Microsoft's Portable Media Center Devices: Exposed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Getting Sidetracked: Shuttle's new MCE XPC - The Perfect Testbed
Since we wanted to test the new Portable Media Center devices on a Windows XP Media Center Edition system, this was the perfect opportunity to try out Shuttle's latest and greatest XPC - the SB83G5C.
The new G5 chassis is much improved from previous Shuttle designs, yet still maintains the form factor and beauties that made the XPC so popular. This particular model has a LCD display at the front that interfaces to MCE2004 to display date/time as well as playback information.
The G5 8300 series uses Intel's 915G chipset and supports all of Intel's Socket-775 processors. While our particular sample relied on the 915G's integrated graphics, Shuttle usually ships their XPCs with a PCI Express GeForce 6600 to make it more of a gaming powerhouse. Remember that by using the 915G chipset, there is no AGP slot on the motherboard, only a single PCI Express slot in addition to the regular 32-bit PCI slot. And as with all Shuttle XPCs, the system can only support a single slot graphics card.
The system has a linearly controlled fan that remains quiet for the vast majority of the time; however, transcoding content for synchronizing to the PMC did cause things to heat up and the fan to spin faster/louder. Since the fan is linearly controlled, there are no noticeably discrete steps in fan speed. It gradually increases until the desired temperature has been reached.
The inside of the system is very clean and neat, thanks to Shuttle's clever engineering. There is virtually no cable clutter in the pre-assembled system due to the use of a proprietary Shuttle-designed interface to the front of the case and Serial ATA for both the hard drive and DVD drive.
Our test sample was paired with a Pentium 4 550 (Prescott running at 3.40GHz), which left the system's fan running fairly quiet despite its heat production. Given the extremely high CPU demands of Windows XP Media Center Edition, using such a fast processor is necessary to minimize the response time of the media center application. As to why MCE is such a CPU hog, that's more of a question for Microsoft - one to which we have yet to find an honest answer.
When it comes to MCE PCs, Shuttle has the right formula - these machines need to be small and they need to look like they fit in a living room. With the advent of the BTX form factor and with Windows XP MCE 2005 coming out, the competition is definitely looking towards more out-of-the-box designs for MCE PCs, putting the burden on Shuttle to once again innovate. What we're still waiting to see from Shuttle is another revolutionary design, similar in impact to what made the XPC what it is today - until then, we can't complain about the evolution that the design has seen since its creation.
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val - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Pjotr: no you cannot use it as VCR, because you must anyway have it on computer available (TV, video out, not counting the quality,...)val - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
this is again some discovering of the wheel. Can anybody explain me what this single purpose device can offer me when i have e800 PDA (USB + VGA output)? Wouldnt be better to work on making PDAs yet more cheaper? I can play DivX, WMA, WMV, MP3, XviD and i have usefull computer and gaming console with screen ten times better than this one. HDD i have 1 GB (more than 5 movies in XVID) and i can connect USB HDD to it too. Maybe if price will compete with MD player or MP3 player and not be compareable to notebooks or top line PDAsPjotr - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Well, you can basically replace your VCR with one of these. It has scheduled recordings and you can view them on your TV instantly. Also, you don't need to manage cassettes, DVDs etc, only files on a HD. It is also a lot smaller than your typical VCR/DVD-recorder.icarus4586 - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Portable video players seem to me to be of limited usefulness. Definitely would be handy for long trips, but otherwise it seems like the only function you'd use would be the audio player. And there are smaller, less expensive, more battery efficient music players.Pjotr - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Oh, forgot, the AV400 also acts like a regular USB 2.0 hard disk, no special software needed to transfer files.Pjotr - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Sorry, Anand, but you make it sound like Microsoft invented a new type of product. There is no mention at all of non-Windows portable media centers. Archos ( http://www.archos.com/ ) have had this kind of device available for almost a year now. Their second generation model (AV400) seems a lot more attractive than the Creative device: Video input for recording, longer battery life, remote control, docking cradle for easy hookup to your TV, online scheduling of recordings via Yahoo, support for various codecs including DivX. (BTW, why wouldn't you want support for varying codecs on a portable device?)Reflex - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Windows Media Player 10 was not a 'choice' Microsoft made to get data to the devices. These devices, and virtually all future MP3 players, digital cameras, and other 'media' peripherals are now using a protocol known as 'MTP' which stands for Media Transport Protocol. It is an attempt to standardize the method of transmitting and recieving data to media devices of all types, so that you do not need to have a custom driver for every little doodad you plug into your PC.Furthermore, down the line it could allow devices to communicate with each other, and it makes it so that any MTP aware application should be able to sync and send/recieve data from any MTP compatible device, ending the days when you are stuck with a custom app that a company wrote for their particiliar device.
Right now the only application that is MTP aware is WMP10, however that is to be expected since the protocol is brand new and was developed by Microsoft. However there is an API and any other application can become MTP aware and sync with such devices, and I am certain that Real, MusicMatch, and virtually everyone else is working on it right now.
So my point is that while currently WMP10 is the only way to sync with such devices, this is not by design, its merely a byproduct of the introduction of MTP as the new standardized interface for portable devices. It won't be the case for long and is not a true drawback. Its also not exclusive to PMC's, as MP3 players and other devices are all going to soon be using this standard.
Novaoblivion - Monday, September 27, 2004 - link
Very interesting read as I was looking at this earlier. I might get one since I do have plenty of video content to take with me on vacation. However does anyone know if it has problems displaying languages other then english? A lot of things seem to display other languages as squares which I find really annoyying. Thanks!