Mvix intros HDHome S2 and S4 media servers: HTPCs, with a capacious twist
By Darren Murph 
posted May 27th 2010 11:44AM
posted May 27th 2010 11:44AM
You know, HTPCs never did anything to deserve the worldwide shunning that they're dealing with right about now, and Mvix apparently couldn't care less about the overall lack of interest in buying a PC that's chained down to the den. Rather shockingly (given the company's past endeavors), the HDHome S2 and S4 are the latest to emerge on the living room scene, but unlike most other pre-built HTPCs, this one has an atypically weak processor and an unusually large amount of storage capacity. Both boxes get powered by a dual-core Atom 330 CPU, yet you'll also find a Blu-ray player, HDMI output, Bluetooth 2.0, a half dozen USB 2.0 sockets, WiFi, an embedded TV tuner and your choice of NVIDIA's Ion or ATI's Radeon 3200 HD on the graphics front. The main differentiating factor is the amount of hot-swappable drive bays; the S2 moseys along with just a pair, while the S4 can handle four drives at a moment's notice. Frankly, this thing looks more at home in a closet or server room than beside your HDTV, but either way, they're both available to customize starting at $999 and $1,599, respectively. Mvix HDHome Converges Home Theater, Gaming and Home Computing Into a Single Device
Chantilly, VA. May 25, 2010: Mvix(USA), Inc., a market leader in high-definition entertainment, business signage solutions and networked-accessible storage (NAS) devices, announces the launch of their flagship product HDHome. The device delivers a convergence across high definition home entertainment, gaming and home computing into a single, compact unit along with massive storage space for hi def media files. "This high-end, comprehensive system fills a void in the market where users demand versatility and system flexibility. Our customers have been asking us for a device where they can store terabytes of their movie collection and have access to it from anyplace, anywhere. HDHome is a response to such a market feedback." Said VP of Business Development, Mike Mallon.
Built along the traditional HTPC architecture, Mvix HDHome is targeted toward movie aficionadas and multi-taskers, who value superior quality, style and multi-source entertainment. It leverages the latest, Windows 7 Media Center® platform to deliver a near-perfect user interface along with a host of networked sharing options. One can browse thousands of internet TV stations, watch Netflix® , Hulu® and easily share media across the home network. HDHome also works as the universal platform for PC-based gaming and multi-player online games.
The HDHome media center features an embedded slot-load, Bluray player with PowerDVD for a complete HD entertainment experience. Eliminating the need for an additional set-top BD box in the living room, HDHome aims to be the center for all things HD, and Digital Media. With an embedded TV tuner, users will be able to watch, pause, and record a live TV program. HDHome uses latest video and audio decoding technology, making it most versatile media (video and audio) playback system in the market. Apart from true 1080p HD movies and images, HDHome also allows rich, HD 3D digital music over HDMI and optical digital audio out.
Inspite of its small size, HDHome provides expandable storage capacity. It features RAID-enabled, hot-swappable HDD bays for reliable, secure storage for all digital media and documents. HDHome is being launched in two flavors: HDHome S2 (2-bay version, priced at $999)and HDHome S4 (4-bay version, priced at $1599). Both models will feature 10/100/1000 network, Embedded Wireless-N, BD Drive, Media Card Slots, HDMI out, Optical Audio Out, TV Tuner and a full, licensed version of Windows-7 Home Premium disk.
Announcing the launch, Mike commeneted: "HDHome is the ultimate dream box for today's high definition homes. It is the result of our decade long experience in delivering superior home entertainment devices, home theater PCs and media storage technology. HDHome is for people who enjoy and share movies, listen music, tweet, and web-surf – all at the same time, sitting in their living rooms or home theaters."
A tragic misallocation of resources... bad timing, not listening to the market. Who except for a select few elites are going to put down a grand for a HTPC? Something a tiny $100 device could do just as well... minus the storage of course.
@buoy
So you can get a TV Tuner, BD player, DVR, Media server, a host of inputs and outputs, and Windows 7 Home Premium for $100? Hook me up!
This looks quit interesting for the average family that simply wants a do everything box at a reasonable price.
@buoy
its not the money but what you get for the money as you point out.
I am building an htpc and for 1200 (and dont consider myself elite of elite) i will be getting
2 tbs of storage + 40 gig SSD
intel i 530
nice motherboard
decent looking case
ceton 4 tuner card (if it ever ships)
@normychas
also a blu ray player
@ArhcAngel
Um, no.
