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https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarT...

https://www.scan.co.uk/product...

Two seconds of Googling and I solved all your problems.

P.S. Literally the first hits on Google - many alternate, better quality, cheaper, etc. products exist.

And that is how airplanes occasionally crash. Its usually not one flaw or problem, its multiple problems/flaws occurring at the same time

Right, because they have safety systems that cover the typical cases. Apple lack those, so it's not just the convoluted multiple problems piling up that will take out their products, it's simple common ones as well.

There is quite a difference between corrupting the inode info / timestamp info and corrupting the **contents of a file**, its user data. That is what is unique about ZFS. File data being **read** is at risk due to automatic repairs of **user data**.

ZFS repairs using redundant copies of data which don't exist on single-disk configurations. All ZFS will do in such a situation is tell you there's an error in a file it can't correct and suggest you restore it from backup. If it's a transient memory or IO error causing the checksum to fail, a second attempt at reading it should work.

Yes, server grade CPUs support server grade RAM. And judging from Intel's data sheets the current generation Xeons are slower (clock rate, more cores though) and generate more heat

More cores?

And the 4-5 year old Xeons you mention

When did I mention 4-5 year old Xeons? Current prices here:

i7 Skylake, £258-£290 for 2.4-4GHz.

E3 Skylake, £162-£508 for 2.9-3.7GHz. If you forgo 4GHz the Xeons are actually cheaper.

And that is how airplanes occasionally crash. Its usually not one flaw or problem, its multiple problems/flaws occurring at the same time

Right, because they have safety systems that cover the typical cases. Apple lack those, so it's not just the convoluted multiple problems piling up that will take out their products, it's simple common ones as well.

There is quite a difference between corrupting the inode info / timestamp info and corrupting the **contents of a file**, its user data. That is what is unique about ZFS. File data being **read** is at risk due to automatic repairs of **user data**.

ZFS repairs using redundant copies of data which don't exist on single-disk configurations. All ZFS will do in such a situation is tell you there's an error in a file it can't correct and suggest you restore it from backup. If it's a transient memory or IO error causing the checksum to fail, a second attempt at reading it should work.

Yes, server grade CPUs support server grade RAM. And judging from Intel's data sheets the current generation Xeons are slower (clock rate, more cores though) and generate more heat

More cores?

And the 4-5 year old Xeons you mention

When did I mention 4-5 year old Xeons? Current prices here:

i7 Skylake, £258-£290 for 2.4-4GHz.

E3 Skylake, £162-£508 for 2.9-3.7GHz. If you forgo 4GHz the Xeons are actually cheaper.

link

Or, you could spend about £16000 on one of these way-over-the-top-babies...

https://secure.scan.co.uk/aspnet/forms/swordfish/

For example.

Have you even seen the latest AMD Fusion?

Unfortunately not. I requested an engineering sample from AMD about 2 years ago, and am still waiting......

It shits all over Intel+ION.

Whether it shits over ION or not entirely misses the point. I'm sure Fusion *could* shit all over ION, but the problem can be summed up with a quick glance here. Where are these fabled Fusion netbooks? It's ATOMS, ATOMS, ATOMS and nothing but ATOMS in that market sector.....

So returning to your original question:

Who has one of the lowest power draw/highest performance CPU/GPU combo for mobile systems that would shit all over tons of current in-service desktop systems, with an even better revision coming soon?

The ATOM/ION has been available for over 18 months. It has one of the lowest power/highest performance CPU/GPU combo for mobile systems, with a new revision coming. It's adequate enough to replace tons of in-service desktops NOW. The ATOM/ION combo is a very valid answer to your question...... Fusion may become a valid answer in a few months time, but it isn't an answer *yet*.....

Three 5.25" bays hold twelve 2.5" drives with a combined capacity of twelve TB.

Ick, ick, ick. So you're proposing to fit a case with a bunch of noisy, underperforming, low air volume 40mm fans? And not just 2, but 6? And you expect those fans to last for more then a few months before they start making even more noise?

At least the earlier linked 2.5" backplane uses a pair of 60mm fans. Which are going to be quieter and more likely to last. I'd bet they move enough air to keep those 8 drives cool as well, even in a warmer location.

