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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jamawass - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
In all fairness this is not limited to the Shuttle/ Win XP MCE. I had the same problem with the PVR cable box from TimeWarner Cable. The game lasted about 4 hrs and the tivo only recorded 3 1/2 hrs that was on the schedule so I missed the "fake spike" play too as I couldn't watch the game live. Poor software programming as TitanTV doesn't do that with my winfast pvr card on my pc.
dr_wily - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
"watts measured at outlet"how is that accomplished?
JarredWalton - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
"Kill A Watt" device plugged into the outlet, with the M1000 plugged into that. The Kill A Watt is what most of us use for power testing. You can get them online for about $40 I think.agent2099 - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
I'm suprised Shuttle did not use HDTV Tuners. That would make a device like this actually make sense.I was sure they would use something like 2 AVERTVHD MCE A180 Tuners instead of 2 analogue tuners.
glennpratt - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
What they should do is make one for Turion with the nVidia 6150 and use three PCI ports. One dual tuner NVTV and two HD AverMedia M180'sBigLan - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
MCE reuires that there is at least 1 SDTV tuner before you can adda HDTV tuner (don't ask me why though!.) At least with the newly-announced Fusion USB HDTV tuner you could add to this box.agent2099 - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
In that case it should use one SD tuner and one HD Tuner.Kishkumen - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
Having another black box sitting on top of a DVD player, sitting on top of your receiver, sitting on top of xyz single function device seems so old fashioned to me. I don't see an appliance such as this really having a place in my future home theater. The way I see it, the backend needs to be little more than a massive storage server placed out of sight like a basement with a terminal interface that contains tuners for all your inputs, over the air, cable, satellite, etc. The heavy lifting would be done by the remote frontends. The computers driving the frontends should not be seen as well and they should be capable of handling HDTV resoluations and all audio duties. I can see this being feasible with Apple's Mac Minis at some point very soon. Velcro the suckers to the back of a flat panel and you've got a very clean looking setup. In such a setup, you would have a Mac Mini driving your largest flat panel for your Home Theater, one in your kitchen, one in your bedroom and so on, each sharing the large repository of resources in your basement. I've achieved this to a certain degree using MythTV. I have a regular Shuttle XPC doing the gruntwork for my home theater, an actual Mac Mini driving a display in my kitchen (although it's underpowered for HDTV), an older Athlon XP in my bedroom and my study computer doubling as a remote frontend as well. Not perfect, but I'll get there. Oh yeah, and Windoze zombies need not apply.glennpratt - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
You do realize this plays DVD's so you don't need a DVD player? Ever seen MCE Extenders? Everything you discuss is possible with extenders (and there cheaper then a Mac mini). Put a nice MCE box in the basement, extenders on the displays. HD extenders aren't out yet, but the Xbox 360 is coming in Nov. 22 and includes an HD capable MCE Extender (and it's cheaper then a Mac Mini in both forms).This thing does support HDTV, it just doesn't officially support HDTV from cable providers (which noone does). In fact it supports two SD tuners and two HD tuners for a total of 4 tuners.
It WILL however, change channels and record SD and HDTV from the firewire out on many popular cable and DirecTV boxes with firewire using a free plugin.
Windoze... what's that?
JarredWalton - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
Technically, MCE supports HDTV tuners, but the M1000 as shipped only has two PCI slots and they're filled with SD tuners already.