In an effort to make the HTPC experience more family friendly I decided that it was time to replace our HTPC's case and include it with our existing stack of home theater equipment.   I wanted a case that wouldn’t glow and whistle in the dark detracting from the home theater experience and wanted to go with something that would match our existing 17" home theater components, could run 24x7 without having to worry about overheating, and could be operated by a single remote control - all this for aging HTPC system built from spare parts that I didn’t feel comfortable spending more than $100 on...

After much searching, I stumbled accross the Thermaltake Mozart Media Lab VC4000SNS at Fry's for about $129.99 (now only $99.99).

The case ships with three front side 5 1/2" drive bays with a door designed to hide all but a single optical drive.  The black aluminum face plate for the optical drive is attached using a double-sided sticker which I wasn’t too excited about - although it looks far better than some of the other optical drive face plates that I've seen.  The door itself is fairly heavy which is nice, but it’s on what feels like a very flimsy hinge and clasp mechanism which would have been much better executed with a magnetic clasp and or a sideways opening drawer.

This particular case does not ship with the optional VFD and Media Lab feature (for that you want to look at the VC4001SNS), so no scrolling digital text in the front of your case or remote control.   If you’re like me, you don’t want any of that anyway because scrolling text detracts from the home theater experience and IR remote controls are just awful to use anyway (poor range, difficult to use behind a glass enclosures, etc).  Many TV tuner cards ship with their own optional RF remotes anyway (I’m running two ATI TV Wonder 550's and an ATI HDTV Wonder card all of which ship with their own RF remotes).  One thing I should mention for anyone attempting to use an RF remote is that it’s better to hang your remote antennas OUTSIDE of the case as the aluminum in the case shields too much of the signal.

The dual rear 60mm exhaust fans are somewhat loud but very much needed - DONT put this case into your Home Entertainment Center without first cutting holes to accommodate either the fans, or the entire unit.   Because of the form factor of the fans, I would imagine that it would be difficult to find replacement fans for this case that are any quieter than it ships with - but if you know of any please feel free to send me a quick e-mail.  In our implementation the HTPC case was too deep and I had to cut a 17" wide hole into the back for the entertainment center in order to accommodate the case.

There are two vents at the top of the case, although only one will allow you to attach a fan anywhere near it.  Depending upon the amount of hardware that your running you may or may not wish to install a blowhole fan there, for my purposes the blowhole fan was overkill and I'm getting ready to remove it to cut down on the amount of noise that emits from the case.

Speaking of noise, the fans that ship with the case are noisy.  With that said, the noise output of any case is always proportional to the amount of money you invest in your fans.   For HTPC purposes, I would recommend sinking a good $50 on specialty fans to reduce the amount of noise pollution that your going to subject your friends and family to.

PROS:
- Excellent Price / Performance for an HTPC case at $99.99
- Beautiful 17" wide brushed aluminum case
- No flashing lights to distract you from your digital content

CONS:
- Fatter than it needs to be - for a slimmer form factor without sacrificing width check out the VC7000SNS and 70001SNS series.
- Deeper than it needs to be
- Heavy aluminum door on a flimsy hinge and clasp system that feels like its going to break off at any moment
- Cheesy but effective black aluminum stick on faceplate
- Noisy stock fans are functional but not ideal for a home theater environment

Yahoo today launched Yahoo Go!, their free downloadable DVR software/service, based largely on technology recently (as in last week) acquired via their purchase of Meedio. The software lets users manage photos (Flickr access included) and music, record and manage television programs, etc. The company lists the tuner cards supported here. The software is Windows only.

ATI Catalyst Release Note Version 6.4 Windows Media Center Edition Video Conversion Utility 

 

Catalyst 6.4 introduces a Windows MCE Video Conversion utility. This utility allows users to convert video content that is recorded by MCE, or video content that is available to MCE, to variety of different formats. The video content can be converted to MPEG-2, MPEG-4 SP, MPEG-4 AVC and Windows Media. iPod Video and PSP video are listed as separate formats for easy recognition.

NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today introduced the NVIDIA DualTV tuner, the first TV tuner for PCs to offer two TV tuners on a single card with comprehensive personal video recording functionality, unique MediaSqueeze disk space saving technology, and support for the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) operating system.

The NVIDIA DualTV tuner is available immediately for $169 USD from the NVIDIA Store Web site at www.store.nvidia.com.
 
With its unique two-tuner technology, the NVIDIA DualTV tuner transforms an MCE-equipped PC into a bona fide home entertainment system. With a touch of a mouse button, users can schedule recordings of their favorite TV shows and watch them when they want, record two TV shows simultaneously, or watch one channel while recording another, as well as watch pause, and rewind live or recorded TV shows.

