East End Home Theater PC: The Media Center PC

EEHTPC: The Media Center PC

Consumer electronics have for the longest time been sold in component form. One device with one function. The desire for applicable convergence devices has been growing ever since the individual components received successful market adoption. The most familiar example to consumers is that of cellular phones assimilating electronics previously carried separately: camera, media player, subnotebook. A handful of truly capable products have come to market integrating these components.

Advances in hardware, playback capability, acquisition and operation cost have enabled the same desire for convergence to take place with respect to home audio/video and home automation. A single PC is capable of replacing numerous individual component-based home entertainment devices. Timeshifting video recorders (Tivo), upscaling DVD/CD players, satellite radio receivers and others all make up this convergence.

Concept

Server and Primary Display

EEHTPC: The Home Theater PC: Server and Primary Display

The server is usually installed in a living room or media room and functions as the media library for its display and all other client-enabled machines in the home. Standard ethernet connects the server to the Internet to fetch television listings and other user-controlled content such as http, e-mail, instant messaging and so forth. All recorded captures are stored on the server. Recording capacity is chosen by the customer prior to assembly and can be increased infinitely over the lifetime of the server. Entry level systems hold at least 300 hours of recorded content.

Clients

EEHTPC: The Home Theater PC: Clients

Used primarily as a playback device, client PCs throughout the home connect to the server and stream recorded content. The client may modify the server preferences remotely. A license is required for each client; however, there are never subscription fees that control the computer's ability to function.

Playback Compatibility

The battle for the next high-definition-content-on-DVD standard is only one of many being waged that place manufacturers of component systems in a difficult situation. Consumers demand upgraded devices while manufacturers wait for the standards to become, well, standard. In the end there's a flurry of first generation products barely capable of their advertised benefit. Consumers end up owning several generations of component devices. HTPCs, being open, standardized, Windows-powered computers at heart, are at far less a risk of this accelerated aging. Drives are able to be swapped, software updated, recording capability expanded. This translates into a significantly smaller investment by the consumer than by the early adopter of component systems.

Example Configurations

	Alexa is an entry level dual tuner media center. She runs SageTV under Windows XP (Vista Capable) and can capture and store around three hundred hours of content from cable or satellite sources. Connecting directly to all modern HDTVs and flat panel displays is easy with DVI, VGA, and CINCH/AV outputs and 6-channel audio. Alexa's noise level is less than that of most desktops in her class; a front panel display reports the current case temperature and fan speed which is on autopilot but may be adjusted easily by the user. The ideal environment for this device is personal use or in households of up to three people.
	Samantha is a midmarket media center with three tuners; the third receiving OTA high definition broadcasts. She runs SageTV and has all the connections of Alexa but with six hundred hours of recording capacity. Samantha controls the primary display in the living room and serves content to clients in the master bedroom and a third guest or children's room. The extra tuners reduce the number of recording conflicts as four things have to be scheduled to record at the same time before a conflict arises.
	Leah is a high end rackmount media center with six tuners, two of which receive OTA HD. She runs SageTV and can store over a thousand hours of content in a fault-protected environment. Leah provides entertainment services to a six-bedroom household with a library of 1000 CDs, 200 full-length movies, and several hundred hours of television.

Ownership

Home Theater PC-based entertainment systems have evolved into a truly viable convergence solution offering maximum performance and scalability with minimal total cost of ownership. To learn more about these technologies, please call 631.903.4284 or mail info@eehtpc.com.

Company Profile

East End Home Theater PC is a solution provider based in the Hamptons, New York. EEHTPC provides media center PCs for home entertainment convergence as well as workstations and servers for the home, small business, and enterprise community. EEHTPC sets itself apart by providing on-site service and support combined with industry-standard design and independent hardware that's easy to upgrade and designed for a maximum lifespan. We enjoy doing business with people in our area. You know the first name of the person who built your house, tunes your car, plans your vacation, educates your children. How much do you enjoy being routed to a call center in India to buy or support your next computer?