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.

Comments

I didn't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Huckster: I didn't know that Hush Technologies made Media Center PCs, but they do.

Country Rube: Then why is your picture on the case?

Cue getaway music...

physical location

[iclod]

There are two critical requirements for a Media PC that's going to reside in your living room, it has to look great and be quiet as a mouse

is it a must to have your media PC in the same room? couldn't you tuck it in the cupboard somewhere and transmit signals wirelessly?

Re:physical location

[mordors9]

C'mon, why do you think we have children. It's to load the DVD/CD players for us.... You didn't really think we didn't know how to set the clock did you? HAHAHA

This is certainly pretty...

[Suburbanpride]

but you can save yourslef some money and do what I do. Turn up the volume on my reciever loud enoguh so you can't hear the fans, or the wife complaining.

1,791.38 GBP

[AltGrendel]

= 3,389.61 USD

Re:1,791.38 GBP

[cliveholloway]

= 3,389.61 USD

Note that's the price today. Considering the way the dollar's going, here's a handy chart to help you through the next 6 months:

Jan 2005 => 3,689.35 USD
Feb 2005 => 3,745.22 USD
Mar 2005 => 3,823.43 USD
Apr 2005 => 3,897.01 USD
May 2005 => 3,925.23 USD
Jun 2005 => 3,990.45 USD

Oh, small caveat. The above assumes that Russia doesn't start selling its oil in Euros. If that happens, all bets are off :)

cLive ;-)

Re:1,791.38 GBP

[Coryoth]

There's plenty to worry about. See my sig for an attempt a non-partisan, level headed approach to looking into the economic issues the US may in fact be facing.

Jedidiah.

PCworld.com just reviewed 9 MCE machines

[xplosiv]

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.

Re:MythTV?

[lakeland]

*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.

Re:Wife...Slashdot...does not compute

[Suburbanpride]

what's wrong with a glass door in front of the PC

Heat is the problem, the reason why there are fans is that heat needs to escape and glass is an insulator, not a conductor.

My 500 watt reciever has a heat sink thats about 4x10x4, and has a fan that turns on a very high tempertures, which it usaul only reaches when it is cranked up for an extended period of time.
What I'd really like to see is a volume controled fan controler. When the movie gets quiet, the fans slow down and then crank back up when it gets loud again.

Different processor for heat requirements?

[Atmchicago]

They mention it passively cools a 2.8ghz pentium 4. Would an AMD or a Centrino processor not be a better option? (granted of course the centrino-desktop mobos just came out, it wouldn't have been possible, but the AMD certainly would). Even an AMD64 laptop processor would do fine.