Mmmmmm Droool
- Thread starter Dave Baumann
- Start date
if it was, say, a third as tall, it'd be sexy.
I don't know, but I'm really sold on the idea of media center PC's, especially ones that look like they could integrate with the hi-fi somewhat. I'm just kinda peeved that the Media Center software/os is OEM only, so you can only get it with prebuilt kit (with certain certified parts). I'm wondering if it would be possible to buy the low end version of this and upgrade the CPU and graphics after.
API, API, API!
That's what's needed, this is what really bugs me about the Windows world. It's so hard to get companies to see things and be on the same page, they're so interested in charging for everything they rarely go for "adding value". Excuse the jargon there. I remember way back when I had an All in wonder rage pro and my brother and I were interested in remoting it up. The only issue was getting a decent remote and so on. MS had released what seemed to be a crappy API for IR ports and shit all was done with it on any companies part. There is so little focus given to these interfaces. Things could be made so much better if simple interfaces were more pervasive in windows. Of course .Net will fix it, even though it could have happened sooo much sooner. Then of course there is the open sores... erm... open source world were it's either 100s of groups rehashing the same thing over and over or it's companies like Crap in a Hat erm.... Red Hat, SuSe, Lindows all after proprieterizing rather than thinking more along the lines of United Linux. I suppose that's all due to the fact that service contracts aren't enough to survive on.
*curse*
Excuse the ranting, I feel better and I'm fairly certain I'm not on my own.
It'd be nice if the open source movement could actually bring about a community which cared about features went around made nice interfaces and drivers for lots of things with plenty of support for languages and TKs that let you develop apps really fast came along and bitch slapped everyone.
Take a current open operating system, get rid of the "crap", start over the things that need to be started over and then go nuts building up something which provides lots of wonderful interfaces. I messed around with Linux a whole bunch recently, then just about puked -- boy it's ass. Went over to bsd and it's much nicer, there are still some serious issues, things just don't seem centralised enough, besides I usually have to end up using command line and command line is retarded -- except the speed.
That's what's needed, this is what really bugs me about the Windows world. It's so hard to get companies to see things and be on the same page, they're so interested in charging for everything they rarely go for "adding value". Excuse the jargon there. I remember way back when I had an All in wonder rage pro and my brother and I were interested in remoting it up. The only issue was getting a decent remote and so on. MS had released what seemed to be a crappy API for IR ports and shit all was done with it on any companies part. There is so little focus given to these interfaces. Things could be made so much better if simple interfaces were more pervasive in windows. Of course .Net will fix it, even though it could have happened sooo much sooner. Then of course there is the open sores... erm... open source world were it's either 100s of groups rehashing the same thing over and over or it's companies like Crap in a Hat erm.... Red Hat, SuSe, Lindows all after proprieterizing rather than thinking more along the lines of United Linux. I suppose that's all due to the fact that service contracts aren't enough to survive on.
*curse*
Excuse the ranting, I feel better and I'm fairly certain I'm not on my own.
It'd be nice if the open source movement could actually bring about a community which cared about features went around made nice interfaces and drivers for lots of things with plenty of support for languages and TKs that let you develop apps really fast came along and bitch slapped everyone.
Take a current open operating system, get rid of the "crap", start over the things that need to be started over and then go nuts building up something which provides lots of wonderful interfaces. I messed around with Linux a whole bunch recently, then just about puked -- boy it's ass. Went over to bsd and it's much nicer, there are still some serious issues, things just don't seem centralised enough, besides I usually have to end up using command line and command line is retarded -- except the speed.
Uh, Dave? They have those. They're called hacked TiVos. So they don't play games... oh well. Not like it matters. I am utterly revolted by the idea of the whole PC in the media center. I want a piece of hardware to do one very specific set of tasks and I want it to do it very, very well. I don't want it to do seventy things half-assedly--if I want it to play music, I want it to play every music file in existence on my PC's drive through WiFi, in addition to the usual CD, DVD-Audio, and SACD support. That would be nice. If I want it to record a show off of the satellite, I want it to record a show off the satellite, not record a show at the same time it's playing music and running God knows how much other crap. If I want to play games on the TV, I'll get one of those machines, install WinXP Pro, put some high-end video card in it, and just use S-Video out until the cows come home--but that would be it. No fancy-schmancy "Media Center PC" crap, just what I would normally use my PC for.
Maybe it's just the fact that I've grown up in a Linux environment. The whole bloatware approach that MS and a lot of corporations have with regards to operating systems and what they encompass really disgusts me. An OS is not the software that runs on top of the OS. You don't have a Media Center Operating System, you have a robust operating system with an additional extremely flexible media-centric layer. That ain't WinXP Media Center.
But, I'm ranting. So I'll finish. If you want a Media Center Thingy, just get a PC with a nice looking case (or better yet, strip out some old AV components and make yourself a case
) and a good TV card. I STILL fail to see why we need some sort of Uber Media Center PC. It's a tool without a purpose. Sure, as a budget thing? Decent. But it's decent as in one of those all-in-one surround systems, not anything remotely high-end.
Plus, PC sound cards suck unless you spend a lot. So really, what's the point? Despite all the hype, nobody's been able to give me a good reason to have a PC next to your TV and audio stuff. So it's either:
1. a "glorified" TiVo (yeah, right, give me TiVo any day--it doesn't crash. ever.)
2. a glorified CD player
3. a glorified DVD player
4. a glorified gaming computer, but probably not a great one due to heat and noise requirements
So, I reiterate--what's the point?