But:
If you have need for a massive storage media server, you already have storage of your own in 90% of the cases. Someone into such a device also surely has a BluRay already, or a PS3, but if not a BR player is $100, $150 tops for a decent one. A NAS chassis operating as a media server, a set top box to pull from the media server, and a DVR or tuner in a PC fill out the rest, and still stay under $1K. Benefit, if you have an issue, only one device is down instead of your entire home theater and entertainment system for the house.
@ArhcAngel The "average" family will not find this to be reasonable, sorry. I can build a machine with much better specs for half the price. I'm sure you can also buy a name brand machine with good specs, throw in an additional drive and still save money. Of course an average family will buy a WD live for $100, download movies and forget about other features this box has, or alternatively keep renting DVDs at Redbox for $1 and play on their $50 DVD player.
@buoy Yeah, agree completely. A small $200 nettop with XBMC and use network attached storage. I don't see the need for removable storage when you can just buy a NAS using RAID.
@zelannii
@tosvus
I'm sorry. You must not understand what today's "average" family home is like. The average family does not want to have separate devices to do all of these things because it is so confusing. They also have multiple TV's throughout the house. Now the lucky few also have coax run to each room but only the VERY lucky few have Ethernet (I spent last summer in the attic running CAT 5) so for the unwashed masses wireless is the only option. They have a cable/dsl/fiber modem & wifi router. They know nothing about what those boxes do except that they allow them to get to the internet. You try and tell them they need a media server and they will either give you a blank stare or go get their serving tray out of the cabinet. You tell them they can take this box home, plug it in to their TV and set it up to connect to their wireless router for internet access to TV shows and they can record TV shows from their local stations and they will jump for joy. Then you hook them up with a couple of wireless gaming adapters on their PS3/BR/DLNA enabled device in the other rooms and they will think you are a genius.
@ArhcAngel The average household makes roughly $44K/Year and consists of at least 3-4 people they need to support. They will not be buying a box costing this much. Furthermore, most of them probably get their tv from cable or satellite and would rather pay 5-8/month for a dvr from them instead. If they want to get a movie, they stop by the redbox at the walmart and pick up a dvd (not Blu-Ray).
I think *you* need to get a grasp on what the middle american family is like.
That said, as a niche product, this is probably fine for medium-high income families that have a higher than average interest in this area, and no ability and/or interest in tinkering.
@tosvus
If you have no interest in tinkering then you are buying an appliance and not a PC. This means a Roku or a Tivo or a really fancy BluRay player.
For a distributed setup, low profile boxes already eliminate that "tinkering" problem. Although building the boxes is kind of the tip of the iceberg.
just to reiterate and support what people have said in response.
WD Live
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/07/wd-tv-live-hd-gets-play-to-functionality-full-windows-7-compl/
is a far more appropriate purchase for an average family HTPC solution, assuming they have things like desktop-PCs and notebooks and other forms of storage.
Given that pricing out a moderately-equipped HTPC (with Win7, tuners, and Blu-Ray) comes out near the $800 mark, this isn't too bad of a deal.
@Zimzoom
But the specs sound identical to the system I built for £500..
.. Accept mine boots on an SSD too.
4 x 1TB
1 x 40GB (SSD)
BD drive
Atom 330 on mATX
2GB RAM
BlackGold dual tuner
Low profile case
£488.76
I don't think these boxes are fantastic deals...
so it's a HTPC in a HP Mediasmart case.how innovative. Tho I'm not sure y someone would choose ION over ATI.
1600???
My HTPC cost 600 to build with software.
1000 left for 2TB drives at 150 a piece?? 12 TB of storage and cash left over.
@everyone does
$1000 for a ATOM based HTPC setup, they obviously blew it.
I built a mini home server with E7300 / 4 gb low volt ram / 300w SFX PSU / 4 fan controller / Intel mini ITX board / 3 hot swap bay (with 2 x 1.5tb F2's) expandable to 5 tb if i get a Samsung F3 2tb drive. all fitted in a Lian Li Q7 all for the price of $625. Never looked back on ATOM's. (FYI, 67w on average, 74w while streaming)
They forgot to mentioon that it also is a Microsoft Windows Home Server as well as an HTPC.
@mdelprin
No they didn't forget. It runs Win7 HP, therfore it is not a WHS. With Win 7 it can share media very easily, that doesn't make it a WHS.
@Jay Evans
Yep. You're Right! The article I read on WeGotServed made it sound lie it was a WHS.
So, what a stupid overpriced piece of junk!
