First glance of my Windows Media Center X-ONE
November 20th, 2006
I have been looking for a good and cheap hard disk recorder for home use for a while now and I finally found one that I liked.
I usually never buy a complete PC system but pieces them together myself, just for the fun. Also finding the right piece at the cheapest price has become a small obsession. But sometimes, just sometimes I surprise myself.
Today was the day! I’ve just bought a Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition X-One PC, fully equipped and bran new. I actually only wanted a hard disk recorder but the price for such a device with a decent size of hard disk was quite close to the Media Center box itself. If I added a cool looking box, an mp3 player, a decent DivX player, image viewer and an extra windows XP machine at the price of nothing then the price was just right. I know that a Media Center is nothing more than a XP with a TV Tuner, and the Media Center application on top. But for once, Microsoft actually did create something that actually looks nice and seems to work. I was very impressed with the IR keyboard layout and the IR remote control, both seems to do the trick. The only bad thing so far is the IBM style mouse build into the keyboard. You have to push it down in order to make it work. I guess this is because of power consumptions issues. The “Pause” function works instantly when watching TV and it is so cool. If the phone rings or the kids needs a slap (no I would never do that) then I just click Pause as I would do with any real DVD or VCR. I know that this is standard functionality on a hard disk recorder, but getting this and a PC at the same time just thrills me. The TV Tuner seems to be a bit on the cheap side, or I just might be the MPEG2 compressions that sucks as I am able to detect missing pixels between JPEG blocks.
Today was the day! I’ve just bought a Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition X-One PC, fully equipped and bran new. I actually only wanted a hard disk recorder but the price for such a device with a decent size of hard disk was quite close to the Media Center box itself. If I added a cool looking box, an mp3 player, a decent DivX player, image viewer and an extra windows XP machine at the price of nothing then the price was just right. I know that a Media Center is nothing more than a XP with a TV Tuner, and the Media Center application on top. But for once, Microsoft actually did create something that actually looks nice and seems to work. I was very impressed with the IR keyboard layout and the IR remote control, both seems to do the trick. The only bad thing so far is the IBM style mouse build into the keyboard. You have to push it down in order to make it work. I guess this is because of power consumptions issues. The “Pause” function works instantly when watching TV and it is so cool. If the phone rings or the kids needs a slap (no I would never do that) then I just click Pause as I would do with any real DVD or VCR. I know that this is standard functionality on a hard disk recorder, but getting this and a PC at the same time just thrills me. The TV Tuner seems to be a bit on the cheap side, or I just might be the MPEG2 compressions that sucks as I am able to detect missing pixels between JPEG blocks.
If you want to see the Media Center I just bought then click below.
http://www.xone.dk/
I am in no way affiliated with X-One or intentionally any other company regarding the x-one media center PC.
Price tag: 5500 DKK including 250GB HD, 1 GB RAM, 3GHz Dual Core, 1 TV Tuner, 7.1Ch Audio, DVD+-R dual layer and so on.
All in all I will give it 8 out of 10 stars at a first glance.