[jkaiser]

HP moves into your living room

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews...13_103530.html


"The two models of the Digital Entertainment Center will be available this month. The z540, with a single TV Tuner and 160GB hard drive, will have an MSRP of $1499. The z545-b, with two tuners, 200GB hard drive, 160GB Personal Media Drive will be $1999. Each Extender unit will be $299."


All kind of pricey, but if you don't want to build it yourself, you're gonna pay.

 

[weldon]

I really like the looks of the case. Kinda reminds me of the Gateway FMC-901, only in black. Sometimes I wish you could just buy the case from these guys. I wonder if it would work out to buy the low-end version and then buy two ATI HDTV cards to replace the analog tuner.

 

[almostinsane]

the case looks outstanding!

 

[big boi]

Quote:

Originally posted by weldon I really like the looks of the case. Kinda reminds me of the Gateway FMC-901, only in black. Sometimes I wish you could just buy the case from these guys. I wonder if it would work out to buy the low-end version and then buy two ATI HDTV cards to replace the analog tuner.

kind of defeats the purpose of buying a prebuilt unit doesn't it? they are probably not going to support hardware that you don't order from them so you're troublehooting on your own . . . . just like you would if you build your own htpc from scratch . . . . except you paid a lot more for it. doesn't make sense to me.

 

[weldon]

I think the case can close some of the price gap. I priced out a very nice system (ASUS P4C800-E, 2.8GHz P4, 9600SE, 512MB, 120GB, Antec case, Logitech MX Duo, M-Audio, DVD, IR, XP Pro) and it came out to about $1200. That didn't include an LCD display, removable hard drive bay, media card bay, analog tuner, or remote control. Granted, the system would be a lot more capable if I built it (better components, overclocking, memory timings, etc.). Still, for $200-300 more, I'm tempted to get the cool case, remote, a tuner, media card bay, etc.


I haven't seen the specs for the HP though. I'll reserve judgement until I know what you would get for your $1500 or $2000 (MSRP).

 

[mike__drop]

I wonder if there will be an empty slot to add an HD card ? I would have to suspect there would be a free slot, but I haven't seen any pictures of the back yet.

 

[weldon]

Quote:

Originally posted by mike__drop I wonder if there will be an empty slot to add an HD card ? I would have to suspect there would be a free slot, but I haven't seen any pictures of the back yet.

Looks like we're out of luck.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/pr.../z500_back.jpg


The back of the unit makes it look like you really can't expand the system at all. Everything appears to be connected to a custom header/connector plate. I wonder if I could find an empty case for a FMC-901?


However, I did read that HP plans to release an HD version in the first half of 2005. You can see the quote for yourself in HP's press release (PDF file).

 

[weldon]

Here's the specs. I like that dual-layer DVD-RW, 360GB storage, wireless, gig-e, and FM tuner are included.


HP z545-b Digital Entertainment Center specifications

• Black, brushed-aluminum case with media information display

• Wireless (1) entertainment keyboard with integrated trackball mouse

• Dual NTSC TV tuners with pause, review, and two-channel programmable record capabilities

• 14-day programming guide for use with Personal Video Recorder; downloadable at no charge with broadband Internet connection

• DVI-D, component video, VGA, S-video and composite video output jacks

• Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound support; Analog 7.1 pre-amp surround sound support; Supports playback of MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV and PCM music files; Supports playback of audio CDs and DVD-video

• Supplied cables include one power cable; one DVI-D video cable; one Svideo cable; one left/right RCA audio; two infrared blasters to control settop boxes; two RF coaxial video and one coaxial video splitter

• 200GB 7200rpm Serial ATA hard drive (8)

• 160GB 7200rpm HP Personal Media Drive (included)

• 16x double-layer (8) DVD±R/RW recordable drive

• Progressive Scan DVD movie playback at 480p (10)

• ATI RADEON X300 SE PCI-Express graphics card

• 802.11g wireless (1) receiver

• 10/100/1000 Base-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45)

• FM tuner with pause and replay capabilities

• Intel Pentium 4 530 (11) with HT Technology(12)

• Intel 915P Express chipset

• 512MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM; System memory expandable to 2GB

• Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system

• Estimated U.S. retail price of $1,999 (13)

 

[NorthJersey]

Quote:

• Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound support; Analog 7.1 pre-amp surround sound support; Supports playback of MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV and PCM music files; Supports playback of audio CDs and DVD-video

with this setup, will games with DD5.1 be able to play out of the SPDIF output, or only over the analog 7.1 connections to a receiver? My receiver doesn't have analog x.1 connections, only optical and digital coax.

 

[NorthJersey]

 http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/pr...ch/ds_z545.pdf


pdf for that unit

 

[weldon]

Quote:

Originally posted by NorthJersey with this setup, will games with DD5.1 be able to play out of the SPDIF output, or only over the analog 7.1 connections to a receiver? My receiver doesn't have analog x.1 connections, only optical and digital coax.

The box is based on the Intel 915 chipset which includes Intel HD Audio support. This chipset supports SPDIF passthrough as well as Dolby Digital Live (realtime DD) encoding. You should be absolutely fine to passthrough DD from DVD as well as encode DD in realtime from games and such.

 

[NorthJersey]

sweet, that's great news. Now the question, with my cable company to make available their HD DVR by next month, should I buy the dual analog tuner HP or wait until next year to get the one with the HD tuner ? I might bite the bullet and just get the dual analog.

 

[weldon]

Depends what you want to do with it, I guess. It's likely that the HD version from HP will use the ATI card and only support OTA broadcasts. You'll likely need the HD DVR from the cable company to record anything from cable.


The long answer is that there are two HDTV tuners that support unencrypted QAM over cable, but these don't work with MCE 2005 at the moment. Usually, the cable companies send the locals in HD unencrypted, but everything else is encrypted.

 

[NorthJersey]

so If I picked up the dual analog tuner HP, I guess I would just split the cable in, like I currently do for my VCR, and feed that to the analog in tuner on the HP.

Would I be able have the other tuner connected to the cable box ?

 

[cmcjo]

VCR?

I didn't know people still use them


Do you have Cablevision in NJ? I have been waiting for info on that DVR.

 

[NorthJersey]

yes, Joe, in fact I'm in Totowa also. I've heard anywhere between end of October to end of November for the HD DVR, but with Cablevision you never know.

 

[cmcjo]

That is Good news.


I am going to try to get either an already built MCE 2005 machine or build my own. Either way this OS looks very nice.

 

[edmc]

Given the 915P chipset and the 4 USB-2 connectors on the back, you might consider the Sasem OnAir USB-2 SD/HD/QAM solution. It's an external box which plugs in to one of those handy UBS-2 connectors . Of course Sasem (and Microsoft) would need to support it (i.e. with BDA drivers)...

 

[NorthJersey]

looks interesting. Do you have experience using this Sasem device in MCE 2004 ? Does it work well ?

 

[edmc]

> Do you have experience using this Sasem device in MCE 2004 ?


I, unfortunately, have no experience with MCE (any version) at all.


I'd contact Sasem for what's supported.


I do, however, use the Sasem box regularly for both SD and HD (QAM) on my Comcast otherwise "Basic Analog" Cable Feed. Yes, the HD Digitals are carried on the Basic Analog Comcast connection . I'm just using Sasem's stand-along GUI app, unfortunately.