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Tiny Integrated Home Theater PC w/Display
Mark J. Foster writes "After searching for a solution that would let me control my home theater PC without disturbing the video to the projector, I finally decided to roll my own. I've integrated a Shuttle SS40G, with a Xenarc
700Y RGB-interfaced 800x480 TFT widescreen LCD: The fully-integrated package looks like this. For full details, check out my 'Special Edition' Shuttle 40G." This machine reminds me of the "lunchbox" style of PCs, but this one's got a much smaller footprint. Excellent mod.
In 1989, Andy Warhol said 'Tiny is the new big.' I'm inclined to agree.
In today's society it's not what you've got, it's what you've not got and not having a 60" plasma TV with surround sound but having a 8" with two tinny speakers is what we're all aiming for.
I applaud you, Sir. Your device looks like a cross between a 1950's kitchen appliance, a miniaturized techno fridge, and a Mac Cube, and would be at home in any quiche eating Pascal programmer or Mac user's home.
mogorific carpentry experiments
The screen looks cool, the shuttle case looks cool. Why go through all the fuss? I doubt the space gained is relevant.
For a homemade it's quite ok though.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The pictures I'm referring to come from ftp://ftp.talix.com/pub/screenshots/shuttle -- Mark J. Foster's FTP site. (Oooo, I'm evil for posting that address... hey, at least I didn't make it a link!)
Mark, that thing is gorgeous!!! I love the idea, I've been thinking about small screens, just not quite like what you've put together. Bravo, well done, extraordinary work!
(Shuttle ought to hire you to build these for them to show off / auction off at trade shows!)
One thing I noticed, though... in ftp://ftp.talix.com/pub/screenshots/shuttle/Shuttl eBack.jpg the pile of power cables (I think there might be a power brick in there for the (external) monitor?), cords, and assorted connectors (don't forget the power strip, too!) is almost half the size of the computer itself!
Ouch.
Next project -- integrate a wireless keyboard & mouse, single-cable connection for the external monitor that includes power, video and audio, and a single power supply that will drive everything. (Yeah, I know, sorta like a Mac with their combined video/USB connection. Hey, I never claimed it was an original idea.)
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
The point is modding. Doing it yourself. Getting off that fat lazy ass and making something. Not getting off your fat lazy ass and buying something. Why do people even bother posting if they don't like the story. Just go to the next story and save this for the people who DO care.
Seems like a typical thing a bad magazine would do. Elegance is not throwing hardware on the problem until it's "solved". Why would I want RAID in a PVR? Why would I want a DVD-R in a PVR? What I'd want is a small unit (preferably fanless) with a DVD reader (possibly) and a HDD for caching. And a network connection.
The DVD recorder is in your workstation. The HDD RAID is in a fileserver.
E.g. put a small Via EPICA MB in a box. Put a HDD and DVD reader in there as well. Hook it up to your LAN and store what you want on it. Take it with you to your neighbour and play the movies there. Take it with you to a party and use it as a small MP3/OGG jukebox.
Yeah... Microsoft BONG! What do you want to smoke today?