Dune HD Pro Previewed

Dune HD has been quietly making some the best high-end media streamers for years, and this year at CES they are showing off what may well be their crowing achievement, the Dune HD Pro. Like many of their recent systems, the Dune HD Pro will be a modular system, allowing users to purchase the components they are interested in. The main module is the Universal Media Player powered by the Sigma Designs SMP8910. There is also an optional expansion chassis for a Blu-Ray drive and hot swappable hard drive bay, and the Media Server Gateway with four hot swappable hard drive bays and a 7" touch-screen LCD. Get your wallets ready if you're interested in buying into the whole set, though.

The main unit comes in at $1900, and I was told by the Dune rep that the rest of the pricing wasn't fully decided yet. At around $2000, it is difficult to justify the purchase of a media player for a majority of the consumers out there. Hopefully, a lower cost version (with just the SoC, couple of USB ports, wired Ethernet, SPDIF optical out and HDMI 1.4a output) will come out soon.

Anandtech