Think HD-DVD is Going to Make a Comeback? Now There's an HTPC for You
Posted 03/16/09 at 05:21:55 PM by Andy Salisbury
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While HD-DVD fell to Blu-ray years ago, it looks like Kinetic is still looking to push an HTPC that supports the format.
Though, that may be a bit unfair. The Kinetic HD:Hub has a drive in it that supports not only HD-DVD, but Blu-ray as well (keep in mind though, if you’re looking to pick up some leftover HD-DVD movies at liquidation prices, you’ll actually have the means to watch them!). And under the hood of this beast you’ll find an Intel Core i7 processor, up to four TV tuners, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, and a creative X-Fi Titanium sound card.
No word yet on pricing or availability.
Image Credit: Kinetic
Digital Video Recorder :
Submitted by lokis on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:04pm
Digital Video Recorder : Digital Video Recorder
Submitted by alloyking on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 4:41am
I think it'sinteresting that they are using an off the shelf Antec case. It's a nice case and all.. I just would have expected something that I couldn't build myself
As for the CoreI7. Yeah it's overkill, unless you want to use this HPC as a gaming machine as well. Farcry2 on a sony 52" sounds cool.
isnt the format war over???
Submitted by mojosico on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 10:11pm
i really do not think this is worth bringing up hddvd didnt it lose to blue-ray?? Blue-ray is not really gaining that much traction anyways, and the format solution to replace disc's is already here . talk about beating a dead horse.
I think this thing will cost
Submitted by gatorXXX on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 5:17pm
I think this thing will cost most people 3 paychecks.
Wonder why they chose to go
Submitted by Peanut Fox on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 5:14pm
Wonder why they chose to go with an X-FI in a HTPC build.
Just curious what youd
Submitted by yogurt80 on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 7:38pm
Just curious what youd prefer instead of an x-fi. That's what I use in my HTPC, and I really like it. Just wondering what you'd have gone with and why.
Submitted by Peanut Fox on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 12:37am
There isn't anything wrong with an X-FI. It's just in an HTPC build most would choose a card better suited for music and movies. While an X-Fi Titanium will certainly get the job done, an Asus Xonar or HT Omega card would have been a better choice from an audio quality standpoint. In short why use a gamer card for a non gaming machine?
Can you really hear the
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 8:01am
Can you really hear the difference anymore between high end sound cards? I would go with the Xfi super high end sound card that has all the extra doo dads because it is an HTPC and I want the most support I can get.
Also the Xfi is like the only sound card that has it's own processor and uses dolby digital live for on the fly surround sound. Just what I want in an HTPC.
Also CoreI7 is not overkill. This CPU has to do the processing work for 4x TV cards as well as the OS and all the programs you'll be using for ripping movies and converting AVI movies to DVD or H264 and other formats. You will be happy you do have an core I7. Any other CPU would be too little.
Really I would think that everyone would be bitching about it not using a CoreI7 CPU if it didn't come with one. See this is proof that everyone will bitch about anything.
Lord Omega said it
Submitted by Raiju on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 3:41pm
This thing is way over-powered for what it is supposed to have been designed for. A HTPC should be low power which means less heat, which in turn leads to less cooling so it will not be so loud as to interfere with your movie watching. I use a power sipping AMD 4850E in the HTPC I built. With it's 45w power draw, a quality Zaleman cooler, and video and sound fed from the HDMI adapter on a ATI Radeon HD 4650 also with a fanless Zaleman heatsink, my box is whisper quiet. And it has a LG GBW-H20L so it can play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
Raijū (雷獣,"thunder animal" or "thunder beast") is a legendary creature
from Japanese mythology. Its body is composed of either lightning or
fire.
Submitted by Lord Omega on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 3:03pm
One word:
OVERKILL!!! You do not need a core i7 in that thing. Watching a blueray doesn't even use up 10%....
Submitted by mattyk1822 on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 12:35pm
sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever tried converting a 3 gig HDTV show (+8GB for 2hr movie) on something less than a quad core? Apparelently not.
TV tuners use some CPU cycles (although most have built in hardward mpg2 decoders), then there is processing the show for commercial skip (while the next show is recording), ripping/archiving dvd's, converting shows/movies for your ipod or for more reasonable file size...
Also, if you use an xbox or other media center extender, each one acts as another user connected to your pc with additional process running which can use up double digit cpu cycles when serving up HD content to my extenders even on my x4 9850.
Quite & efficient has its place, but HTPC's aren't just sitting there reading a Blu-ray disc. Guess I'm kind of annoyed at so many commenters "overkill" mentality, and even MaxPC with their how stripped down of hardward can you put into your livingroom... wrong, wrong wrong.
In fact, I would argue the opposite. Core i7 is overkill for gaming. The frame rate incrase you get going from a Core 2 to i7 doesn't even compare to the increase in fps you get when encoding content to h264!!!
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 8:34pm
it is a quad core with hyper threading and this will improve your movie ripping performance as well as the speed of ripping music.
These 4 tv cards use up cpu resources as well. TV cards usually rely on the CPU and sometimes the GPU for processing work.
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