When I’m building a dedicated XBMC box, I often turn to the “embeddded” OpenELEC distro because of its drop-dead simple installation process and just-works feature set. And now with XBMC 12 is out, bringing a modern audio pipeline and Live TV to the platform, it’s a great time to upgrade or check out the HTPC software. If you need a […]
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If the Arc Midi R2‘s transparent side panel was a little to flashy, or the price a bit too steep you might want to check out Fractal Design’s Core 3000. It has many of the same features like dust filters and oodles of space for about $35 less. I’ve been putting off replacing my aging Lian Li tower chassis […]
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When Microsoft disabled optical disc drives for media players, I was wondering where applications like TotalMedia Theatre would go – after all, if you’re not shipping a new product every so often it’s difficult to keep the fresh stream of revenue required to keep making bug fixes and adding support for new “protection” schemes. I wasn’t able to see this […]
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While we saw a bunch of great stuff from SilverStone at CES, one thing they didn’t bring along with them was a chassis solution for Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC). SilverStone just unveiled a prototype to show there is something in the works. By the looks of it, the enclosure sports a passive design with heatsink fins on the […]
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We’ve looked a few of Fractal Design’s full sized (server) chassis and always come away impressed with the build quality, layout, and oodles of space for components and storage. There’s always room for improvement so it’s not surprising that every so often another enclosure joins the mix adding more features. Arc Midi R2 which offers a flexible hard drive configuration […]
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Before I bought my first Intel branded motherboard, a DG45ID, I never understood why anyone would want to pay more for one of their (at that time) homely BIOS’d systems. After owning it, and a slew of subsequent boards, going back to a top-tier Taiwanese brand will be more than a little depressing when Intel stops making consumer motherboards after […]
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A few weeks ago Ganesh did an excellent writup of an IVB build in a passive Streacom chassis, today he’s back with a look at how Windows 7 and Windows 8 perform on that system. It’s a great read, and I have to admit to being a little surprised by the numbers, but I also wish the piece included factors […]
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Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you know that SiliconDust is working on some really slick new features for their HDHR lineup, bringing TV to DLNA devices. We’ll have to wait until the new tuners arrive with hardware H.264 encoding, but if you have a PRIME and want to check ou the DLNA features now with a MPEG2 capable […]
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I liked Ceton’s Companion Apps for Windows Media Center enough to buy it twice (Android & Windows Phone). Now it looks like I’ll need to reach into my wallet again to pony up for the Windows 8 “Metro” version which just launched. All the apps are $4.99 and available at their respective stores. You will need to search for the […]
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If you want the biggest, brightest LCD that money can buy Sharp has just the thing for you. There are a few lines to choose a 60, 70, 80 or 90″ display from, but don’t expect them to top competative models from other vendors in metrics like picture quality – especially in the 70″+ sizes because as you know, unless […]
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