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The Year of the HTPC

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the still-waitin-for-mine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "While home theater PC hardware was once limited to a few specialized companies, those days are long gone and home theater computing is now big business. At this year's CES every hardware company, no matter their size or area of interest, brought a some cool new products too and no one forgot about the burgeoning home theater market. This fervor for home theater PCs was evident all over the show, but it mainly manifested itself in computer cases. This article goes over an extensive list of the products seen there."

7 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, no! by Barbara,+not+Barbie · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... one more remote for the men to play with ...

    I already count 7 remotes. TV, VCR, DVD, AC, Stereo, and a couple others that I don't even know what they're for. I know - I'm not supposed to know what they're for - its a "guy thing" ... right :-(.

    ... next, you'll be wanting a remote so you can turn me off instead of talking to ... *click*

    --
    Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
    1. Re:Oh, no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
      ... next, you'll be wanting a remote so you can turn me off instead of talking to ... *click*

      Ummm, most men want the remote to turn women ON. No off.

    2. Re:Oh, no! by Barbara,+not+Barbie · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ummm, most men want the remote to turn women ON. No off.

      ... not when you say "Can we talk?"

      ... and expecially when you say "We have to talk."

      Men definitely want an OFF button for that ... Its the women who wish men would find a way, any way (but not a remote, please - I saw that movie) to turn us ON.

      --
      Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
    3. Re:Oh, no! by IAAP · · Score: 2, Funny
      Ummm, most men want the remote to turn women ON. No off.

      But a mute button would be nice!

  2. Single component need for full realization by boy_afraid · · Score: 1, Funny

    The capture card. If someone can creater either a HDTV CableCard ready tuner or a non-CableCard Component Capture card then you will see HTPC blast into space in terms of consumer products and homebrewed projects.

    Right now we are limited to OTA* and Cable QAM256 unencrypted channels. I want to be able to record the Sopranos in HDTV quality and playback. So far, I think MythTV and the HD-3000 is the closes we can get without spending thousand to tens-of-thousands of dollars to accomplish what I want.

    But, believe it or not, I'm going to build my HTPC very very soon and not worry about the HDTV I can't get. There aren't that many HDTV channels to worth jumping through firey hoops to get the WAF* satisfied.

    * NOTE:
    OTA = Over-The-Air
    WAF = Wife Acceptance Factor

  3. Sure, this may be the year of the HTPC.... by QCompson · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...but next year will be the year of the linux desktop! (no, no, seriously this time)

  4. Uh, does anybody but me remember... by Jepler · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... the time when the mark of a real computer was that you couldn't hook it up to your TV, unlike your Commodore 64?