I prefer 8 2.5" drives in two 5.25" bays.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/PCICase-8-Bay-SATA-SAS-(SFF)-Backplane-needs-2-x-525-Slots

but my current motherboard graphics can only drive 1280x1024, which is lame, so I'll need a graphics card. And almost all of the AGP graphics cards are lame too - they won't do 1920x1280, though some might do 1680x1050, so basically I'd need to upgrade the motherboard to do PCI-express.
ATI to the rescue sir! That card will do what you need (no problems driving 2x1080p monitors). DX10 + GL3.3 support, handles blu ray nicely. I've got one in a circa 2002 dell 530 precision workstation (as well as sata raid + IDE RAID + USB2 controller cards). Runs absolutely fine..... Hell, you are more than welcome to buy it all off me if you *really* want!

I've got an Atom 330 + ION as well, and to be fair, it can't keep up with the old dell (dual 2.2Ghz HT xeon). The ION chip isn't bad (although it's not great either), and can run VMWare (although the ATOM *really* struggles to the point of not bothering).

So you're admitting to the whole world you're doing something illegal? You're not making it any harder for the RIAA :)

Anyway, in addition to full towers, what you could also do is expand with 8 port SATA controller cards.. as many as you can fit in there. They're cheap, I got mine for about 60 pounds each from ebay last year.

For holding the extra hard drives, get a small HD internal caddie that transforms your front 5'' area, so you can fit say 5 or 6 instead of 4 in the same area. Something like this

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Jou-Jye-ST-3051SS-525-(3-Bay)-Backplane-for-5x-35-SAS-SATA-HDD

Any more HDs, maybe external SATA caddies can also work, and you just get a long SATA cable

Finally, contrary to the above, What I also did (for my really important files, or ones so large/rare), is get a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (there are 4/6/8 bays). It's worth every penny.. Similar to the Drobo, but I like it because It's one of very few (if not the only) that has full compatibility with Mac (OSX).. including AFP, NFS, SMB, Time Machine backups, etc..

So you're admitting to the whole world you're doing something illegal? You're not making it any harder for the RIAA :)

Anyway, in addition to the above, what you could also do is expand with 8 port SATA controller cards.. as many as you can fit in there. They're cheap, I got mine for about 60 pounds each from ebay last year.

For holding the extra hard drives, get a small HD internal caddie that transforms your front 5'' area, so you can fit say 5 or 6 instead of 4 in the same area. Something like this

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Jou-Jye-ST-3051SS-525-(3-Bay)-Backplane-for-5x-35-SAS-SATA-HDD

Any more HDs, maybe external SATA caddies can also work, and you just get a long SATA cable

Finally, contrary to the above, What I also did (for my really important files, or ones so large/rare), is get a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (there are 4/6/8 bays). It's worth every penny.. Similar to the Drobo, but I like it because It's one of very few (if not the only) that has full compatibility with Mac (OSX).. including AFP, NFS, SMB, Time Machine backups, etc..

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Icy-Box-IB-555SK-for-5x-35-SATA-SAS-HDD-Backplane-into-3x-525-bays

As many of those as you can fit in a big case and some 24 port SATA Raid cards.

I used to work for SCAN and they have an enormous warehouse and don't sell JIT. I still buy from them because I live within a 15 minute drive, they sell things cheap, and I know the owner.

They stock PATA drives up to 500MB ; the prices for the capacities are a joke compared to modern drives but they are available.

At £211.49 for 128GB ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-128GB-SSDNow-Desktop/dp/B002BH3UDY/ ), vs £34.32 for a 160GB HD ( http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/160GB-Seagate-ST9160314AS-Momentus-25-HDD-SATA-3Gb-s-5400rpm-8Mb-Cache ), I don't think I'll quite be making the jump yet. Maybe when prices aren't almost an order of magnitude different...

I would expect they'd be using some sort of slot, something like this. Motherboard manufacturers aren't exactly going to be thrilled at the idea of putting some yet more expensive components on there, but they might be happy to hook up a small ZIF socket thing like some of them do with CF.

Intel actually had some weird ZIF connected SSD's on there a while ago on preorder, but they appear to have disappeared.

Either way, it's nice to see some hybrid storage stuff which isn't ZFS L2ARC (zpool add tank cache /dev/my_ssd -> tank now has an 80GB SSD for fs cache). Kind of surprised it hasn't been done in software elsewhere really; you'd think there would be some Linux developer who found the idea compelling, or even Microsoft wanting to extend ReadyBoost to its logical conclusion.