Ridiculous price. PLUS what's the point of a blu-ray capable HTPC if it doesn't support bit-stream audio? excluding the price, it doesn't look bad if if included a 5 series ATI GPU for the sound.
Whoever buys this is dumb.
@wooties
Not everyone cares about bitstream audio. In fact, most people probably don't have the set-up to really benefit from it unless they've bought a new receiver in the past 2 or 3 years and have a pretty decent 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system and near perfect room acoustics. I'm going to guess that most people fail on that last point. The Ion or ATI 3200 will still do Dolby digital 5.1 over HDMI, and that is perfectly sufficient for most people. However, I still wouldn't buy it. Over $1000 for an Atom CPU. All that storage space and it would take like two weeks to trans-code a single Bluray disc.
@glennS I respectfully disagree - for that amount of money, I expect it to be as good as a much cheaper blu-ray standalone player at least. Even if I had not bought a receiver with the necessary formats yet, I'd certainly expect it to be ready to go..
@wooties Bitstream audio only matters if you need to let a surround sound receiver do the decoding. You really don't have to have a surround sound receiver unless you have other legacy devices. You can use a media center as the preamp and hook it directly to an amp using the media center for volume control.
@cinematech I haven't been keeping too much up to date on this, but last time I checked, only a limited number of soundcard/software combo. had the necessary licensing/technology to output full quality sound over analog. Most of the time the quality will be capped at 16-bit/48KHz. If I'm mistaken, let me know. I should start getting up to speed on this again :)
@cinematech Bitstream only matters if you wish to take advantage of the lossless audio formats that come with most blu-ray movies, you mean.
Of course you can use other methods of audio, but they are inferior. It's about quality, sir. And yes it matters because the first to letters of the acronym HTPC stand for Home Theater. There's really no excuse for why modern HTPCs don't have this basic feature. 'specially if they're going to be used for blu-ray watching.
@wooties Wrong again wooties. Bitstream only matters if you are letting your surround sound receiver do the decoding. If you allow the software (powerdvd 9) or the soundcard (asus xonar which doesn't apply here) to do the decoding, then you can get your lossless audio to your speakers.
For example, powerdvd 9 has the ability to decode the lossless, high-rez audio tracks. It then packs those 8 channels of audio into a liner pcm stream (this is known as LPCM). LPCM is in turn sent to your surround receiver over HDMI. This is fully supported by the Ion chip.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-ion-htpc,2329.html
@wooties And one other point, you should use LPCM over bitstream whenever possible, because that is the only way to get the secondary audio from bonus features mixed in with lossless audio. The BD format was designed with the intention of the player doing the decoding anyway. There is no reason to set the source to bitstream unless the receiver just doesn't support LPCM. If that's the case, the format doesn't matter, because the receiver is probably a cheap one. Most high end preamps supported LPCM over HDMI before they put the decoders on board. They saw these new decoders as clever marketing tools to get consumers to go out and buy new receivers.
@cinematech I'm not doubting you and I agree in theory, but unfortunately PCM isn't always going to be the answer. It's not always available, either. For example, I digitize some of my blu-rays and to rip the LPCM takes MUCH more space than the DTS-HD or TRUEHD tracks.
And as far as the quality argument, it's kind of subjective. Some of us don't want software to do the decoding and would rather have it sent directly to the receiver, others choose to go the route you describe, the sound differences are prolly negligible but my point is that a proper HTPC should have the option to decode through software AND to bit-stream, not one or the other. (IMO) Personally, I do both (LPCM and bit-stream), depending on the media.
Anyway, Happy Friday dude!
@wooties Cheers
HTPCs aren't popular because people aren't given what they want by both the hardware and the software (which usually has some limitations like can't play dvd iso's).
It's much better to buy network attached storage and plug a cheap atom ion or similar nettop into the tv with XBMC or boxee on it. You can add as many tv's as you want then without the price tag of more storage.
@petebob796
in terms of limitations it depends on your setup. If you hook up your htpc directly to your tv windows 7 can handle isos. It's the extender for windows 7 that can not handle an iso. I would say that the bigger limit with xbmc is that you can add as many tvs as you like but you cant watch live tv. I think xbmc supports hdhome run but honestly it was never meant to be your 24/7 dvr. XBMC is very slick and but even it has plenty of limitations. I think windows 7 offers the best mesh of solutions you can hook up to your tv for iso support, you can use a 360 in every room for a truely centralized dvr solution while also supporting a movie library.