Posts Categorised: Media PC Hardware

0Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Case LogoComparison of HTPC GPU’s

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware, News. Last updated .

Anandtech has an excel­lent art­icle com­par­ing 4 bot­tom end GPU’s for HTPC’s.  The art­icle is extens­ive and does a good job of explain­ing issues of fram­er­ate tim­ing, cadence detec­tion, tele­cin­ing and pull­down as well as com­par­ing the 4 GPU’s.  As we don’t believe in rein­vent­ing the wheel — we recom­mend any­one build­ing a HTPC setup read the art­icle before set­ting out.

0AMD Vision Fusion Premium LogoFusion E‑450 coming

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware, News. Last updated .

Semi­Ac­cur­ate has news that AMD are to immin­ently release a new Zacate mem­ber of the Brazos plat­form.  Accord­ing to pre­vi­ous inform­a­tion on Anandtech and Hex­us the E‑450 is clocked at 1.65GHz (up from 1.60GHz) and has graph­ics clocked at 600MHz (up from 500MHz).  It will also reportedly sup­port high­er speeds of DDR3 memory, and fea­ture some kind of turbo.

17Via Mini-ITX 2 LogoDual-Tuner Mini-ITX Build?

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After dis­cus­sions on a [int­link id=“919” type=“post”]recent article[/intlink] I wondered if it is pos­sible to build a set-top box sized HTPC with dual-tuner cards inside.  To achieve set-top box size means going Mini-ITX, but with the release of a range of Mini ITX AMD Fusion boards this is the easy part.  Mini-ITX nor­mally only includes 1 expan­sion slot, so to include 2 tuners requires a cre­at­ive solution.
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0Blackgold BGT3630 LogoBlackgold: The ultimate TV tuner card?

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Whilst look­ing for drivers for my Pin­nacle 3010ix freeview tuner I noticed Black­gold have a new TV tuner due on the mar­ket.  The Black­gold BGT3630 looks pro­vi­sion­ally to tick all the boxes for me.  It sup­ports DVB-T/T2 AND DVB-S/S2 as well as Ana­log and Cable DVB-C!  So everything and the kit­chen sink.  The card is also sup­plied with low and full pro­file brack­ets and fits a PCI-E 1x slot.  I sup­pose the only thing lack­ing is that it seems to only be a single-tuner for each format.  Of course 2 cards solves that (if you have 2 pci‑e slots free in your HTPC)
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14Boxee Remote LogoThe search for a HTPC remote-keyboard

Published by & filed under Media PC Hardware. Last updated .

I’ve been look­ing for a new (more ver­sat­ile) remote con­trol for my HTPC. At the moment I have to use a full-size key­board as the remote con­trol has no such facil­ity. I’ve been look­ing for a suit­able remote con­trol with key­board, and whilst I haven’t yet found quite the right thing I have found some inter­est­ing products…
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