Addendum:
Saying "SKU number" is likely incorrect, as MS uses alpha-numeric SKU codes, not purely numeric codes. It wouldn't be redundant even if it was correct, as SKUs can be anything.

For examples of MS's SKU codes:
scan and ebuyer.

Both have the MS SKU code of "79G-00007", so it's the exact same product, being sold by two different stores.

Along with:
scan
ebuyer
SKU: W87-01076

and:
scan
(apparently not sold on ebuyer)
SKU: 9QA-01757 ... that covers all of the first group characters as possibly being alpha.

Does that help?

Addendum:
Saying "SKU number" is likely incorrect, as MS uses alpha-numeric SKU codes, not purely numeric codes. It wouldn't be redundant even if it was correct, as SKUs can be anything.

For examples of MS's SKU codes:
scan and ebuyer.

Both have the MS SKU code of "79G-00007", so it's the exact same product, being sold by two different stores.

Along with:
scan
ebuyer
SKU: W87-01076

and:
scan
(apparently not sold on ebuyer)
SKU: 9QA-01757 ... that covers all of the first group characters as possibly being alpha.

Does that help?

Addendum:
Saying "SKU number" is likely incorrect, as MS uses alpha-numeric SKU codes, not purely numeric codes. It wouldn't be redundant even if it was correct, as SKUs can be anything.

For examples of MS's SKU codes:
scan and ebuyer.

Both have the MS SKU code of "79G-00007", so it's the exact same product, being sold by two different stores.

Along with:
scan
ebuyer
SKU: W87-01076

and:
scan
(apparently not sold on ebuyer)
SKU: 9QA-01757 ... that covers all of the first group characters as possibly being alpha.

Does that help?

overclockers are quite good, I managed to get the best pair of headphones I've ever had from there (Razer Barracuda)
I also use http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ http://www.aria.co.uk/ and http://www.scan.co.uk/
as these are close to the Manchester Area in the UK

Do you know how to read? Read some books about CPU design. Then read some prices.

The Opteron (Athlon/Phenom) has the better interconnect, and came out 5 years ago. Intel *might* be bringing out a competitor this year. Or maybe next,

AMD processors scale, since you get double the memory bandwidth with double the processors in a system. Intel's are still choking on a 1980's vintage front side bus. Back in the 90's, AMD had a cross-bar switch. Now they have NUMA.

From what I can see, a Q6600 is 2.4HGz. Mind you, it has 8MB of cache, which helps it along quite a bit, but only if you have one of them in a system.

Would a dual Q660 beat a dual Phenom 9850? OK, it will be called an "Opteron" when it's available next month.

Of course, intel would really like you to buy itanic for multiprocessor systems.

Years of experience with intel, AMD and UltraSPARC systems have taught me that intel processors look and feel impressive on single-user single-tasking jobs. When you add tasks and users, the performance falls away.

But, hey, intel have the brand name and the catchy adverts.

Near me, this place has a handful of different ones.

Not true. I picked up two NEC SATA DVD burners (with the full array of format support) for £20 a pop. Work great, and that was some time ago. Scan actually have a section on SATA DVD burners.

Why not use one of these Blu Ray Drives. Only £530 for the drive and £25 for a blank disk.
It's the way of the future

Well if you're in th UK, I'd reccommemd Scan or MESH.

My father has bought from MESH a couple of times and not had any problems and although I've never bought a prebuilt from Scan, when I needed some advice they responded to my emails - before I'd even bought anything - in a friendly manor. I don't know about their customer support though, because I've never had to use it.

Scan Computers in the UK http://www.scan.co.uk/

I purchased a Gainward Geforce 6800GT from Scan in 2004. It blew up one day out of the years warranty and would have to be returned to Gainard. Gainward had stopped making that card so Scan replaced it for me with an XFX Geforce 7800GT free of charge.
Now that's customer service!

The only thing to complain about is the high price of non-OEM Windows. If you want to run Windows games on your Mac, you still have to pay a few hundred dollars for Windows XP to run them on.

Or you could, y'know, buy an OEM copy... ;-)

(For that route, you still need to buy new hardware. Although a mouse is classified as an 'integral system component'. I need a new mouse anyway - this Logitech effort looks a bit manky.)

