The NVIDIA Shield TV pretty much killed my interest in the Windows x86 DIY HTPC. It just does everything I want it to do, better. But, I can respect that change is hard, and there are still uses cases for a SFF x86 HTPC in the stack. For those, this new NUC from Intel looks pretty nice, but isn’t cost […]
Read moreOur coverage of Intel from CES 2018 has been delayed because I was trying to run down an important question for the home theater PC (HTPC) use case of their new Hades Canyon NUC. In a departure from the previous generation Skull Canyon, high-end NUC, there will be two SKUs of Hades Canyon: NUC8i7HVK ($999) & NUC8i7HNK ($799). The only […]
Read moreAnother CES, another set of NUCs announced. I must say I also like the darker chassis, but it concerns me tha tthe renders don’t appear to have CIR built in. If that is the case, it would be a big minus for their HTPC use. Early generation NUCs were interesting, though not necessarily exciting due to their limitations. However, NUCs […]
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Intel just about perfected the small form factor (SFF) home theater PC (HTPC) over the last few iterations of NUC systems, so it is great to see that the Skylake based Intel NUC6i5SYK kit has stayed with this winning formula. Updated with an Intel Core i5-6260U with Intel Iris Graphics 540, support for NVMe SSD, and DDR4, the system has […]
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As you all know, one of the major disappointment with the Intel Broadwell NUCs was that Intel made it much harder than is should have been to leverage the HTPC’s HDMI CEC header. So when the Intel NUC6i5SYK (Skylake NUC) review unit arrived, one of the first things I did was crack the case to see if Intel had […]
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Like the rest of Intel Atom systems, home theater PCs (HTPC) based on the CPU have come a long way over the last few years. The Intel NUC5PGYH offers hardware accelerated video decoding up to 4K (HDMI 1.4b output) via the quad-core Intel Braswell Pentium N3700. Now add in 7.1 multi-channel audio support, Windows 10 preinstalled, RC6 CIR (consumer […]
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There is a lot of noise and rumor out there on the interwebs, so I don’t tend to give them all equal footing, but when the guy who introduced me to Intel’s Broadwell NUC at CES last year tweets about it… I sure hope they do have one coming, would love to see how it does with madVR. We’ve been […]
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Discrete IR On/Off are a critical part of my home theater setup. Without them, I can’t include an “On” command in my startup macro for the HTPC which leads to all sorts of “training issues” with the other users in the house. So I was pretty upset when Intel killed the feature in a recent BIOS release. Fortunately they were […]
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I mentioned in the review of the Intel NUC5i5RYK that the Consumer Infrared (CIR) wasn’t working in OpenELEC, and it looks like Intel has turned around that issue pretty quickly with the latest (247) BIOS release. There is a pretty big caveat though, because just like when they fixed this issue the last time it broke Discrete On support. Which […]
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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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