a Media PC that's going to reside in your living room, it has to look great and be quiet as a mouse

is it a must to have your media PC in the same room? couldn't you tuck it in the cupboard somewhere and transmit signals wirelessly?

Google cache (mirror)

[scdeimos]

Trusted Reviews has been /.'d already, so try this:

Google cache [google.com.au]

Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone ever notice that the product advertisments being passed off as stories contain more positive comments by the editors on average if that same product is being sold by Thinkgeek?

Just an interesting point to ponder.

Fanless Media Center...

[Eberlin]

Sponsored by Fanless Media Celebrities!!! Have they booked Vanilla Ice for endorsement deals yet?

Are media centers really taking hold? I mean PVR + media player + home entertainment center sounds like a logical thing to be brought together, but it all seems too pricey for normal human consumption. While I'm at it, does this then bring the concept of "computer as an appliance" closer to reality?

If we're all going in that direction, shouldn't we just get it over with and have a "server closet" in every home? Rack-mounted servers for your music, all your DVDs, and constant family album slideshows on channel 3 or something. Linux of course (with contraband deCSS) and wirelessly controlled with a zaurus.

Couldn't we do all of that now much more cheaply than this media pc?

Re:physical location

[Chuck Chunder]

For the same reason it isn't convenient to have my DVD/CD player tucked away in a cupboard in another room. It's handy to be able to put things into it with minimal fuss.

Uh...no.

[OmegaBlac]

"Could this be the perfect media center box?"

Only if it was running MythTV [mythtv.org] instead of Microsoft's proprietary solution. ;)

Wife...Slashdot...does not compute

[mhesseltine]

Of course, I'm joking. It does seem that everyone gets irritated at potential noise levels. Are you really watching Kill Bill with the volume at "1" and complaining that you can't hear the dialogue over the fan noise? Also, what's wrong with a glass door in front of the PC?

Re:1,791.38 GBP

[cliveholloway]

= 3,389.61 USD

Note that's the price today. Considering the way the dollar's going, here's a handy chart to help you through the next 6 months:

Jan 2005 => 3,689.35 USD
Feb 2005 => 3,745.22 USD
Mar 2005 => 3,823.43 USD
Apr 2005 => 3,897.01 USD
May 2005 => 3,925.23 USD
Jun 2005 => 3,990.45 USD

Oh, small caveat. The above assumes that Russia doesn't start selling its oil in Euros [globalpolicy.org]. If that happens, all bets are off :)

cLive ;-)

Re:Still the fundamental problem in WMC

[poopie]

Propietary format, DRM, and force-fed advertising (to be rolled out in future "enhancements" a la tivo) are *features* of Windows Media Center.

Silly consumer, you are not allowed to use video anywhere you want. The music/video/broadcast agencies OwnZ J00!

You may, however use Windows Media Center on any version of Windows you want as long as it is Windows XP or newer.

Tune-in. apt-get mythtv-suite. Drop out.

http://mythtv.org

critical requirements

[the-build-chicken]

There are two critical requirements for a Media PC that's going to reside in your living room, it has to look great and be quiet as a mouse

Call me crazy, but I would have thought being able to 'play media' would have been right up there as well......go figure

Different processor for heat requirements?

[Atmchicago]

They mention it passively cools a 2.8ghz pentium 4. Would an AMD or a Centrino processor not be a better option? (granted of course the centrino-desktop mobos just came out, it wouldn't have been possible, but the AMD certainly would). Even an AMD64 laptop processor would do fine.

HELLO? HARD DRIVE NOISE?

[CrystalFalcon]

These boxen may be as fanless as they want, but that's not the only source of noise.

What about the hard drive? Anybody who has turned off a computer a couple of times knows that the main change in sound is not the fans going silent, but the hard drive spinning down.

Saying "no noise from fans" about a computer is as useful to me as saying "no noise from cockpit" in an aircraft when I'm sitting next to the engine.

Does anybody have these machines so we can get some subjective feedback?

Re:physical location

[ERJ]

Sure it does. Most dvds are around 8 mbit/s. 802.11b is 10 mbit/s but with the issues it is more realistically 5 mbit/s. However, 802.11g has the bandwidth to carry a dvd no problem.

Re:1,791.38 GBP

[Coryoth]

There's plenty to worry about. See my sig for an attempt a non-partisan, level headed approach to looking into the economic issues the US may in fact be facing.

Jedidiah.

Re:physical location

[Albanach]

Of course you still need a box to receive the wireless stream, decode it and then output the video to the TV. Though this can, of course, havea slower (cooler) processor and be diskless so the noise can be toned down quite a bit.

Re:1,791.38 GBP

[Zeinfeld]

The price is probably not that bad since the machine is probably actually manufactured in the faqr east in a currency that is dollar pegged. Otherwise you are probably right about the decline in the dollar's value. The Dufus deficit is huge, structural and growing. Wars cost money, lots of it. This is the first war in US history that was accompanied by tax cuts. Expect a major currency meltdown in the next 18 months or so. On the subject of the hush PC, I think it looks pretty cute. it is a real pity that so very few PC makers have tried to follow the Apple lead of producing a high end designer PC rather than commodity trash. On the other hand it is almost ten times what I just paid for a new Dell...

Re:physical location

[cosmol]

I still haven't seen GOOD two-tuner support in 2005

Ironic that your name contains "myth" as we've had that capability in mythtv land for quite some time. You can actually have as many tuners as you want spread out over as many machines as you want. The M$ solution will never be a killer set-top machine, unless by "killer" you mean "microsoft drm-encumbered proprietary evilness"

$2500 worth of TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anything worth watching?

Seriously - am I missing something?

I don't watch much tv...

TiVo Versus PC

[c_waddington]

Certainly a beautiful looking PC. No doubt I'd like one myself. But I'm wondering why would I bother paying upwards of $3000 (depending on the exchange rate) on something that can act as a PVR(DVR) when TiVo can do the same thing for very much less? I spent the thanksgiving weekend contemplating supplementing a PC I had so it could be used as a MythTV for my other television. After figuring up the cost of a Hauppauge PCI card and suffiicient HD space I decided against it. As a hobbyist I'd love to do it but the economics are against me.

Yeah, but...

[famebait]

-TV sucks, and will make you stupid. Go make something with your hands in stead.