Via SP8000 http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_ itx/epia_sp/index.jsp

Got two departamental servers running on that. The onboard + 2 Silicon Image Adaptecs (6 disks total) using these enclosures: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web ProductID=84948

One caveat - the enclosure does not work with newer Maxtor drives because the idiots redefined the power up SATA spec and the meaning of the LED indicator on the power pinout.

Sticking in another GB of RAM isn't hugely cheap (does the term hugely cheap even make sense?) - £50 for no-name PC3200 from Scan. Whilst that may be fine for many people, for people on lower incomes, or in developing countries, that is a lot of money just to run an office suite which should be less demanding.

Do also bear in mind 2 of the ways in which Linux/open source has been pushed: faster on older hardware (though not with GNOME, etc), and there are no licencing fee issues for those who cannot afford it. Granted, the price of the RAM is still lower than that of MS Office retail, but it's still likely to be higher than many can afford, and I can't comfortably run OOo on my 1GHz Celeron laptop with 256MB RAM. I can run MS Office (when booted into win32, obviously, which is rarely).

Also, you say that you like that it's free as in beer, but if you have to buy more RAM just to run it comfortably, surely that benefit goes out of the window?

It's not very ground breaking, Coolmaster have had a simple water cooling kit for a while now: Aquagte Mini. Here's a pic of one installed in my (messy) PC.

Tyan S2895: ~£320
2*Opteron 265; dual core 1.8GHz: ~£1000
4*1GB ECC Registered memory: ~£500
Nice Supermicro EATX case: ~£300

That's over £2k without storage, hardware RAID, graphics, etc, with a fairly modest amount of wriggle room for further savings. I hope you have a really good use for all those cores, or at least enough money that the cost is largely irrelevent. You save a lot going dual single core, and there are still reasons you might prefer a simple dual Opteron over an X2 (like support for >4G of memory and more readily available PCI-X), but if you're just looking at a nice desktop rather than a professional graphics workstation or big multi-user server, they probably don't apply much in this case.

Personally, I went for a mid-range X2, left the dual dual Opteron in the data centre and am awaiting a handmedown IBM eServer for my home serverish needs. YMMV.

Tyan S2895: ~£320
2*Opteron 265; dual core 1.8GHz: ~£1000
4*1GB ECC Registered memory: ~£500
Nice Supermicro EATX case: ~£300

That's over £2k without storage, hardware RAID, graphics, etc, with a fairly modest amount of wriggle room for further savings. I hope you have a really good use for all those cores, or at least enough money that the cost is largely irrelevent. You save a lot going dual single core, and there are still reasons you might prefer a simple dual Opteron over an X2 (like support for >4G of memory and more readily available PCI-X), but if you're just looking at a nice desktop rather than a professional graphics workstation or big multi-user server, they probably don't apply much in this case.

Personally, I went for a mid-range X2, left the dual dual Opteron in the data centre and am awaiting a handmedown IBM eServer for my home serverish needs. YMMV.

It is ok to quote the law but to understand it is something else. As was posted before there are acceptable levels for the number and type of dead pixels. It is dependant on resolution and not size of screen. If the screen is class 1 you are not allowed any. ( I have never seen a class 1 screen) Class 2 (most that are sold) have complicated limits on dead pixels. Always on or always off is worse than one of the colors not working etc.. if they are clustered or not also makes a difference. From what I remember for a 1024 x 768 you are not allowed 2 always on 2 awlways off. Or 4 with color failure. For a smaller screen it would be less. Therefore I would GUESS that the limit is 1 for each case on a PSP. Maybe someone in the know would know.

There is a simple explanation here
http://www.scan.co.uk/iso.asp

Dabs are a pain somewhat - they often list items as in stock that they can't get hold of (like the CDRW drive they sold - showing 345 in stock but didn't have any, and refused to refund the delivery). I've cancelled my delivery with them.

Dabs suck!

Ebuyer.com are ok imho, as are http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ and http://www.scan.co.uk./

Make sure you check for voucher/promotional codes. http://www.hotukdeals.com/, http://www.currentcodes.com/ and http://www.flamingoworld.com/ all seem good.

