Hasta La Gadget!

Zotac has this media-friendly SFF computer thing pretty much nailed. For years the company has been churning out ever smaller machines purpose built for living rooms and media servers. The StreamBox and RAIDbox aren’t standalone computers, but accessories that build on the home theater capabilities of their ZBOX PCs. The StreamBox pushes content to your TV from a laptop, Android smartphone or tablet using DLNA or Miracast for mirroring your portable’s display. In addition to the 10/100 Ethernet jack and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n radios, there’s also a USB port on board for connecting external storage devices. What kind of storage devices, you ask? Well, how about the USB 3.0 RAIDbox that was unveiled alongside the StreamBox. The box itself doesn’t ship with any drives inside, but you can slip in a pair of mSATA SSDs and it wont even require an external power supply. Sadly, the really important details like price and availability haven’t been announced, but you can still read the PR after the break.

Filed under: Desktops, HD

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Via: Tom’s Hardware

Source: Zotac 1, 2

Hardware maker Arctic has announced a new media center set top box called the MC001-XBMC. This new set top box runs XBMC 12 Frodo as the operating system and Openelec. The machine promises to come out-of-the-box ready to plug into your TV and it is available for significant discount. The normal price of the device is $459, but it is now available for $229.

The device supports all popular audio and video formats in HD resolutions up to 1080p. The device has its own 1 TB integrated hard drive for storing all of your media such as videos, songs, and photos. The set top box also supports the ability to access and control your content using a smartphone or tablet.

The manufacturer also has apps available for various devices allowing your tablet or smartphone to act as the remote control for the set-top box. Other available hardware features include a pre-installed DVB-T/ATSC TV tuner allowing the device to act as a DVR for over the air programming. Thanks to the large hard drive and integrated Wi-Fi connectivity, the device can be used as network attached storage.

Connectivity options on the device include 3.5 mm audio I/O jacks, optical S/PDIF output, a VGA port, and HDMI port, integrated Ethernet port, and five USB ports. The device also has a single USB 3.0 port on the front and a memory card reader. The processor inside the box is an Intel Atom D525 and graphics are handled by a Radeon HD 5430 GPU.

[via Arctic]

Arctic unveils new MC001-XBMC media center is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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If you’re like me, you may have long wanted to have a home theater PC in your living room entertainment center. The problem that I have – that I bet a few of you suffer from as well – is that my wife already has the entertainment center stuffed with all manner of knick-knacks. That means there’s barely any room for any actual home theater components.

A company called Xi3 Corporation has a new computer suitable for HTPC applications that will fit in just about any entertainment center, including mine. The machine is called the Z3RO Pro Computer and it measures just 4.875 x 3.625 x 1.875 inches.

That means the computer is roughly the size of a paperback novel, and not one of those gigantically thick Stephen King paperbacks either.

Inside that tiny chassis is a dual-core 64-bit x86-based processor operating at 1.65 GHz. The machine has an integrated GPU with 80 graphics cores and a top resolution of 2560×1600. It’s got 4 GB of RAM, and the ability to include an SSD ranging in size from 16GB to 1TB. The machine has a pair of DisplayPort video outputs including one that pulls HDMI duty as well. For connectivity, it has a gigabit Ethernet port, and four eSATAp 3.0 ports. Surprisingly, the one thing that’s clearly missing is integrated Wi-Fi, so you’ll have to use a USB dongle or Ethernet/Wi-Fi bridge for that.

It consumes only 15 W of power, and ships with the openSUSE Linux operating system pre-installed. That said, you can also install Windows 8 or other operating systems if you so choose.

Shipping for the Xi3 Z3RO Pro is set for Q2 2013 with prices starting at $399 (USD).

Plex wants us to settle in for some holiday viewing in front of our home theater PCs, and to that effect it’s delivering a major beta update to its desktop app — including a new name. The more clearly defined Plex Home Theater syncs up with the XBMC 12 beta and simplifies Plex’s own update process. For those in the living room, shifting to the newer base brings AirPlay streaming from nearby Apple-friendly gear as well as 10-bit H.264 video and HD audio. Behind-the-scenes updates bring more efficient video rendering and fix some older bugs, such as audio sync with SD footage. The catch to enjoying all this? As the upgrade is pre-release code, Plex is limiting early access to PlexPass subscribers. Media mavens still willing to pay the premium can check out the source link for an upgrade to their end-of-year movie marathons.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software, HD

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Via: GigaOM

Source: Plex

We hope you weren’t getting settled in with OpenELEC 2.0. Hot on the heels of the finished 2.0 release, the developement team has pushed out a first beta of OpenELEC 3.0 that folds XBMC 12.0 Frodo into the Linux distribution for home theater PCs. Accordingly, most of the additions are those that come with XBMC’s code base: OpenELEC now supports ARM through the Raspberry Pi, betters its DVR support and slips in a modern audio engine. The distro-specific changes bring an update to the Linux 3.6 kernel, many more hardware drivers and an option to boot to RAM instead of a pokey hard drive. Running one beta based on another carries more than its share of risk, so be careful; if the positives for your living room continue to outweigh the pitfalls, 3.0 awaits at the source link.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software, HD

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Source: OpenELEC