Re: [OT] some B... B.... Bargains!...

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxx>]

From: "Kenneth Watt" <kwatt@xxxxxxx>
> > Pcchips Book PC-ll Barebone System SKT 370 52x Cd-Rom/5.1
Sound/Video/56k
> > V.90 Modem/LAN TV-Out
> > £59.99 (ex VAT)
> > £70.49 (inc VAT)
>
> Okay, I'll ask it first then...
>
> Is that competition for the X-Box?
>
> K.

Not any more than an epia-M series Mini-itx board, imo. I'm keen on these
little book PCs (I use epia+cubid PC systems whenever I can now!), but I
don't think that they make good home theatre devices.

Bear in mind, I am a massive fan of PC games, and have a complete downer on
consoles generally, but:

1) TV out quality on these PCs are not great. The Epia boards are some of
the best TV out devices I have seen (except for the ATi All-in-wonder
series) and even they seem a little too "shimmery" for my liking.
The colour
also seems a bit flat and lifeless. The issue seems to be that a dedicated
MPEG output card like the Sigma Designs X-Card (currently the board of
choice for mini-itx devotees ;) ) produces good quality video, but the
desktop stinks, whereas the onboard video is not too bad on the desktop,
but
for "real" video, *it* stinks... :(

2) Windows as an OS means yeck, crash, wallop :  My Tivo has crashed twice
since installed, both times when I have been doing "hacky" stuff
on the box.
In contrast, my HTPC, crashes routinely when sitting idle for a long period
of time, or when playing certain DVDs.  I would be interested to see if
Freevo fared better, but I haven't seen it in action yet, so I can't really
comment.

3) Control? Even with a redrat, UIRT or SomeOtherIRInterface(tm) the
control
of an HTPC is never quite as slick as a commercial DVD player, or the Tivo
benchmark. I have struggled to find a solid IR remote control method that's
even close to the reliability of a TV remote. The best so far is probably
the RemoteManager software, which is pretty good, apart from interfering
with the normal keyboard function (it traps and maps certain keys to the
dvd
player software)

I spent quite a bit of time and effort with snapstream and showshif(t?)ter
trying to build a reliable PC-based PVR... and Tivo batters the best PC
effort into a little silly hat without a slight hesitation.

I suspect that when it comes to usability, (and more to the point,
unskilled, non-ha aware usability) The main appeal of the XBox as a
solution
is it's appliance-like nature. Certainly, when thinking about a purchase, I
am looking more for a dvd-player-like experience than a pc-like experience
>from

I.