Looking for a cheap OpenELEC or HTPC streamer? You could do worse than a Braswell (Atom) based system, and Zotac just announced two new boxes, in two different formats. These new systems use Intel’s Atom N3150 SoC, part of the Braswell family of products. The N3150 contains four low-power CPU cores, rated with a max TDP of 6 W, operating […]
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We’ve been waiting for the SiliconDust HDHR4-2DT network attached DVB-T2 tuner for a couple years now. In the meantime, anyone leveraging the UK’s digital terrestrial television networks have had to make an unwelcome choice between pretending HD content doesn’t exist, or living without the inherent flexibility of an Ethernet enabled TV tuner. With the £100 device finally hitting shelves, it […]
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Control is a critical aspect of managing a home theater PC (HTPC). Without a solid solution, there is no way to confidently hand it to the rest of the family and expect it to work. For many the solution is simple; even as Windows Media Center has declined the ecosystem it created for external RC-6 infrared (IR) receivers continues to […]
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I have to admit to being struck a bit speechless by the scope of the HDHomeRun DVR project here are some highlights, but frankly there’s so much awesome that it’s probably best to check out the Kickstarter page for the full scoop. Will supprot projected CableCARD content Backends for Windows, Mac, Linux, WD MyCloud NAS, & QNAP NAS Clients for […]
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The Intel Compute Stick caused quite a stir when it was announced at CES 2015, and it’s easy to see why – Intel managed to stuff an entire Atom based PC into an HDMI dongle. The STCK1A32WFC model includes an Intel Atom Z3735F processor, 2GB of DDR3L RAM, 32GB of storage, 802.11bgn Wi-Fi (Realtek RTL8723BS), and Bluetooth 4.0 built-in for […]
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When it comes to sleek small form factor (SFF) home theater PCs (HTPC) Intel pretty much perfected it with their Haswell based NUC systems–offering an excellent media experience in a chassis with built-in IR, the potential to add HDMI-CEC, and optional hard disk drive (HDD) all from a quiet, low power system. Seeking to build on this success they recently […]
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We met with the folks at Silicon Dust during our week at International CES 2015, and among the things we talked about were the antennas they were using to pull in a signal. They are manufactured in the USA by HD Frequency. While we were not able to meet in person with them at CES, we did get a […]
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Intel is moving hard into small, low power devices and that was evident in what they were showing at CES this year. We started out with tablets, but the really interesting stuff started when the new Broadwell NUC came out. First we saw a demo of it running an incredibly slick picture/video manager that used to require a quad-SLI system […]
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We get a lot of PR for Kickstarter campaigns, and I can’t remember ever posting one here on the site. I am prepared to make an exception for the Inteset PC-IRS5-01 because it could fill the HTPC CIR gap created when Intel left the retail motherboard market. There are several backing levels starting at $39 which, TBH is a bit […]
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There are many different types of home theater PC (HTPC) enclosures; with most falling somewhere in the spectrum between a throw-everything-including-a-big-O’-GPU-in-the-box and the small-silent-discrete varieties. Supporting only Thin-ITX motherboards the $160 Perfect Home Theater (PHT) T-ITX-6 is firmly located in the latter category. That’s not to say that expansion is strictly limited to just an optical disc drive (ODD) however, […]
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