Dug

Though it may be a dupe, things do change in a year - new companies starting, companies going bust, pricing/product line changes and so on.

I used to buy from Scan (in the UK) and I used to think they offered some good deals, but nowadays I don't think they are necessarily the best deal out there. Ebuyer (for example) is usually cheaper, and has less delivery costs, but it takes longer to arrive.

You pay your money and take your choice I guess.

* P2-266M laptop runs XP (SP1a to avoid 'Event ID 4226') - Internet gateway, firewall & network AV montoring.
* P4 1.7G tower runs SuSE - general PC, file server, 24/7 P2P slave ;)
* Centrino 2G lappy runs XPSP2/SuSE - The every-day PC.
* Ethernet enabled standalone DVD/MP3/MPEG4 player - A cheap & cheerful CD/DVD/LAN based media player
* Not to forget my PS2 ;)

All does me proud... Archos's new touch screen, WiFi, Linux based PMA400 PVR looks as if it could be a cool edition to the home media network.

Depends on the system. I have seen about 75W for the monitor alone - admittedly for a 15 inch. 15W standby too.. These guys are going to use the cheapest available, off the shelf.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web ProductID=39263

Been around in PC gaming for years. e.g.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web ProductID=98344

I have something similar, it's pretty cool. e.g. in Elite Force some guns have recoil which pushes your aim upwards, and getting shot down in Rogue Squadron is incredible - the stick throws itself around maniacally. Not that many games support it though, and of course I'd rather play anything that isn't a flight sim with a mouse.

I don't see something like this really taking off on a console though - with serious force feedback you need to rest it on a desk. Plus they tend to need their own power adaptor - not a problem to send that power from the console of course, but I can see manufacturers getting nervous about potentially electrocuting someone, or the family dog...

This month the UK "PC Pro" magazine has a review of the Scan White Cobra gaming machine.

This is a fine example of SLI running with jaw dropping performance...a quote from the review puts Doom 3 running at 98fps!

Now I know what I want for Christmas, just not a snowball's chance in hell of getting one! :)

-- Pete.

...there is not yet an LED out there at the right wavelength to do real damage (and be useful for things like steralizing things... if I'm wrong about this please post a link.

I'm not vouching for its ability to do what it says but this fan claims to purify air using an UV LED.

Yup, that looks perfect, except.. I kinda don't wanna wait several months, and I've not been impressed with the nForce's *ix support so far (although nVidia's FreeBSD GFX driver support seems great; what's the point without stable SATA and network drivers?).

This is a work machine to mirror our dual Opteron servers, which are using these puppies. The Tyan S2885 looks like the closest board to that, and is one of the best I've seen for sale in the UK.

Yup, that looks perfect, except.. I kinda don't wanna wait several months, and I've not been impressed with the nForce's *ix support so far (although nVidia's FreeBSD GFX driver support seems great; what's the point without stable SATA and network drivers?).

This is a work machine to mirror our dual Opteron servers, which are using these puppies. The Tyan S2885 looks like the closest board to that, and is one of the best I've seen for sale in the UK.

Anyone have motherboard recommendations? Here's a few I've seen:

MSI K8T MASTER2-FAR - cheap as chips, but no PCI-X. Anything else it's missing? Someone I spoke to mentioned it lacks NUMA support; is that going to be important when looking at dual core chips next year, or am I likely to want to buy a new motherboard by then anyway?

Gigabyte GA-7A8DW+ - Also relatively cheap. Has a couple of PCI-X and a PCI/33 slot; bit anemic in this area, but has 4x SATA (good for my planned RAID-10 array), and actually has the nifty AMD64 heatsink mounting mechanism.

But then there's this Tyan Thunder K8W and similarly priced/specced friends; where's the AMD64 mounting system gone again? The layout of the board suggests seperate memory interfaces per CPU, which I guess will be important for dual core, but by then I'll probably also want PCI-Express and such too, so..

Suggestions? Plan is to run FreeBSD on it. Oh, a case would be good too.. am I going to need something special for EATX? Anyone spotted a tower case with 4x hot-swap SATA bays? ;)

Anyone have motherboard recommendations? Here's a few I've seen:

MSI K8T MASTER2-FAR - cheap as chips, but no PCI-X. Anything else it's missing? Someone I spoke to mentioned it lacks NUMA support; is that going to be important when looking at dual core chips next year, or am I likely to want to buy a new motherboard by then anyway?

