Evesham Mini PC Plus

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...pc_plus/1.html



We're looking for some ideas of what you guys would like to see us test these Home Theatre systems with. After some discussion with Wil, I came up with the following shortlist, but we'd like to see what you guys come up with too:

• WMV9-HD Playback (CPU usage);
• DVD Shrink (multithreaded program);
• Video Encoding (AutoGK, Windows Media Encoder 9);
• MP3 Encoding;
• some sort of Media Centre-related Multi-Tasking; and
• maybe some photograph archiving of some sort

[JADS]

To my mind videos encoded with H.264 at 720p and above would be the acid test of an HTPC.

[Nature]

This evesham thing is nice, but too cute and way too expensive. You can build a much uglier, more powerful machine for the same purpose and for less... Intel extreme Graphics, Puh! It's 2006' for Christ's sake.

I really want a desktop ATX case. I don't like that gravity is constantly putting stress on the motherboard from the big CPU heatsink and video cards. The problem is finding a good "home theater" case for a gamer. Every case I look at only has about 3 or 4, 60, 70, or 80mm fans (which is normal) but the consumer reviews state that airflow is terrible or something about overheating.

Someone needs to make a decent case that can be in your entertainment center and hold two vid cards with out melting.

[Tim S]

Out of interest, why do you need two video cards in an entertainment PC? This is not an enthusiasts PC and SLI/CrossFire aren't consumer platforms (and never will be) IMO.

Lets not forget this PC is targeted at the UK market, where High Definition TV hasn't started broadcasting yet. When that happens, I'd like to see something with better video decoding capabilities. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw mobile GPUs based on the MXM format finding their way into systems like this in the future.

Think of this as something like a laptop without a screen in a small box. The digital home hasn't quite happened yet, but manufacturers are honing in on getting the right set of features at a respectable price.

[fev]

a good testing method i've been playing with is finding out cpu usage when mce is recording and you're watching. Obviously the machines tested need dual tuners.

Just an idea... of course if there's any space for a new reviewer for HTPC i'm available....

[atanum141]

where was the mce compatible tv tuner on this machine??...i didnt see one.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by atanum141

where was the mce compatible tv tuner on this machine??...i didnt see one.

There's no tuner installed.

[Firehed]

Originally Posted by bigz

• WMV9-HD Playback (CPU usage);
• DVD Shrink (multithreaded program);
• Video Encoding (AutoGK, Windows Media Encoder 9);
• MP3 Encoding;
• some sort of Media Centre-related Multi-Tasking; and
• maybe some photograph archiving of some sort

I'd say that nails it right on the head. Make sure that if you can use threaded apps, you do. I know the AviSynth that AGK uses is threaded, which literally halved my encode times making the X2 jump. Despite people saying DVDS is threaded, I haven't found much gain in either a HT or dual-core system, but whatever. It's not overly time-consuming in most cases (though I chop out as much as possible, so a lot of time time I only need to recode and not actually compress)

I'd say try a couple different encode types though. If you can get some source material in HD (pref 1080i/p), encode tests of that would be great. For encode types, something to the effect of, in AutoGK, 700MB target and "lossless" (720px wide, 100% video quality, AC3 5.1ch audio). Also, FLAC encoding would be nice, as some people are finally catching onto the fact that lossy media sucks if you can have it lossless (albeit at the expense of space).

Just make sure we know exactly what the settings are. I've read benchmarks at other sites occasionally, and I'm always baffled as to what "Far Cry High Quality" should mean (HQ in the sense of 1600x1200, not referring to image quality settings, and never mentioning aa/af). That's what I love about Bit's reviews so much, is that you're quite specific as to what you're testing. Don't let this be an exception!

So I suppose my list would be (considering what I do and what most people do):

• HD content playback
• DVD Shrink: Full disc to DVD5, Just the movie (reauthor) to DVD5
• En/transcoding with AutoGK: Movie to CD size (incl quality screenshots compared to originals would be nice), "lossless" Xvid'ing
• Audio en/transcoding: MP3 (VBR160?), FLAC ("5")
• Subjective multitasking, particularly with TV playing and/or recording

As to the comment in the article about chipsets needing tuners built in, way too true! It couldn't be more perfect of a thing to add in; I'd be thrilled to see the space that serial/parallel ports take up being replaced with a coax thing for tuning (or two!). I don't watch TV anymore, and probably still wouldn't if I could do so on my computer, but I do love the idea of that type of integration. Of course, newer chipsets are toasty enough as-is, and adding an hardware encoder could be a bit rough on things (though I'd be quite content with just watching and not recording).

