Media Centres slim down
Ever since looking at a comparison of MythTV against Windows Media Centre Edition, I've been a lot harder to please when it comes to new MCE releases. Considering the massive amounts of flexibility that Myth permits, it's madness to settle for sub-par hardware or a craptastic design. Pcalchemy is the latest to parade its hoard of TV capturing, media streaming lovelies before my eyes, in the hope that they'll take my fancy and I'll spend an expensive evening cavorting with them.
Borrowing some design tips from the Mac Mini, it has to be said, the Pcalchemy threesome are relatively inoffensive in appearance – which is a polite way of saying that they don't stand out either. The manufacturer proudly boasts that the smallest model fits in the palm of your hand, although in the pictures it does seem to extend rather across the fingers; by that token, a new Ford Focus would fit in the palm of your hand, if you excused the rest of the overlap. Still, if you're the sort of person whose idea of fun is holding a media centre then you've really got to find new hobbies.
Each comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 Merom processor, running at 1.83GHz, 1gb of RAM and a 100GB SATA 7200RPM hard drive. TV is catered for with an analogue tuner as standard and HDTV as an option, although the latter is sadly external. One can only assume that it extends the PC overlap from the palm down to the wrist. Gigabit ethernet and a dual-layer DVD±RW drive round up the specs.
Prices for all three start at $1199 before you load them up with options, and Pcalchemy is keen to point out that they ship within 2 business days.