With the emergence of portable media players and ubiquitous broadband availability, NVIDIA DualTV users can watch their programs from almost anywhere -- in the home, on the go, or over the Internet. Programs recorded with the NVIDIA DualTV tuner can be transferred to personal media players and portable game players that play back video and many other portable media players. Live or recorded shows can be streamed throughout the home to game consoles or Media Center Extenders; and with Orb Networks software (www.orb.com), NVIDIA DualTV tuner users can watch live or recorded TV shows from anywhere in the world over the Internet for personal use.

The thing about Beyond TV that originally kindled my interest and made me want to give it a chance was that I was able to squeeze recorded television shows into smaller files during off-peak hours.  The thing is, there are third party applications for MCE already that allow you to do just this, but they take things one step further by allowing you to shrink HD content and remove commercials from your archived files.  I'm tinkering with an app right now that not only converts both standard and HD recorded television in MS-DVR file format to MPG while also removing television commercials.  

My biggest frustration with Beyond TV 4 is that I could have spent the time that I burned trying to get Beyond TV 4 to function properly and invested it in trying to find/install/configure third party applications for MCE to perform the same tasks...  I've been in touch with contacts from SnapStreams marketing and support groups about the technical support issues that I've been having, and they have done an excellent job of getting subject matter experts to talk to me about all of the problems, but honestly I'm at the point now where I've simply run out of patience.  All of the time and personal resources that I threw away just to get SnapStreams Beyond TV 4 software to run properly was a fruitless venture.  After having used the product for five weeks, I am now shipping the computer that SnapStream lent us back with a big frowny face on the side of the cardboard box.  

At this point, I can only recommend Beyond TV 4 to a small handful of Home Theater enthusiasts.  I would not recommend Beyond TV 4 to anyone:

• running an NVIDIA video card outputting to a standard television set via S-video cable
• running at a resolution less than 800x600
• with a family (they wont use it, and will mock you for days as you try to get it set up because they cant watch television until you are done configuring the product.  You will literally burn more hours tinkering with this product than you would have saved using it to watch television and your family wont thank you for it)
• asked to review the product for free, really its not worth your time

I would recommend the software for anyone:

• attempting to troubleshoot a software/hardware issue with a different HTPC software solution
• looking for validation after having purchased a MCE box and requiring a product to compare MCE against
• looking for a standard telvision (not HD)l out-of-the-box content archiving solution

Most of my time was spent trying to troubleshoot what now appears to be an NVIDIA driver issue.  I was able to resolve the issue by replacing the NVIDIA GeForce 4 5200 FX card with an ATI Radeon 9800 128mb card - but honestly for video rendering I would much rather run an NVIDIA card.  

There are a couple of things that Beyond TV 4 does pretty well that makes it an appealing product:

• The ability to record all episodes of a series, or just new episodes of a series.  From what I can tell, you can do either one or the other in MCE, but not both. 
• The out-of-the-box ability to transcode STANDARD NTSC television recordings into smaller, more managable file formats during off-peak hours (WMV / DivX). 
• The ability to detect commercials in a recording during off-peak hours, and the means to skip through those commercials using a remote or mouse.
• The ability to channel surf without changing the channel.  A menu with a breif synopsis pops up over the video as you flip from channel to channel until you find what your looking for and commimt to that channel. 
• DRM free / Editable file formats
• Lower Price Tag
• Easier Install
• Smaller footprint

 
There are also a few things issues I had with Beyond TV 4 that frustrated me as a user.

• For some reason, Beyond TV 4’s welcome screen reminds me of all of the icons that you see when you start digging into the Windows Control Panel.  The Beyond TV 4 welcome screen is probably the ugliest part of Beyond TV 4 and unfortunately its the first thing that every customer sees.  Using a web interface to access advanced config settings in Beyond TV, users have the "option" to change the default menu to other nav panes - but the only reason anyone would ever want to do this is if they also disliked the landing page.
• This is a minor UI issues, but I found myself fumbling through the three-button / top centered navigation menu quite a bit.  It didnt help that my system was suffering from an Overscan bug because the navigation buttons are rendered outside of the viewable area of my screen.  I keep looking for the menu in the top right hand corner of the screen instead of the top middle. 
• Beyond TV is designed more for customers running at resolutions of 800x600 and above using a remote control.  At 640x480 or 720x480 resolution, the seek bar, channel up, down and jump buttons are so small that I have difficulties hitting them with the mouse (honestly, I difficulties using this interface at any resolution).  This is not a problem in MCE 2005.
• The Beyond TV process for setting up a HD card is somewhat awkward and could be simplified.  If you make a mistake while configuring the device for use with Beyond TV, there are certian places in the setup where you may have to start the config wizard from scratch in order to recover (example, if you choose digital feed instead of analogue feed and wish to navigate back the back button dissapears.   I also found it difficult to verify whether I had selected the correct channel line up once I had selected one and often found myself navigating through the setup menu a second, third or fourth time to get things set up properly.  Some of our local stations broadcast from multiple towers allowing users to pick one channel over another for the same content - Beyond TV 4 automatically marks these channels as "duplicate" without a preview pane so are not able to verify through the channel scan menu which of the two or three HD channels had a stronger signal (it would have been nice to select the channel with the strongest signal rather than picking the first channel in the line-up).  Something interesting to note, KING television broadcasts both their regular line up and a weather forecast on two different channels (different content, but one was marked duplicate and automatically ignored).
• Parental Controls for objectionable content, heck - my wife dosent let me watch Southpark or Drawn Together, do you think we want our kids to watch content that Dad isnt even allowed to watch?

