Devices I’ve used at length:

• HTPC running Windows Media Center
• Western Digital TV Live!

Both of those devices were OK, but I felt that both had their limitations. Either lacking in features or usability. Both required use of their own inputs on my home theater and thus, were not very well integrated into the whole experience. Issues such as occasionally having to plug in a keyboard to the HTPC to address an issue, or the Western Digital TV Live not having certain features, like a web browser or Netflix (which I believe the newer models have).

My only expectation for a HTPC/Meida player really are:

1. Ease of Use
2. Integration into Home Theater
3. Ability to stream many media formats (up to 1080p) and play back smoothly
4. Ability to stream online content (specifically, Netflix)
5. Web Browser

I recently was in San Diego visiting friends and one of them had the new Logitech Revue Google TV based device hooked up! I was intrigued because I’m a bit of a gadget guy and anything home theater related immediately catches my eye. After poking around with it for a half hour or so, I decided once the funds became available that I would purchase one myself and give it a whirl.

What really set the Google TV apart for me is that it’s not just another home theater component, but more an extension of your current DVR/STB by living “in-line” between your STB and your Television. In my eyes, this is what makes it a more valuable addition to any home theater.

So let’s dive into my expectations and how they were met:

1. Ease Of Use / 2. Integration into Home Theater

The Logitech Revue itself was fairly simple to setup. It has two HDMI ports on the back (in from your STB and out to your Receiver/TV), an optional optical out port if you use an external device for sound processing and an optional IR blaster port (and IR blaster) if the IR ports on the box are unable to reach your device. My setup has the Google TV living directly between my DirecTV DVR and my Denon AVR-2308CI Receiver, and the IR ports were able to control both devices without a problem.

Once it was all hooked up, the Logitech Revue automatically detected and set my resolution to 1080p when starting the setup. The setup itself is fairly easy and goes even faster if you have a “Google Account” before you start the process. All my devices and their IR codes were supported and was a snap to setup.

Once everything is booted up, I was fairly impressed. The UI itself looks like a next generation TiVo and is fairly simple to navigate. I think the easiest way to get around on Google TV is to use their “spotlight-like” search which lets you jump anywhere from Web Browsing, tuning in a channel on your DVR or going into an Application.

Features like PIP while web browsing and continuing playing the background make it super easy to use and a great user experience.

3. Ability to stream media from network resources

The main reason I use a HTPC/Media player is to play back 1080p MKV content from my Network Storage Device. The biggest question to me was, “Could the Logitech Revue, with it’s 1.2Ghz Intel Atom processing ability, be able to play 1080p MKV files over the network without any skipping or frame drops?”

The answer is, IT CAN! The Logitech Revue can play 1080p MKV files no problem! This is accomplished using the Logitech Media Player application that comes installed by default on the Logitech Revue. The only downside is that the Logitech Media Player does not support SMB shares (yet, hopefully), so you’ll need a DLNA server on your network to serve up the content. The Logitech Media Player was able to see my Twonky based DLNA server without issue and stream all the media containers and formats I had available (DivX/h264/AVC/MPEG/AVI/MKV/MPG).

The only technical shortfall I found was the lack of support for playing back DTS streams. AC3/Dolby were supported without issue, but it’s something to keep in mind.

4. Ability stream online content

This is a mixed bag and I’ll touch more on it in my final thoughts, but overall I was pleased with the offerings so far. The Netflix and Pandora apps built into Google TV worked great and I was able to use both without a single issue. Netflix is integrated directly into the Main Menu, so you can see your recommendations right off the bat.

The Web Browser (Chrome) is fully enabled with Flash and is able to play most online content from major providers, such as YouTube, Comedy Central, NBC and so on. There are some licensing issues, so sites like Hulu are blocked.

5. Web Browser

This is one of those areas where I’ve never REALLY used the functionality on previous boxes. I never invested in or wanted a full size keyboard laying around my living room to support my HTPC, and other devices such as the Western Digital TV Live! simply didn’t have a browser installed. So this was new ground for me and I was curious how it would work out using my TV for regular browsing.

Oddly enough, it seemed weird at first but then the other day my Macbook’s battery went dead and I decided to sit and browse through Google TV. I found the experience very fluid and natural. The ability to zoom in and still have a touch pad mouse made it all feel very familiar. I missed some things, such as tabs and small things like that, but overall I didn’t run into any issues using the browser for casual browsing.

The only drawback I had was that I found the experience in the browser to be much slower and less responsive than the rest of the system. Once your video was up and playing, you can enable full screen playback without a hiccup. So I’m not entirely sure on the reasons for that, but I imagine it can be addressed in coming releases.

Overall, I’ve been really pleased with the purchase of the Google TV powered Logitech Revue. I think your experience and reception of the device will depend upon your expectations. A replacement for your STB television provider it is not, at least, not yet. What is is (currently) is a power enhancement to your current Home Theater giving you greater ability and features without having to switch from Input to Input and utilize different devices to accomplish a quick task.

Watching a movie and want to look up who a certain actor is? Now that information is available on screen.

Just missed the end of your show and want to know when it’ll be on again? I bet you $20 that the Google TV software can find the next showtime faster using the “Spotlight-like” search than your STB can.

You want to read about the news while watching it? Now you can.

I think if the above reasons are high on your list of desires for a Home Theater component, I think you should give the Google TV powered Logitech Revue a try.

Cheers!

The case I’ve been using is a Morex 3677B case, which is fairly small but still allows enough room for a 2.5″ Hard Drive and a Slim Laptop CD/DVD drive.

