OrigenAE cranks out sexy 1080p LCD-equipped HTPC chassis

HTPC enclosures with front-mounted LCD screens certainly aren't new, with firms such as VoodooPC and Okoro Media Systems (just to name a couple) have been pumpin' them out for quite some time, but OrigenAE's take on the LCD-equipped chassis involves quite a bit more distinction than the other ho hum attempts. The S21T is practically one-piece aluminum (black or silver) case that just oozes sleekness, and would probably become the instant standout in any AV rack. Gracing the front is a recessed 12.1-inch motorized LCD that touts an (admittedly tough on the eyes) 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, and just might beat out the actual TV sets this beast will end up connected to. Regardless, the enclosure also features a host of internal fans, matching optical drive bezel, removable motherboard tray, support for 10 internal hard drives, and a bevy of ports including USB 2.0, FireWire, audio in / out, and multi-card flash reader. Of course, it doesn't really matter how sensational the innards of this thing are, just click on through for a few more snapshots and see how great it looks completely empty.

[Via MissingRemote]

[Kichigai Mentat @ Jan 20th 2007 2:00AM]

lawl, you must have smoked some bad granola. I

[tominated @ Jan 19th 2007 5:52PM]

AWESOME!!! gimme gimme gimme!

[Z @ Jan 19th 2007 6:02PM]

The new hotness.

That thing is clean. Me like.

[777php @ Jan 19th 2007 6:07PM]

holy mother of all technology...that is beautiful. Motorized LCD and everything.

[madgamer @ Jan 19th 2007 6:20PM]

yep. the 12inch 1080p display is clearly impossible:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/sanyo-epson-announce-7-1-inch-1080p-lcd-by-far-the-worlds-smal/

[Dan @ Jan 19th 2007 6:56PM]

Can someone explain why certain companies are hell-bent on putting LCDs on the front of their HTPCs (jacking up the price) when we're just going to use the HDMI/DVI output to connect to a HDTV?

[ken fager @ Jan 19th 2007 7:14PM]

So if I hook anything up to the front with a cable coming out it rests on the screen right? Hmmm...

[hmurchison @ Jan 19th 2007 7:14PM]

I don't want the screen to be 1080p because that would be ungodly expensive.

[aural @ Jan 19th 2007 7:17PM]

a 12" 1080p display is far from impossible. Is it overkill? Absolutely - but it's completely plausible... and Brian - The only reason you say that HTPCs are "so 2001" is because you can't afford one. So shut it.

that being said, the design on this puppy is great. Yes, the screen on the front is silly, but it sure does crank up the geek-cred.

[ken fager @ Jan 19th 2007 10:39PM]

Geek cred. Don't leave mom's home without it.

[Bobby @ Jan 19th 2007 7:19PM]

The least it could have is a touch screen. Then you could have home automation and av equipment controls running from the HTPC.

What a waste.

[j @ Jan 19th 2007 7:47PM]

*waves magic wand*

It IS a touch screen. OrigenAE has been working on this for more than a year now.

[Joey Geraci @ Jan 19th 2007 7:47PM]

It is a touchscreen, genius. But I'm not sure about that display. The way they say (1920 x 1080 max resolution) makes me curious, as this isn't a CRT. It either is 1080, or not. Unless they are doing some kind of interpolation thing, which would totally suck (and I imagine have horrible image quality). I can't imagine they are actually doing that, but if so ... teh suck.

Full ATX motherboard support is teh win, though

[Christian @ Jan 19th 2007 8:15PM]

I want one!!! I kind of wish that the USB/firewire ports were underneath the screen or on the side rather than behind the monitor though.

[applesucksLeo @ Jan 19th 2007 9:51PM]

This is the nice kind of stuff we on the Linux/Windows side get to choose from :)
Choice is good...no , Great ! I want.

[Derhn @ Jan 19th 2007 11:50PM]

applesucksLeo said: "This is the nice kind of stuff we on the Linux/Windows side get to choose from :)
Choice is good...no , Great ! I want."

Yeah, as opposed to the added flexibility of being able to run those two OSes, PLUS OS X if you were to get a Mac and not a Windows PC. That's SO much less flexible.

If you are in the market for an HTPC, the best value at the moment is probably a Mac Mini.

