Shuttle XPC M1000 - HTPC Done Right?
by Jarred Walton on October 17, 2005 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Closing Thoughts
Reviewing a device like the M1000 is difficult, as there's far more to it than hardware performance and features. There are likely many people who will be absolutely satisfied with the capabilities of the M1000. If you want a great looking HTPC and you don't want to assemble the system yourself, this is the best offering that we've seen. The Pentium M processor provides for low heat and power requirements, the case is similar in size to most A/V equipment, and it has everything that you need from a single vendor. The roughly $2000 price is higher than even faster mid-range computers, but someone looking for a complete HTPC solution won't have many other options. The low power and heat design could easily be worth hundreds of dollars from an A/V perspective.
The problem is, someone looking for an expensive but capable HTPC probably has some other wants as well. HDTV compatibility is a major flaw in the design. Sure, you can watch DVDs without trouble, and you can even download movies from the Internet and watch them on your HTPC. The NVIDIA output, either through component or DVI to an HDTV, works great. The inability to record or view HDTV broadcasts on its own makes this, at best, a secondary A/V component for many people. If Shuttle could add cards with HDTV support as well as SDTV support in place of the current AverMedia cards, the HDTV recording would be better, but it still wouldn't be perfect. (We'd love to see a card with component-in connections, if someone would create such a card...)
In the end, there are several things holding back the HTPC market, and none of them are Shuttle's fault. The DMCA and similar legislation are definitely not helping the home user get the most out of their electronics. Content providers share the largest portion of the blame, as standards like cablecard were promised years ago and yet content providers are still "nervous". MPEG-2 compression would be far preferable to the MS format, but the potential for piracy is always cited as a reason for alternative formats. As a standalone device, the M1000 works well, but the shared video aspect had problems with streaming, and the video codec was less than ideal.
What we want in a fully-featured HTPC is the ability to record SD and HD content, and even better would be the compatibility with cable and satellite subscriptions. You can get all that for $10 a month from many providers, though other compromises are made in those systems. HDD size is never as large as what we would like, and networking support is generally omitted as well - likely to keep the content secured on the device. Shuttle has the right idea with the M1000 design, but unfortunately, it won't meet the demands of many Home Theater enthusiasts.
If there's anyone to fault for the problems with HTPCs, it's Hollywood, the MPAA, the RIAA, and the cable and satellite providers because while the ability to create our dream HTPC exists in theory, it can only be achieved with more cooperation among all of these parties. The hardware manufacturers would love to be able to sell new hardware that supports the necessary features, but those features are as yet undefined. This isn't the first or last time that we're likely to see casualties of the DMCA and content providers. Last we checked, CDs, DVDs, and movie theaters were all making money in spite of the "rampant piracy" occurring online. VCRs didn't kill off movie rentals or TV watching, CD and DVD burners haven't brought about the end of their respective markets, and there's little reason to think that HDTV and HTPCs would do any more than modify consumer patterns.
Reviewing a device like the M1000 is difficult, as there's far more to it than hardware performance and features. There are likely many people who will be absolutely satisfied with the capabilities of the M1000. If you want a great looking HTPC and you don't want to assemble the system yourself, this is the best offering that we've seen. The Pentium M processor provides for low heat and power requirements, the case is similar in size to most A/V equipment, and it has everything that you need from a single vendor. The roughly $2000 price is higher than even faster mid-range computers, but someone looking for a complete HTPC solution won't have many other options. The low power and heat design could easily be worth hundreds of dollars from an A/V perspective.
The problem is, someone looking for an expensive but capable HTPC probably has some other wants as well. HDTV compatibility is a major flaw in the design. Sure, you can watch DVDs without trouble, and you can even download movies from the Internet and watch them on your HTPC. The NVIDIA output, either through component or DVI to an HDTV, works great. The inability to record or view HDTV broadcasts on its own makes this, at best, a secondary A/V component for many people. If Shuttle could add cards with HDTV support as well as SDTV support in place of the current AverMedia cards, the HDTV recording would be better, but it still wouldn't be perfect. (We'd love to see a card with component-in connections, if someone would create such a card...)
In the end, there are several things holding back the HTPC market, and none of them are Shuttle's fault. The DMCA and similar legislation are definitely not helping the home user get the most out of their electronics. Content providers share the largest portion of the blame, as standards like cablecard were promised years ago and yet content providers are still "nervous". MPEG-2 compression would be far preferable to the MS format, but the potential for piracy is always cited as a reason for alternative formats. As a standalone device, the M1000 works well, but the shared video aspect had problems with streaming, and the video codec was less than ideal.
What we want in a fully-featured HTPC is the ability to record SD and HD content, and even better would be the compatibility with cable and satellite subscriptions. You can get all that for $10 a month from many providers, though other compromises are made in those systems. HDD size is never as large as what we would like, and networking support is generally omitted as well - likely to keep the content secured on the device. Shuttle has the right idea with the M1000 design, but unfortunately, it won't meet the demands of many Home Theater enthusiasts.
If there's anyone to fault for the problems with HTPCs, it's Hollywood, the MPAA, the RIAA, and the cable and satellite providers because while the ability to create our dream HTPC exists in theory, it can only be achieved with more cooperation among all of these parties. The hardware manufacturers would love to be able to sell new hardware that supports the necessary features, but those features are as yet undefined. This isn't the first or last time that we're likely to see casualties of the DMCA and content providers. Last we checked, CDs, DVDs, and movie theaters were all making money in spite of the "rampant piracy" occurring online. VCRs didn't kill off movie rentals or TV watching, CD and DVD burners haven't brought about the end of their respective markets, and there's little reason to think that HDTV and HTPCs would do any more than modify consumer patterns.
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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 factorit 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?)