brj - thanks for the link to silentpcreview. I will be buying a cpu to use for this. I also want to record tv shows (i.e., football games) onto it. My thought is to hardwire, and have it in the room. Is there anything I can do in the ordering/configuring stage to help make it more silent?
That depends on where you order the machine from, and if you are ordering parts to build it yourself, or want to order a full assembled solution.
Right now, there is no "audiophile" level solution that I know of that also acts as a PVR. The options from Olive seem very impressive in terms of building a high-quality, quiet (fanless) music server. It runs a Linux OS on a 32 bit PowerPC processor, which should provide many possibilities for expansion to someone with the right knowledge. That said, they are not yet as open about some of the details as I'd like, but they are considering it. I've emailed them a few times, and they are pretty responsive, but they are a new company and seem to be proceeding a bit cautiously.
The flip side is a media server from someone like Dell or the other mass market vendors that are starting to look at "convergence devices". These devices have a lot more room in the case to install additional hardware and generally provide more of the flexibility you want in terms of PVR, etc., but the vendors haven't put as much emphasis into keeping the hardware quiet, providing it with clean power, and other things that "audiophiles" care about.
One option I'm looking forward to investigating is the next rev of the Apple Mac Mini. If they add a decent digital audio out and the new
FrontRow software they introduced a few weeks ago, I think this very quiet machine might have some real potential.
Another option that Josh brought to my attention is to split the front end from the backend. Use something like the Mac Mini, the Olive Musica or other small quiet computer to handle storage and software (iTunes, SlimServer, MythTV, etc.), and another piece of hardware to act as the video processing unit (MPEG encoding/decoding, etc.). The
Roku Labs Photobridge HD is one such device that has already been "hacked" to do this, although there are others.
Basically, no one company has come up with a single solution that addresses the needs of all interested parties. If you want such a device right now, you will have to build it yourself, and it will take some level of knowledge and work. On the plus side, this market segment is getting more and more attention, and thus we are starting to see more and more products addressing it. Unfortunately, most of these products address music rather than video simply because music is already (mostly) available in unencumbered digital formats. (There are
exceptions.) The real explosion of products to handle digital video in addition to digital audio won't happen until the DRM issues get resolved, and get resolved in the consumer's favor. If the MPAA/RIAA continues to treat paying customers
as criminals that need to be contained at every turn, the true convergence market will continue to develop at its current stuttering, miserly pace. Until it does, however, most of the "media PCs" are going to be primarily aimed at music, or at best, music and non-HD, non-digitally broadcast video.
Basically, if you already have a computer with sufficient storage somewhere in your house and you just want to listen to music, a network music player is a great solution. If you want to go further than that, it can be done, but it will probably be easier to simply add an HD Tivo to the mix rather than develop a single box solution. Then again, where is the fun in that?
Brian has been an indispensible resource in my brief parade into the world of linux and file servers. Unfortunately it came to a tragic end when my linux box came to a crashing hault recently. I suspect a malicious virus is at fault when I was undoubtely naive when surfing for appropriate linux drivers.
Oops! What happened, Josh?
It sounds like you are a bit time-constrained at the moment, but if you have a few minutes and want to keep pushing a bit, shoot me a PM with some details and I can probably offer a few suggestions.
(By the way, Josh has returned the information exchange favor by supplying me with info on DIY audio and power tools - although I'm not sure he recommends mixing the two!
)