[Brian @ Jan 19th 2007 10:16PM]

No HDTV (what the hell use is OTA HD when everyone gets their HD via cable or satellite), no Cable Card. Forget gaming, unless you don't mind infecting your system with the copy protection that comes with it.

HTPCs are a total KLUDGE. Useless. But hey, by all means: Go get yourself one today, and see whether it lives up to the promises. Seriously, I encourage you to get one now. Please, prove me wrong...

See if you'll still be using it 18 months from now, assuming you don't return it immediately in disgust. The only people that use HTPCs are dorks that actually think it's cool to build a home theatre around a computer. Useless.

[Chris @ Jan 20th 2007 10:38AM]

the thing that makes or breaks an htpc is the interface. there are several options out there for that, not just Media Center.

as for OTA and cable card, support is comming, blame the industry not the htpc.

do I have an htpc? no, but close. I have a terrabyte server to store my timeshifted media (no, I don't torrent) and a LinkPlayer2 which I use to stream my content to the home theater via a customizable web interface. this way the HDD noise stays out of the living room but i still get all the other benifits of the htpc.

[Geoff @ Jan 19th 2007 11:44PM]

HTPCs are garbage.

1) No HDTV. OTA doesn't count. The vast majority of people get their HDTV via cable and satellite. Whar good is the main value of an HDTV - use as a PVR - when you can't watch or record HDTC?

2) There isn't a single TV tuner card that can compare with the image quality of your average cable box or TV tuner. The output looks like SD on a plasma: fuzzy, muddy, and wasked-out.

3) Gaming on an HTPC us useless. You constantly have to patch the games manually, and most games these days come with onerous copy protection that has been proven to screw-up your system.

4) I have yet to find a keyboard-mouse or other peripheral that is an acceptable replacement for the equivalent on the Desktop.

5) Because of # 4, using the Windows UI to navigate an HTPC is useless. So, you have to use the Media Centre interface, but then what's point of using a computer as a home theatre if you end-up using a dumbed-down interface.

6) Windows computers are rife with spyware and viruses.

7) Windows is a bloated kludge of an OS. How many lines of code comprise that OS compared to, say, OS X? I don't know the number off the top, but I'll bet it's at least 2-3 times as much.

8) With the emergence of DRM in Vista, the value of using a PC as a home theatre is lost, since you can only do with the content hat you're permitted to do. All that flexibility and power of the PC as an information processing device is useless.

There are A LOT of other reasons why HTPCs are useless, but those are the big ones that come to mind of the top of my head.

[Kichigai Mentat @ Jan 20th 2007 2:00AM]

"1) No HDTV. OTA doesn't count. The vast majority of people get their HDTV via cable and satellite. Whar good is the main value of an HDTV - use as a PVR - when you can't watch or record HDTC?"
Go talk to the MythTV guys about this. There are a great number of Myth boxes out there pulling HDTV over the federally mandated FireWire ports in their HD Cable Boxes.

"2) There isn't a single TV tuner card that can compare with the image quality of your average cable box or TV tuner. The output looks like SD on a plasma: fuzzy, muddy, and wasked-out."
Well, first, that's because you're using cheap, junky capture cards. The Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150, 250, 350, and 500 series cards produce excellent quality videos (and feature on-board MPEG-2 encoders too). However, you're right in that it is a little fuzzy, but that's because you're UPSCALING video from 525 scanlines to something higher (I'm guessing 1024x768). However, this isn't really that much worse, because your average SDTV produces same quality output, the difference is that the pixels are set for this lower resolution (less blur from scaling) and it's further away from your face than your monitor.

"3) Gaming on an HTPC us useless. You constantly have to patch the games manually, and most games these days come with onerous copy protection that has been proven to screw-up your system."
Who does serious gaming on their HTPC? And why would the system being an HTPC interfere? HTPCs run the same operating systems as a non-HTPCs. They use the same video cards. Plenty of Myth users run Linux games and emulators on their systems and enjoy it a lot.

"4) I have yet to find a keyboard-mouse or other peripheral that is an acceptable replacement for the equivalent on the Desktop."
MythTV users have found a great number, but most of the time they just use their TV-style remotes.

