Hard drive clamp

All the tech stuff has been covered so I'll answer the "what market?" question. I use mine as the front end to my 42" plasma TV. HDMI works great with XBMC media center. The form factor is the main reason I chose this but it is a full PC and I do work on it. Nice to have a 42" monitor hooked up to the internet. I don't even have cable anymore. The online content is so rich that I find everything I want to watch (and lots I don't) all the time. Hulu and other similar resources amount to having a HUGE Tivo. XBMC is my archive of things I want to own and share. Torrents of almost everything brings watchable but lower quality vids to me in a matter of minutes. I think of a movie, find it, download it and by the time my popcorn is ready so is the movie. All this through a HTC Evo. Wireless! XBMC add-ons are fantastic and often overlooked. Content includes online courses from Stamford, NYCU, Yale and others. Astrophysics, Linear Dynamics, Economics... Most at 200 level up.

I had earlier posted comments on my experience with this motherboard. Here are my final findings. The motherboard is not all that it is made out to be.

My non-scientific test consisted of testing several different video files for playability on different hardware as compared to current hardware under consideration.

I tested it under winxp 32 + 64 bit versions and Win7 ultimate 32 bit version. Also tested on a standalone media player with 640gb external Seagate FreeAgent hard disk drive. The hardware consisted of the motherboard under sonsideration + 2 x 2gb Kingston DDR2 800 dimms + 2 x 2.5" 500 gb
Seagate drives in Mini-ITX cabinet.

A 16 gb 1080p h256 8 mbps 5.1 AC3 mkv file on the FreeAgent drive through my media player on a 42" HD LCD TV via HDMI connection. Played absolutely flawlessly. This led me to conclude that FreeAgent drive was up to the task without missing a single heartbeat. Best of all the FreeAgent drive was NOT DEFRAGGED !

Next I tried to play this very file on the hardware under consideration through HDMI port. It practically died. All kinds of pixellations, n number of dropped frames.

I tried this with all the 4 versions of windows. Same results.

I then proceeded to copy this file on to a freshly formatted partitioned Seagate 2.5" internal sata HD drive. Tested it once again with some marginal improvemnts but certainly far from usable.

I then gradually reduced the file specs to see what was playable. The best it could do was play a 720p, h256, 5.1 ac3, 2.5 mbps mkv file properly. This too only on WinXP x64. Neither the WinXp x86 nor Win7 x86 could cope with the load. This applies to both the PC monitor as well as the HD TV.

In conclusion I have only one thing to say. DO look for honest reviews ! Or take it with a fistful of salt.

BTW the media player can accommodate 1x2.5" internal sata drive, with 2xUSB 2.0 ports, 1x5.1 optical audio output, 1xHDMI 1.3 output, composite video output and supports RTL8187/B chipset based USB wifi dongle. It cost me US$ 95/= with a free 2 meter HDMI cable including shipping by FedEx. Plays all media files - video, audio and photos.

This is basically just a small box and a system board to suit. Frankly not exciting enough to warrant an article... Quite a few folks sell the parts or assembled. If do some searching based on 'your real requirements' you should be able to find something in the $150 or under range for the barebones. I happen to have had a pair of Mega brand "bread box" computers embedded in my AV rack to drive the projector. Even three years back they were about $150 each. Added a HDTV card, CPU, RAM, DVD, small harddisk and off you go. If you can find one with a PCIx slot on the board, then definately get the AverMedia HDTV PCIx card as it far exceeds the ATI HD Wonder's (which I had to use) as the ATI's are only PCI slott-able.