Maybe it's just the fact that I've grown up in a Linux environment. The whole bloatware approach that MS and a lot of corporations have with regards to operating systems and what they encompass really disgusts me. An OS is not the software that runs on top of the OS. You don't have a Media Center Operating System, you have a robust operating system with an additional extremely flexible media-centric layer. That ain't WinXP Media Center.
But, I'm ranting. So I'll finish. If you want a Media Center Thingy, just get a PC with a nice looking case (or better yet, strip out some old AV components and make yourself a case
) and a good TV card. I STILL fail to see why we need some sort of Uber Media Center PC. It's a tool without a purpose. Sure, as a budget thing? Decent. But it's decent as in one of those all-in-one surround systems, not anything remotely high-end.Plus, PC sound cards suck unless you spend a lot. So really, what's the point? Despite all the hype, nobody's been able to give me a good reason to have a PC next to your TV and audio stuff. So it's either:
1. a "glorified" TiVo (yeah, right, give me TiVo any day--it doesn't crash. ever.)
2. a glorified CD player
3. a glorified DVD player
4. a glorified gaming computer, but probably not a great one due to heat and noise requirements
So, I reiterate--what's the point?
I want to be able to do those million things at once. I want to listen to music, not worry about loading cds, at the same time I want it recording a show I wish to watch at some point in the future and all the while I want to be able read a book, have tea and kick back and relax on my couch. I actually don't like the idea of going to my computer all that much.
That's why we need smarter appliances that you can control via a web-based interface and WiFi. As soon as I decide to open up the damn TiVo, I'll be able to set it to record from anywhere on the planet via a web interface. I'll be able to FTP to it, for Chrissakes. That's what we need--networked appliances, with the computer as the hub. We don't need HAL 9000 next to the TV.Saem said:
MuFu said:Gimme one of these anytime.
Is that a Media Center PC MuFu
Tahir said:
Thats the problem with Media Center - you can't do that and get the sotware. MS have some rather strict rules on certian things, such as the amount of CPU usage video encoding takes, and so the software is only available to OEM's that select from certain hardware. You might be able to get away with swapping various parts out of it though.
The Baron said:
Oh, I'm not, I've very interested in the idea. I have a TiVo (which is the most bland and faceless box on the Hi-Fi rack) I have a DVD player, I have a video, I have a CD Player, I have a digital AMP - I quite like the idea of kncking all this down to two boxes. Stick a Radeon 9800 PR/XT in there and you have a console thats far more powerful than an XBox as well. Add to this the fact that, as the media center would be on all the time, this could be a file and media server as well (by adding a Wi-Fi network card) and it solves quite a few uses for me.
I have to agree with Dave on this Baron, if you are careful PC's hardly ever crash anymore either. My computer has only crashed once in the last 2 months and that doesn't seem to be a big deal to me. And my computer has all kinds of BS I don't need installed, if you keep it free of all that crap it usually ends up being extremely stable especially if one uses windows2k (I use windowsXP though [cause I got it for $5.00])
I like the Wi-Fi idea, but Wi-Fi alone doesn't make it a Killer Thing. Now, if there were a wireless spec that allowed ultrafast communication over short distances, so you could replace some digital connections, that's be one thing, but at the end of the day, you'll be hard pressed to replicate the sound of high-end audio stuff from a computer. A shame, really. If I could magically combine a TiVo, an Xbox, an SACD player, and a DVD-Audio player without making any compromises, I'd do it in a second. But we're not there yet. And, to be honest, I don't think a normal PC is the way to do it. PS3... now that might be another story.DaveBaumann said:
DaveBaumann said:MuFu said:Gimme one of these anytime.
Is that a Media Center PC MuFu.
No, it's just a "barebones" HTPC case with fancy drive facings and a VFD. This fits in with what you were saying about Windows MCE being bundle-only though. If it were available separately, I'm sure quite a lot of people would adopt it as the basis for an HTPC. You can currently get things about as user-friendly as MCE under XP/2k (while incorporating far more functionality) using freeware such as myHTPC, Girder etc, but it involves a alot of work.
I recently sold my HTPC, sadly. Had it doing a hell of a lot of stuff by that time: ftp/LAN fileserving, DC Hub hosting, NAT routing, DVD/CD playback, scaling of an external source, TIVO, Genome crunching etc; all sitting behind a swanky myHTPC interface controlled by an ATi Remote Wonder and plonked under the TV in our lounge. I've bought a DigiTV card since then and wish I could have thrown that in as well. Awesome piece of kit.
MuFu.
It would be nice to be able to get a HTPC setup in one of these:
http://www.hushtechnologies.com/
Totally silent yet still with decent performance and very good looks. I expect the cost would be exhorbitant though!
Edit:
Yep - I've just checked and a well-specced machine from them would cost over 2000 Euros!.
http://www.hushtechnologies.com/
Totally silent yet still with decent performance and very good looks. I expect the cost would be exhorbitant though!
Edit:
Yep - I've just checked and a well-specced machine from them would cost over 2000 Euros!.
The Baron said:
No, it makes it very useful for numerous applications that I would want to put it to.
The Baron said:
Well, there's always Bluetooth - many wireless keyboards and mice are bluetooth these days.
The Baron said:
There's a gap opening between "real" high end audio and and consumer high end audio and that because real high end audio is analogue, whereas many sources these days are moving to digital. All the the sources you list (which can be done on the PC now, or will soon) are digital sources and if you pas the digital signal out then you are free to decode that as you please. Your main concern as far as the PC is concerned is probably the transport quality, but then thats not too important in comparison to th quality of your DAC which is external anyway.
MuFu said:
I'm quite interested in seeing what the PAL version of ATI's new Theater 313 chip can do. I'm hopinh we'll see A-I-W's based on this at some point that are capable of decoding DTV as well.
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