Shuttle XPC M1000 - HTPC Done Right?

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• LoneWolf15 - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  But non-Linux enthusiasts need not apply:
  
  http://www.pchdtv.com/">http://www.pchdtv.com/
  
  I did find one other card listed, but it appears to have a few limitations of its own and I've never heard of the vendor:
  
  http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/hdtv-cards.html">http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/hdtv-cards.html
  
  

• erwos - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  The issue is not that there are no HDTV cards out there. (You totally missed the ATI HDTV Wonder, BTW.)
  
  The issue is that there are no such cards with Cablecard support. You're limited to terrestial broadcast (ala VHF and UHF) and unencrypted cable (kinda rare) if you don't have Cablecard support.
  
  _No one_ has a tuner with Cablecard support atm.
  
  -Erwos

• noxipoo - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  I was hoping it was a barebone system that you can add components to yourself. oh well, maybe in the future.

• gibhunter - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  My Cox cable DVR has two HDTV tuners and didn't cost me a dime other than the $10/month fee. I can record two HD shows while watching a third one that's been recorded earlier and for movies that I get from the net, I just throw them on a DVD and play them back in my DivX compatible Philips DVD.
  
  For $2000, this thing is a ripoff. It still would be a ripoff for $1000 when you can get one from Gateway for $500. Besides, without HiDef support, this box is obsolete already.

• glennpratt - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  We'll see, here's the deal. That box does one thing. This is a complete computer. MCE actually supports up to four tuners (two SD, two HD), supports extenders and doesn't tie you in to your cable provider. Heck, you could uninstall MCE and install mythTV or whatever you wanted. You pay to have control.
  
  Now sure, this box is expensive, but it's the high end. You can get in a decent MCE box for $400 and you get to keep it (incuding everything recorded on it) when you stop paying the cable company.

• erwos - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  I'm genuinely surprised they used a P-M. Seems like a Celeron M would be a much better fit for this sort of computer (don't need as many speed settings - just "high" and "low", really). With a decent hardware encoder, CPU load should _not_ be a problem.
  
  The lack of HDTV was a total letdown, although it's somewhat unfair to complain to Shuttle about lack of Cablecard support. Looks like "build your own" is still the method of choice for building HTPC boxes...
  
  Does WinMCE have any support for direct Firewire grabs off cable boxes?
  
  -Erwos

• BigLan - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  Actually, cpu horsepower still plays a part in htpc. MCE (and most other PVR software) can recompress recorded shows to .wmv files which are about 20% of the size of the original. This is probably why the autoGK tests were in the review. There's also add-ins to MCE to automatically remove ad breaks, which takes a lot of processing.
  
  MCE has some support for FW capture, but is limited to certain boxes (one motorola series I think.)
  
  This box would be very nice with a 500GB drive, a true dual tuner like the Hauppauge PVR-500 and a HDTV PCI card.
  
  

• erwos - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  I was trying to imply that the Celeron M could handle such duties. It benchmarks extremely well.
  
  -Erwos

• psychobriggsy - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  That is a hefty price ($2000) to pay for a component.
  
  However it does have the correct form-factor (at last). It'd be nice to see one using a Turion as well.
  
  The 'standby' power is simply disgusting however. The point of standby is to merely wait for a reactivate signal whilst dropping power consumption down to nothing.
  
  Some TVs exhibit the same problem however. They keep the tube warm for fast activation - thereby using lots and lots of power! So that feature you never care about can cost you a lot of money - it's best to turn off completely.
  
  The consumer expectation of standby is 'Uses a tiny amount of power for a little convenience'. It certainly isn't 'Uses £50 of power a year even if you rarely use it'. Sure, £50 is nothing compared to the $2000 cost of this device, but for that price you expect the device to bend over backwards to not have high running costs.

• xsilver - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link

  I think the BIGGEST selling point of this pc is the form factor
  it looks smaller than anything else available
  obviously with that you pay a price
  
  and with power, if its not doing much all day, why not set it to S3 suspend after 5 mins of inactivity like a laptop does.... if they developed reactivation from S3 suspend to be much faster (about 2-3 sec) then I think it will be all good (is this one of the features touted in vista?)