The Atom D2700 series CPUs have proved quite popular in the SMB / SOHO NAS market. We saw vendors introduce models with HDMI outputs as early as December 2011. In fact, we covered QNAP's HDMI-equipped NAS models at CES 2012. Intel's GPU libraries for video playback and acceleration were not stable at that time and so, vendors were unable to show the true multimedia capabilities then. Since CES 2012, we have seen a number of vendors trying to pitch a media center running on the NAS as a value add. I have personally tested XBMC on the Thecus N4800 and came away distinctly unimpressed (a though SmallNetBuilder also seems to echo). At CES 2013, I saw an implementation of the Boxee UI on the Asustor...
SilverStone GD04 HTPC Case: Cool, Not Quiet
The Silverstone "Grandia Series" GD04 comes as a well regarded, oft recommended media center case. It has an attractive, understated look and the choice of silver and black lets...
69 by Dustin Sklavos on 12/25/2010
The Boxee Box Review
Content aggregation has been instrumental in the development of the web. In the early days of the web, destinations held all the power. If you wanted news or reviews...
44 by Anand Lal Shimpi & Ganesh T S on 11/23/2010
Zotac ZBOX Blu-Ray HD-ID34 Review
Zotac has become quite popular in recent times for their entry level products in the mini-ITX motherboard, Atom / ION nettop and nVidia GPU space. Their mini-PC lineup started...
40 by Alan Lueke on 10/19/2010
NVIDIA's GeForce GT 430: The Next HTPC King?
It’s been 7 months since the launch of the first Fermi cards, and at long last we’re here: we’ve reached the end of the road on the Fermi launch...
121 by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on 10/11/2010
ASRock's High-End Vision 3D HTPC Reviewed
ASRock is one of the companies held in high esteem by everyone here at AnandTech. We have been reviewing their HTPC offerings since they first came out their Ion...
51 by Ganesh T S on 10/3/2010
Boxee Box: The Inside Story, Swapping Tegra 2 for Intel CE4100
Boxee and D-Link announced the availability of the Boxee Box for pre-order on Amazon today. At CES 2010, they demonstrated the Boxee Box with the Tegra 2 SoC inside...
53 by Ganesh T S & Brian Klug on 9/13/2010
ASRock Core 100HT-BD : Bringing HTPCs to the Mainstream Market [UPDATED : Noise Issue]
Anandtech has evaluated many systems in search of the utopian HTPC. However, every one of them has ended up with some issue or the other. When ASRock offered to...
107 by Ganesh T S on 7/19/2010
HD Video Decoding on GPUs with VLC 1.1.0
VLC 1.1.0 was released on Jun 22, 2010. Since the monolithic VLC bundle obviates the necessity for installing external codec packs, it is an indispensable install for many HTPC...
75 by Ganesh T S on 6/25/2010
The Patriot Box Office Review: A Portent of Great Things to Come
Patriot sent us its first foray into the streaming media market. This tiny little box will let you stream everything from ripped movies to full blown Blu-ray images to...
79 by Alan Lueke on 2/16/2010