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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.
= 3,389.61 USD
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PCworld just did a review on 9 MCE machines, they might help you find a cheaper MCE machine if you are in the market for one.
PCworld.com review
I have 2 MCE machines, 1 in the bedroom (Antec Overture case), and one in the living room (the CyberPower model listed in the PCworld review), and while they aren't really that quiet, it doesn't bother anyone once the TV has been turned on.
Current wireless tech does not have the bandwidth to play DVDs (unless you DivX them first or something).
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
*sigh* don't you know the hush already? I almost ran out of drool when I saw it the first time ;-)
:-(
Yes, it can do both backend and frontend. The highest spec machine is the 1.2GHz nermeiah core. Put a reiser and a PVR 350 in it, 256MB RAM (more is a waste of time according to the myth website), a DVD writer, and one of them 400GB disks and you're set. Oh, and it looks gorgeous, you would not want to hide it away in a cupboard. They'll even sell it to you set up like that, for about $2500
As you note, you can set up mythbackend on another machine somewhere and run mythfrontend by the TV (perhaps on your xbox). But... this thing is silent and low power consuming, it makes a lot of sense for it to be the machine you're leaving on 24/7. Especially since it is fast enough to handle your mail and web server, etc.
From the article: Hush must have started with solid billets of aluminium of almost five and a half centimetres thick to create the side panels. Oh dear, seems like people know more and more about digital and software, but when it comes to old fashioned manufacturing, it becomes lah-lah-land.
These "side panels", cooling ribs would be a better term, are not created by cutting it out of a solid piece of aluminum. That would be horribly expensive, no, this is created by extruding the aluminum. In layman's terms, it's like that thing (in dutch it is called a "slagroomspuit" but my online dictionary doesn't know the translation) you use to put nice shaped whipped cream on a birthday cake. But in this case, you keep the nozzle steady, make the opening a kind of comb shape and of you go. Meters and meters of a profile that just needs cutting to get these cooling ribs.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
well if you go with a wired network, a hauppauge mediamvp makes for a neat network based media "client"
people have bridged mediamvp's over a wifi networks, fwiw.
GBPVR integrates nicely with mediamvp and its own backend PVR/scheduling/htpc-esque functions and is free as in beer.
ymmv,
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Thermodynamics 101: the case mostly looses it's heat by radiating it into the surrounding atmosphere. For maximum effect you want the inside nice and polished, and the outside matt black.