A quick bit on network thoroughput would be nice too, as they could end up streaming quite a bit of content. Perhaps try to see how many users can stream off TV shows from one hard drive before the network or drive chokes and playback starts stuttering.

[Tomm]

If you're going to have this in your living room, it won't really be doing anything a Mac mini isn't capable of. So you may as well save some money, and get that. If you're going to use it for anything more than a living room PC, you'd probably want a better spec. It looks to me like you are paying a lot for the form factor of this. I don't really see why people have to have a tiny PC in their living room - Surely a VCR-sized ATX case (E.g. Silverstone et al) would be fine and you're not so limited in terms of space?

[fev]

errr it runs MCE 2005.... something the mini doesn't

[phuzz]

Worth noting that Evesham (and probably most manufacturers), have one team of people who assess new hardware and build review machines, and a compleatly seperate and (almost) untrained bunch of people to build the customers orders. Who, crucially, get paid on how many they build, rather than how well...
Basically the build quality on the production ones will likely be crap...

(I used to work there, in case you were wondering at the amount of bile in this post)

[Sim0n]

Lovely looking box, just one thing that would of improved it ..
a pre-mounted internal IR Receiver for MCE Remote.

And something i found myself, try finding a MCE Approved Freeview USB decoder easily in the UK... bloody impossible, took me 3 different cards from different suppliers all claiming support. Ended up in maplin's and got one.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Sim0n

Lovely looking box, just one thing that would of improved it ..

a pre-mounted internal IR Receiver for MCE Remote.

I agree with that, I guess we'll feed that back through to Evesham and they'll consider a revised system.

[Sim0n]

If your feeding back, might be an idea to get them to list a USB compliant MCE decoder as a system upgrade, as they are few and far between

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by fev

errr it runs MCE 2005.... something the mini doesn't

Frontrow is much the same though.

[pman]

but hey - who hasn't seen the Mac Mini and thought, "That'd be ace - with Windows!"

I havn't

[fev]

frontrow can whistle... i use both mac and pc don't think i'm a "fanboi"

it's just not upto the standard of mce

[LogicalJester]

Originally Posted by phuzz

Worth noting that Evesham (and probably most manufacturers), have one team of people who assess new hardware and build review machines, and a compleatly seperate and (almost) untrained bunch of people to build the customers orders. Who, crucially, get paid on how many they build, rather than how well...
Basically the build quality on the production ones will likely be crap...

(I used to work there, in case you were wondering at the amount of bile in this post)

So were you one of the untrained bunch?

How would you go about connecting this to my Sky Digital box then? I have an analogue tuner card in my PC, and have this connected to the analogue out of my Digi box, but the quality of the picture is rubbish?

[Da Dego]

Issues with this at the price:

1) No tuner card. I suppose this is fine if you're just building a video PC instead of an HTPC, but the loss of functionality should be stressed highly.

2) No remote. Personally, for almost 800quid, they need to be looking at including this standard. For a mediapc to not have one is not only inappropriate, but ridiculous.

3) a 5400rpm hard drive is not sufficient. Nor is 80gb. The BT Media Server for our htpcs runs 1 tb of seagate drives, and the review box HTPCs (for software and component reviews) are armed with 200gb seagates, sata II with NCQ. Granted, a lot of this is for storing TV content, but unless you have a sufficient media server, this whole unit will be of limited functionality.

4) Speaking of limited, wireless adapters should be bog standard at this point in time. Like the remote, there is no reason that a box this expensive should be shy of this.

5) LCD?

Overall, evesham, you have a bit of work to do. I can build more with a simple SFF chassis from shuttle, increase my functionality at least 10 fold, and spend equal or less. And though the mac mini shape is cute (and I use that word loosely), neither shuttle nor aopen make exactly unattractive SFF cases anyways, and they run near silent.

As we stretch for a smaller and smaller footprint, we need to watch how much functionality we're costing ourselves vs. just a slight change in form factor. It doesn't require a full desktop chassis to build a kickass HTPC anymore, and these tinier models need to start wising up to that.

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Overall, evesham, you have a bit of work to do. I can build more with a simple SFF chassis from shuttle, increase my functionality at least 10 fold, and spend equal or less. And though the mac mini shape is cute (and I use that word loosely), neither shuttle nor aopen make exactly unattractive SFF cases anyways, and they run near silent.

Shuttle, quiet? Have you used one? Or even been in the same building as one? lol, they aren't quiet at all, mine sounds like a tractor.