An important feature on a media center PC or home theater PC (HTPC) should be that it's quiet. Hard drive and fan noise is a totally different experience when your PC is in your living room or bedroom. NEC just introduced an all-in-one media center that is water cooled, to exclude the need for noisy fans. Going for a liquid cooled solution doesn't necessarily mean it's totally quiet; you still need a little engine to move the liquid around. But generally speaking it's as good as (...) read more
On this years IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Loewe introduces the Connect Series televisions. There will be three models of the HDTV in sizes between 32 en 42 inches. But that's not what makes the Connect Series cool and new. Loewe wants to change the TV into an intelligent, networked media center. Each display includes a built-in network media player, integrated HD tuner, a USB port for digital cameras or mp3 players, Ethernet / WiFi modules and optionally an HDD recorder to record (...) read more
Today Sony announced playTV, a combination of a TV tuner and a personal video recorder (PVR) for the PlayStation 3. Apart from the fact that it's a great marketing strategy from Sony, it really bundles the separate strengths of the Sony products for multimedia entertainment. The playTV box features two TV tuners (HD ready) and connects to the PS3 which will act as a standard PVR with an electronic program guide and time shifting. It uses the harddrive of the PS3 to record television. So far, (...) read more
From Google
If the earlier discussed mirror bathroom television is a bit too expensive or complicated for you, this waterproof bathroom monitor might be a good alternative. ChinaVasion sells it for around $ 240,-. It's an 8 inch LCD screen with a resolution of 640 x 480, built-in speakers and has all the inputs you may need to hook it up to your media center station or other media devices. Looks like another great secondary screen for a home media (...) read more
A modern home media center no longer exists of only one dedicated computer in the living room, but is a network of several stations located in the house. One station can be used as an engine (server) that connects a television signal and has plenty of disk space for music and movies. The other stations connect to this engine over a wireless network and can stream any television signal, DVD, music and other media. Fiire has developed a medium-performance PC that's tailor made to work as a (...) read more
