What an $18,000 Home Theater Looks Like

kgagne writes "Computerworld has a blog with video about an $18,000 home theater system that Intel set up at Storage Networking World in order to promote their new home server system. But what's really cool about this set up is that the server was connected to a 24" iMac, an Apple TV, an Xbox 360, a Wii, an iPod Touch, a Nokia N810 mobile Internet tablet, various cameras and a 15" wireless digital picture frame. The server was streaming all the various feeds to a top-of-the-line Pioneer Elite 50" plasma TV. The Intel reps said the high-definition movie downloads, which could be browsed through a menu, were as high quality as those from a Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player they had set up."

Selfish bastard

[eln]

These sorts of stories make me so mad. Why can't people spend this money on the starving people of Africa instead of blowing it on this nonsense?

Seriously folks, you could buy decent home theatre systems for lots of poor starving African children for the cost of this one system. Won't somebody think of the children?

$20k

[JBHarris]

The tabulation comes up closer to $20k. From the article:

Here's a tabulation of the equipment:
(1) Pioneer 50" 1080p KURO Flat Panel HDTV: $5,000
(2) Series Pro Power AVS 2000 Automatic Voltage Stabilizers: $4,400
(2) Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E home NAS servers: $700 (without disk drives)
(1) Pioneer BDP-95FD Blu-ray Disc player: $999
(1) 24" iMac: $2,249
(1) Apple TV: $329
(1) Xbox 360 console: $349
(1) Nintendo Wii console: $250
(1) Apple iPod Touch: $399
(1) Nokia N810 Mobile Internet Tablet: $500
(1) Spectrum Digital 15" wireless photo frame: $357
(1) Pioneer Elite VSX 94TXH AV Receiver: $1,800
(2) Monster THX Tower Speakers 200: $1,600
Total price: $18,932

That is without drives in the server, and without any games or movies or anything else that makes the home theater worth something.

Personally, I'd rather have the $400 Home Theater in a Box from Circuit City and $17,600 in cash in a briefcase sitting in front of it...That will certainly impress your friends.

Brad

Just the theater?

[SparkleMotion88]

Ripoff. These days you can get an entire home for $18,000.

I guess $18k still doesn't buy

[joeflies]

"taste". Maybe geeking out is great fun for personal use, but the family probably doesn't want the front room looking like a NASA control center.

Re:Uh...can I get it without the "AppleTV", please

[Sciros]

Macs aren't just for blue-haired old ladies. Or for floating boats. They are also for a subset of things that PCs do!

Sadly, as my car only gets 15 mpg, I am not allowed by law to own a Mac. Oh well.

Re:hmmm... $18k isn't that much for a Home Theater

[Sciros]

Pshh what a hobo. I have over $300,000,000 in MY setup, and that's just on the speakers, amplifiers, and TV stand made entirely out of platinum and marble-sized black diamonds. Now granTED I have someting like 25 Exabytes of storage now in that setup, and my speakers are powered by the spinning of the Milky Way's central black hole, I don't even have close to MY dream theater, which includes 3 dungeon floors guarded by dragons and ninjas, chests that appear out of thin air containing a map and a compass, a roller coaster built entirely out of carbon fiber Legos, a girlfriend, and a Maybach Exelero to drive around the spaces between my 3000 rows of seats....

$18,000?

[hee gozer]

Pfft, only 12 Euros, that's pocket money!

Re:I guess $18k still doesn't buy

[geekoid]

Get a new family!
My family would totally dig the front room looking like a NASA control center.
Unfortunately They would expect it to actually control spaceship, and it wouldn't do that..well wait a minute, if I just ...

Re:Bah

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

2. Pair of Martin Logan Quest front speakers = $10000
3. Decent amp = $2000
4. Random center/rear channel speakers = $800

As long as your center and surrounds don't match your mains, your movie listening experience is going to be sub-par. Any sound that pans from one speaker to another is going to sound weird because of the difference in timbre between the originating speaker and the destination speaker. For example, when a tank rolls across the screen it will sound like a real tank when it enters stage right, then turn into a little toy, mickey-mouse tank, as it traverses the screen and then exits stage left again as a real tank should. By the time it makes it around the room to the surround speakers, it might as well be a ricer car with a fartbox on the exhaust.