Asus DigiMatrix - The Pizza Box Form Factor
by Andrew Ku on February 11, 2004 1:41 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Software Interface, HDTV, and the Remote
The UI that Asus has chosen remains the same as their GeForce FX 5200 Personal Cinema card, which is why we point you back to that review if you are looking for a more thorough looksie. Back then, Asus used InterVideo's Home Theater 1.0. The version shipping with their Personal Cinema card doesn't seem to have changed, but the DigiMatrix comes with InterVideo's Home Theater version 1.2.|
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The only real difference in version 1.2 over 1.0 is that the controls on the bottom portion of the UI have been changed to have a lower profile, instead of an intrusive looking elliptical control panel.
Click to enlarge.
Because Asus' GeForce FX 5200 Personal Cinema doesn't have radio support, we were unable to test out the features of radio within the Home Theater's UI in our roundup. However, the DigiMatrix supports both FM and AM band radio frequencies, which provided us this option. Radio functions are similar to the TV interface, but there is obviously no way to know what is going to be played next on the station. Additionally, you can only view a limited list of stations at a time, so it's best that you use the keypad on the remote to get to the desired station.
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Asus has something like a "secondary OS," which they call the "Audio DJ." Basically, it is a program that is installed in Windows and can function as a limited OS that can play MP3 playlists, listen to AM/FM radio stations, and MP3/audio CD/DVDs.
The program is installed in a specific directory because the BIOS points to the directory, where the program can be booted into. The Audio DJ OS is coded by O2Micro, and it was originally intended so that notebooks could function in multimedia applications while power was off. The problem is that it still requires the CPU to function, which is why we are more inclined to say that MSI's HiFi mode implementation in their Mega PC's is preferred.
TV quality leaves us with a mixed sense of the DigiMatrix. Via Antenna, we got a rolling bar that distorted the quality of the TV signal, and ended up being a bit annoying for our recordings and general TV viewing. (Our AIW and other TV tuners didn't encounter this problem.) In cable mode, we didn't get this result, but instead, there was small horizontal distortion at the top of the screen. The antenna problem actually seemed to be a problem with hardware, while the problem with cable is a well known problem that is software related. We resolved this when we loaded up SnapStream's new Beyond TV 3. Even so, we have better TV quality with our AIW cards. It lacks a bit of the smoothness that we are used to.
We actually prefer SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 over InterVideo's Home Theater solution. Ironically, Home Theater costs about $100, while Beyond TV 3 runs at $59.99 and $69.99 (download and CD-ROM respectively). But it doesn't provide a way to collect pictures, videos, and interact with radio content.
Click to enlarge.
The remote for the DigiMatrix is fairly simple to comprehend, but lacks a certain tactile feedback to its buttons. Despite it being an infrared remote, the DigiMatrix seems to respond somewhat slowly to our controls. Additionally, the remote lacks any sort of a mouse pad, which would make it easier to control some of Home Theater's UI settings.
We ran HDTV via the VGA connector at 1080i, which seemed to function fine. We were unable to test out more features due to time, as our dongle for our projector was on backorder.
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mindless1 - Thursday, February 12, 2004 - link
LOL, it's just wastefull to design a box big enough for RAID 0+1, and MPEG2 certainly does not need (even) modern HDD performance levels.It was a nice review, but I'd have to disagree with one part- It is not desirable to decrease the size of the power supply. Make it too small and it's going to have high heat density, lower reserve capacity, and overall less quality in the design. It IS possible to use very high quality and more exotic parts to decrease size, at about 3X the cost.
I agree that it would be very nice if the remote had a touchpad on it, similar to that on a notebook.
One thing I wish Asus had done differently, is to find a way to make more of the front panel ports, or at least the DVD tray, accessible without opening that front hatch. I imagine my hatch would always stay open just so I didn't have to open/close for something as simple as loading a DVD.
Doormat - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
I've been looking at SFF/HTPC like boxes, but my biggest gripe is that they only have 1 or 2 spots for a hard drive. When I build a HTPC, I'd want more than 2 HD spaces (preferably 4 SATA connectors w/ bays). That prolly wont make it a SFF box, but a Tivo-size box could provide for that. The idea is that 4x200GB in RAID 0+1 would provide enough for recording TV in HD/SD MPEG-2 as well as ripping DVDs and storing them, plus other misc stuff. None of the products on the market can suit me and look nice...AlabamaEnigma - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
It's not a bad little box, but I prefer their new T2-P Deluxe. It has MOST of the features of the DigiMatrix, but uses the i865G chipset and has 8X AGP. It's also a lot cheaper.3Suns - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
It doesn't come with a hard drive, processor, or memory. It's a barebones system. And the 533 MHz refers to the FSB.for $400 I actually think it's kind of a bargain. Nice case with a volume knob and case buttons and an LCD, motherboard, video capture card, radio tuner, tv tuner, gigabit ethernet, wireless ethernet, DVD/CD-RW, separately powered MP3 player, 7-in-1 card reader...
I'm seriously considering putting together a sub-$1000 system and trying to get it running as a personal Linux fileserver/media station. Wish me luck!
ChemMan - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
I think by 533 Mhz they mean the fsb, not the clock speed of the processor.Jeff7181 - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
Am I reading this right?It doesn't come with a hard drive? Not even a tiny little 20 or 40 GB drive to get someone started using it as a Tivo type of thing? For $400 the least they can do is stick a little 20 GB 5400 RPM hard drive in there... sheesh.
Call me crazy, but shouldn't you be able to passively cool a 533 Mhz Pentium 4? I mean... a Pentium 4 @ 533 Mhz is probably creating what... 10-15 watts of heat? I was shocked to see what looks like a heatpipe and two large fans in there... looks like a very poor cooling design to me.