"5) Because of # 4, using the Windows UI to navigate an HTPC is useless. So, you have to use the Media Centre interface, but then what's point of using a computer as a home theatre if you end-up using a dumbed-down interface."
So don't use Windows. Myth users usually just configure their menus to have launchers for most everything they could want. Custom media players, scripts, and most everything they could want is available as a plug-in (NetFlix queue management, web browser, recipe management, emulators, non-recorded media playback, weather, etc.)


"7) Windows is a bloated kludge of an OS. How many lines of code comprise that OS compared to, say, OS X? I don't know the number off the top, but I'll bet it's at least 2-3 times as much."
Yeah, Windows is bloated. OS X has some bloat to it, but it's significantly less. So the solution: don't use Windows. I mentioned that above. Linux and OS X are perfectly viable solutions. HTPC software is available for OS X (Front Row, CenterStage, iTheater) and Linux (MythTV, FreeVo).

"8) With the emergence of DRM in Vista, the value of using a PC as a home theatre is lost, since you can only do with the content hat you're permitted to do. All that flexibility and power of the PC as an information processing device is useless."
Then don't use Vista. SageTV, a Windows app, produces DRM-less files last I checked. MythTV outputs in DRM-less MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and Nuppel video files that can be dragged-and-dropped on any other computer.

Please, go back and do more research. Don't think that because WinXP MCE is mentioned that it's the ONLY option. HTPC ≠ WinXP MCE. Technically speaking, my XBox functioned for quite a while as an HTPC, running XBMC and MythTV.

[Kichigai Mentat @ Jan 20th 2007 2:00AM]

You mean an XBox. $110, used. Throw in $5 for a copy of MechAssault from your local GameStop/GameCrazy/EB Games/Electronics Botique, an XBox -> USB adapter ($20, max if you purchase it, but you can build one easily), and about 10-15 minutes of effort can let you run XBox Media Center (XBMC) on your XBox. Significantly cheaper than a Mac Mini. True, it's not nearly as small, nor as multifaceted as a Mac Mini, but it's cheaper, and you get that wonderful satisfaction of making something do a task it was never intended to do, and YOU made it work (with the help of others...)

[craig @ Jan 20th 2007 12:42AM]

"If you are in the market for an HTPC, the best value at the moment is probably a Mac Mini."

You mean that Mac mini that has no internal expandability, limited memory and a useless 2.5" internal hard drive? Just what I wanted to build an HTPC out of: a box that requires a couple more external boxes in order to function and HTPC software that is the least capable of all platforms. Get real.

[ph @ Jan 20th 2007 2:44AM]

Windows media center isnt the greatest I admit. Try xlobby, infintely customizable and free.

HTPCs are still alive and well. There is no other way to cheaply store hundreds of movies. And these ripped dvds play back with very high quality with theatertek.

Windows is a good platform for htpcs. there is more software for it (much of it free) It also is the only OS that provides high quality dvd picture. Macs have dvd quality that some say a 30 dollar dvd player can best.

[Calvin Klein @ Jan 20th 2007 3:32AM]

it says it can hold 10 hard drives but unless it has some kind of noise insulative material, that's gonna be N-O-I-S-Y

[Chris @ Jan 20th 2007 10:44AM]

have you heard a modern FDB hard disk? I haven't, you know why? they are silent. and since it's all aluminum, the case is one big heatsink so the near silent 120mm fans will be very effecive at cooling and won't make that much noise either. and with temp sensored fan controlers and sleep mode on the hdd's, there will be no noise when its idle either.

the silent pc is very possible today. as an example, the noisiest thing in my Shuttle xPC is the fan on the GeForce card, and with a full size case it's not hard to make that silent either.

[Bernard @ Jan 20th 2007 3:43AM]

What Engadget forgot to mention is that OrigenAE was the inventor of the touch-screen HTPC (with their X15e), and indeed that VoodooPC that they link to is based on an OrigenAE system.

[Jason Brown @ Jan 20th 2007 4:15AM]

Did any of you who commented on the uselessness of these formats look at the voodoopc link in the article? nevermind the screen the specs on that model rivals many computers and would easily kick ass in gaming and other multimedia when hooked up to tv or monitor. Now you just have to rob a bank!

[dxcheong @ Jan 30th 2007 8:02PM]

Native Res 1280 x 800
http://www.origenae.com/en/htpc_s21t.htm

[gmessner @ Apr 15th 2007 7:43PM]

It has been a long time coming, the S21T will finally be arriving at pcalchemy.com on 4/20/2007.