• Support for off-peak .tp to .mpg file conversion
• Support for commercial detection and removal during MPG to WMV or DIvX transcode.
• Better stretch and record support (in the interface, not in the web admin interface) for odd-ball resolutions like 720x480 60Hz.
• A cleaner welcome page and a collection of interface skins / themes to choose from.
• More than 9 FM radio presets.  It would also be nice to add a memo next to the radio preset describing the type of music that the radio station plays.
• 3D vizualizations while FM radio is playing.
• Parental controls for objectionalbe content.

Initial thoughts and conclusions:

For folks that wish to use their HTPCs to edit and archive weeks of content at a time, go with Beyond TV 4.  Beyond TV allows you to transcode STANDARD TELEVISION files into smaller file formats during non-peak hours right out of the box.  Sine Beyond TV 4 allows you to record standard content in a non-propritary format you are just going to have an easier time using Beyond TV 4 over MCE 2005 should you wish to edit or archive any of the video that you recorded.  The only exception to this would be for those of you that wish to archive, edit or play HD content - although your going to have the same problems (if not worse) trying to do the same thing using MCE 2005. 

Note: I'm assuming that it was left out for a future phase project, but Beyond TV 4 wont let you record HD content into MPEG file format even if your HD card supports MPG hardware encoding.  Its also not able to convert .ts files to .mpg files during non-peak hours yet but there is plenty of gossip on the Beyond TV forums as to how that may change soon.

Personally, I liked the Beyond TV 4 channel guide a lot better than I did the MCE 2005 guide.  MCE was prettier, but it just felt like the Beyond TV 4 guide was easier to navigate and program.  I also prefer managing my television shows not yet recorded list in Beyond TV 4 over MCE (MCE falls flat on its face here).

Beyond TV is much easier to use with a remote control, dont try to use it with a mouse - especially at lower resolutions.

For those of us that are looking for an out of the box customer experience thats intuitive and pretty I have a hard time recommending Beyond TV 4.  Almost everyone in the house knows how to use our MCE 2005 box, but they all get fed up trying to navigate in Beyond TV 4. There are four women and two children in my house, and they just cant seem to  figure it out so they just dont use it.  

• Europe gained share for the 3rd consecutive quarter, growing from 36% to 41% of the plasma TV market on a unit basis on 64% Q/Q and 144% Y/Y growth. Its Q4'05 share was its highest share to date. 42" enhanced definition (ED) plasma TVs dominate in Europe with more than a 50% share, but high definition (HD) plasma TVs did gain share rising from 33% to 36% of Europe's plasma TV shipments.
• Japan also gained share on over 100% growth following a slow Q3'05. Japan's share grew to 9.4% in Q4'05. 100% of Japan's plasma TVs are HD with 37" HD the single most popular plasma TV. In all other regions, 42" was the single most popular size.
• North American plasma TV shipments rose 35% Q/Q and 85% Y/Y, but still lost share falling from 30% to 28% of the global plasma TV market. 42"-43" HD plasma TVs maintained the highest share of the North American plasma TV market although the total HD share fell from 66% to 65% as price sensitive holiday demand boosted the 42" ED market. North America was also the only region where PDPs gained share at 40"-44" in Q4'05.
• China's plasma TV shipments were slower than expected in Q4'05 causing the region to lose share for the third consecutive quarter. China's share of the plasma TV market fell from 10% to 8% despite 15% Q/Q and 73% Y/Y growth as 40"-42" LCD TVs took significant share in China. 42" ED was the single most popular plasma TV type in China with a 75% share.

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The major changes in this release are:

• LiveTV rewritten to support saving buffered content while watching
• Signal Monitoring for DVB and pcHDTV recorders
• Ending times may be changed while recordings are in progress
• Playgroups allow for default playback options on recordings
• Channel changes can be made across tuners without changing tuners manually first
• New popup keyboard simplifies setup using remote
• Preview schedule changes when making adjustments to recording schedules
• Added ability to control MythFrontend through a telnet socket
• Closed captioning support on PVR-250/350 (but not 150/500) cards, DVB subtitles, and other cards supporting VBI information.
• New theme (MythCenter), new plugin (MythFlix), and new contributed programs (mythlcdserver, mythwelcome)
• Signficantly overhauled MythWeb, please read the README for details and installation instructions
• Added a basic internal DVD player, removing the need to use Xine or Mplayer

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