MSI's Home Theatre PC Reviewed

VL writes "MSI, long time motherboard and video card manufacturer, has upped the ante somewhat with their MSI Entertainment and Gaming (MEGA 651) PC. Like other popular SFFs, the MEGA 651 is still "cube" in appearance, and offers support for fast CPUs and an AGP slot, but it has some unique ideas that target those specifically looking into building a Home Theater PC (HTPC). "

Comments

Re:What OS does it run?

[generic-man]

They tested it with Windows XP, but I don't think it comes bundled with the unit. At only $281, I don't think it includes any OS. As for a "traditional monitor interface," you can hook it up to a monitor (VGA out) or a television (TV out).

The custom LCD, they say, only works when the system is powered off.

But does it run MythTV?

[laird]

This looks like pretty hardware (aside from the pathetic lack of TV in/out in a "home theater" PC) ... but the million dollar question is whether it will run MythTV (www.mythtv.org), the open source TiVo-like system? MythTV is a fantastic project, but it's pretty picky about the hardware it will run on.

I only made it two pages into the review before the site was slashdotted, so apologies if they documented the software later in the review...

Been around a while...

[tbase]

I've seen this at Computer Geeks for some time now. Even better, they also have it at newegg.

Pretty cool how you can use the radio, CD and mp3 playing capabilities without booting up the PC. But they say due to the proprietary nature (I assume they're talking about these features) that only MSI optical drives a guaranteed to work.

Propreitary CD-Rx/DVD-Rx only? No thanks.

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Due to proprietary mechanical design, MSI only guarantees the compatibility of the MEGA PC with MSI's own Optical Storage Devices:
DVD-ROM: MSI 16x DVD-ROM (MS-8216)
CD-RW: MSI 52x24x52 CD-RW (MS-CR52-A2)

Sorry, but the word 'proprietary' gives me a not-so-fresh feeling. Yes, it's good that there's competition to Shuttle's XPC, but I consider this to be a huge strike against the MEGA 651. Especially considering how similar the feature sets and prices for each SFF box are.

Argh!

[Dark Lord Seth]

Without a subwoofer, there simply isn't enough bass to make music listening, let alone gaming, sound convincing.

Let's face it, floppy drives are useless

Yes, it sounds unbelievable, but there are a lot of people without broadband

Something useful, like displaying music info or system temperatures would have been nice

Did anyone else laugh so hard they had to cry? The worthless comparative graphs were amusing too. Seriously though... Some people should be removed from the internet and never, EVER, be allowed to touch a computer again. The internet is a wonderful thing in the way it grants everyone the oppurtunity to make oneself heard. Sadly, this also applies to politicians, overclockers, script kiddies and other subhumans :(

Interesting but Disappointing

[truffle]

Like many geeks I'm interested in getting some kind of component PC to handle my audio and video. This product is interesting, but it doesn't quite provide what's needed (which doesn't detract from the product, just means it doesn't meet my needs).

I'm looking for a component PC that:
- runs linux (not some customized version, just regular debian)
- has audio and svideo in/out
- has cute little component system type nobs and a remote
- plays my mp3 collection and can be controlled by the remote
- plays my video collection and can be controlled by the remote
- can record video to the hard disk like a PVR or ideally a TiVo (ideally with an mpeg4 encoder built in)

I think we're close but I haven't seen something that quite does this. In particular I think the missing component is runs debian and integrates with remote. This may seem a bit weird but, besides all the audio and video stuff, I expect to do a lot more with my linux PC and I don't want to be stuck with non-debian linux.