Gigabyte GA-7A8DW+ - Also relatively cheap. Has a couple of PCI-X and a PCI/33 slot; bit anemic in this area, but has 4x SATA (good for my planned RAID-10 array), and actually has the nifty AMD64 heatsink mounting mechanism.

But then there's this Tyan Thunder K8W and similarly priced/specced friends; where's the AMD64 mounting system gone again? The layout of the board suggests seperate memory interfaces per CPU, which I guess will be important for dual core, but by then I'll probably also want PCI-Express and such too, so..

Suggestions? Plan is to run FreeBSD on it. Oh, a case would be good too.. am I going to need something special for EATX? Anyone spotted a tower case with 4x hot-swap SATA bays? ;)

I buy bespoke games lovingly hand-woven (using the finest traditional materials) by master craftsmen in a remote Peruvian mountain village. Rather than a jewel case, each CD is delivered dangling from the nipple of a Burmese virgin.

Really, though: a typical new game will cost me £30. I can get XP Home (OEM) from Scan for £60.

Thats the problem, while these highly manufactured junk boxes (not feeling them) are being announced to use DivX, everyone else has moved to XviD
This shouldn't be a problem for a properly constructed box. Both DivX and XviD are implementations of the MPEG-4 standard, and as such, it shouldn't matter to the player which was actually used for encoding. AFAIK, the latest version of DivXPlayer supports XviD and as far as I can work out, mplayer uses the same codec for both.
A device which may be of interest is KISS's DP-1500 player, which, in addition to playing any media file format (except Quicktime) is networkable and can stream media from a remote server. Oh, and by the way - the streaming app is written in Java (gentlemen, choose not only your platform, but also your architecture - this will run on damn near anything!)

Those in Northern Ireland will know that the biggest problem for us is pp charges. To help with this i've compiled a wee list of shops and charges usually for something small and light like an ethernet card. Sorry if any of it is wrong - if so please contact the site and let them know that they need to make it clearer.

• CCL Computers Online 10 extra. 3.95 for small order 7.50 large all + VAT
• Insight Direct 19.99
• MicroWarehouse claim they don't ship outside uk mainland
• SavaStore 15 + VAT extra
• Scan Computers UK citylink so expensive - they quote 7 + VAT for non-NI will contact you for exact pricing
• Simply Computers 12.95 + VAT
• Overclockers UK 3.48 + VAT 2nd class recorded
• ebuyer 15 surcharge on NI p&p
• Komplett.co.uk approx 10 p&p
• aria .co. uk 11.95 + VAT for under 8KG
• Novatech 15 extra p&p
• Kustom PCs
• Tekheads.co.uk RM Recorded from 2.85
• mini-itx.com 8 - 12 +VAT
• LinITX.com 2.39 recorded or 6.05 next day special (+ VAT i think)
• TheCoolingShop.com free delivery on orders over 4 but under 2KG - over 2KG = 20
• PC Nextday 17.61 inc. VAT next day
• Leapfrog Computers Ltd 6.90 + VAT
• Chillblast 1.18 inc VAT recorded 5.29 special
• Stuff-uk.net under 100g 3.75, under 500g 4.05, under 1KG 5.25, under 3KG 6.60, large over 1KG 10.50, all + VAT
• CaseTech.co.uk from 2.95 based on weight for 3-4 day courier. guess + VAT
• Crucial UK over 25 free p&p. under 25 2.95
• Over-Clock UK from 1.42 2nd class post to 4.59 citylink
• Micro Direct Ltd. 17.63 inc. VAT
• Carrera SSC 64 for complete system
• MESH Computers 20 inc. VAT
• dabs.com 5.88 inc. VAT extra

i just put this box together, which is a fully-powered PC, but can take the tuner and wifi tuner cards. and it's very quiet. pundit

Here is the page it seems the coward was referring to.

Product description:

LN5786
Kiss Technology DP-508 DVD Player DIVX V4+/MPEG4/VCD/SVCD/MP3/DVD-RW with 80GB HDD ( 304.33)

Here you go :)

Seems like a better player, depending on the "ugradeability" of the codecs. It says on the page that they will add support for SMB over ethernet, doesn't say whether you can also access files on other shares from the player.