A couple gotchas I ran into while upgrading from the VIA board to the new Intel Atom based board:

1. The Zotac IONITX board has only SATA connectors, no PATA connectors to be found! This was a road block as both my previous hard drive and slim CD/DVD drive were both PATA so I was forced to upgrade them as well. Luckily I was able to score a 320GB Seagate drive for only $79!
2. Zotac provides a small 50mm fan to use on the heatsink because the Dual Core N330 CPU as well as the nVidia northbridge require active cooling. Luckily the Morex case has a 50mm exhaust fan that sits close to the heatsink. I was able to flip it around and use it to blow onto the CPU.
3. Speaking of the heatsink, it’s about 1.5″ high and ALMOST comes too close to not fitting into the case. So it’s something to keep in mind when you’re working on your setup!

I’ve got everything hooked up and it was very easy to get the driver package installed. Because the Zotac IONITX came out so recently, the CD it came with had the latest drivers and the motherboard had the latest BIOS installed.

The ONE issue I’m having and still searching for a solution for is that using HDMI as the audio output, I’m getting audio distortion. I’ve tried different source materials and even tweaking the audio settings, but it’s still happening. Other than that, I’ve been super pleased with it’s performance! I mean, seriously, a computer the size of a shoe box showing four CPU’s (2 physical + hyper threading) and an nVidia graphics adapter!

Hope this helps someone out there in the market for upgrading their own HTPC as well!

Cheers!

So I built an HTPC. I built a GREAT HTPC. It was small, fanless and had everything I’d ever need. But I was disappointed though, only because the quality of the video combined with what I was ACTUALLY able to do with it let me down. I suppose it was my own fault because I had let my desire for the system to be completely silent and fanless impact its performance.

Fast forward a couple years later and I have this shoe box sized PC sitting below my computer desk at home. What should I do with it?

In moving forward with reviving my HTPC from its unused ranking among my home hardware, I decided to set forth a couple of goals for the upgrade so I could be pointed in what I was shopping for (and so I could have a valid excuse to tell my wife why I was spending more money on something I never used in the first place )

1. More CPU Horsepower – This is obviously the most important aspect of this upgrade. Currently my HTPC uses a VIA EPIA-M 600mhz fanless Mini-ITX motherboard with built in CPU/Video. Originally this seemed like enough to play NES ROMS but it became obvious that OS overhead and lack of video acceleration were deal breakers when it came time to play DivX/XviD movies. So this next version had to have considerably more CPU power.
2. HDMI/HD Video Support – In the last few years I’ve upgraded my Home Theater to use HDMI exclusively. It was mostly to clean up the serpent lair that was the are behind my AV rack (which I’m sure the EMF was giving me cancer). Here’s a picture (seriously, no joke!) So, in honor of my new found love affair with HDMI, this new HTPC must support HDMI in a Mini-ITX form factor up to a resolution of at LEAST 720p.
3. 5.1/7.1/Surround Sound Support – Sorta the same as above, but the HTPC needs to support surround sound. As I’ve mentioned in my previous article, when I backup my DVD’s to XviD, I preserve the Dolby AC3 soundtrack so I would like to still enjoy the surround sound when replaying these files on my HTPC.
4. Wireless Ethernet – You see a theme here? Basically I want the power cable and the HDMI cable being the only wires coming out of the back of this device. Wireless Ethernet is pretty standard on most motherboards now, so this shouldn’t be a tall order.
5. Price – I understand that to make this upgrade even worth it, things have to be cost effective. I want to upgrade the Mini-ITX motherboard in my HTPC for under $200 out the door.

I began my search at my favorite peddler of Mini-ITX and mini-system wares, LogicSuppy.com. I immediately take note of the new Intel Atom based solutions from both Intel and Jetway, but I also note that Intel has decided to “nerf” their Atom offerings as to not undercut their desktop motherboard market. Their Atom Mini-ITX boards, albeit cheap (sub $100), lack sever of my requirements. The Jetway Atom boards at LEAST offer DVI (so I could do a ghetto fabulous DVI -> HDMI conversion), but that would require more cables than it’s worth and the Jetway boards cost upwards of $250! Yikes!

The time came to conjure up my Google-Fu skills to see what I could come up with. Newegg has some descent offering from VIA but all the EPIA boards are under powered in comparison to the latest Intel offerings. A 1.8Ghz VIA C7 board would seem to have the horsepower, but it fell short of the requirements and also crept up to almost $300!

I keep going back to the Atom platforms but none of them seem to fill my requirements. That is, until I come across the NVIDIA ION platform offering from Zotac! I remember reading about NVIDIA ION but never gave any serious thought to it as a desktop platform. I decided to check out the features of the Zotac IONITX-A Atom N330 Offering:

1. Horse Power: Dual Core Atom N330 1.6Ghz CPU — CHECK!
2. HD/HDMI: 1080p over HDMI — CHECK!
3. Surround Support: 7.1 over HDMI — CHECK!
4. Wireless Ethernet: Build In — CHECK!
5. Price: Amazon lists it at $189 when it’s released  – CHECK!

It seems we have a winner!

Talk about a colossal upgrade for a HTPC. A Mini-ITX motherboard that has a dual core CPU and HDMI output!? Insane! Needless to say as soon as this little bad boy hits the streets I’ll be picking one up.

I’m curious if anyone else out there has been in the market for a mini HTPC upgrade as well? What have you been looking for and what were your requirements? I’m interested to hear from you!

Cheers!