Smart Home Blog

I already wrote about using ASUS Eee Desktop as LinuxMCE media director. It’s compact, cheap and has enough power to playback HD content. But with fresh announcement about adding HDMI out to the next generation of Eee desktop B204 and B206. Both models are equiped by Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) and ATI Radeon HD 3400 graphics. Additionally ASUS Eee will get S/PDIF audio out.

There are no any words about price and availability of ASUS Eee Desktop HD version. But in any case it seems that it’ll be the best candidate to use as LinuxMCE media director or as a client for other media systems such VDR, MythTV etc.

[via Engadget]

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A new ASUS all-in-one touchscreen PC is ready for pre-order on the UK online shop. It sports 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, 15.6-inch touchscreen LCD, a 1.3-megapixel camera, built-in stereo speakers, WiFi (802.11b/g/n) адаптер and gigabit LAN and runs Windows XP Home. The release date is set for November 20th, but now you can pre-order it for £399.99 ($685)!

The all-in-one ASUS PC looks really amazing! Till that time the most appropriate solution for big, WinXP-based touchscreen control panel for LinuxMCE, called Orbiter, was Sahara i400. But new all-in-one Eee provides better configuration for the half price (Sahara i400 is tagged at $1700.00)! A big respect to ASUS for its amazing line Eee!

[via Engadget]

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Asus WL500G Premium is a very interesting device. Basically it’s WiFi router with four ports for wired connection. Additionally it equiped with two USB ports. Using one of those ports and external hard drive we can easily get NAS.

Moreover, the sources of WL500G’s firmware are available on the ASUS web site. As result there is a custom versions of firmware with extended functionality (possibility to run Torrent client, for example).

If you have Squeezeboxes you can turn WL500G into music streamer for your devices using those recommendations to install and run SlimServer there.

I thought to buy Asus WL500G because it provides amazing functionality. But it has a big disadvantage - lack gigabit ports and 802.11n. I can live without hight speed WiFi connection but wired gigabit network is required for streaming media content (especially HD) over the house. So, I decided to wait for availability of Belkin N+ Wireless Router.

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UI2 with overlay and resolution 1080p

Yesterday I made a few shots of ASUS P2-M2A690G. It’s really great. I found that there are actually two sound cards. One uses analog and digital outputs and another - HDMI. That means it’s possible to send audio and video via one HDMI cable!

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Yesterday I got barebone ASUS P2-M2A690G for testing as media director for LinuxMCE. That box is priced just in €100. But it’s really good: integrated ATI RadeonTM 1250 with HDMI output, S/PDIF-out (Optical) audio, slim form-factor and nice looking design.

Additionally I had Desktop Athlon 64 X2 5400+ and 2GB RAM. Installation of processor and memory took about 15 minutes (thanks to well thought-out internal design). By the way I like the quality of P2-M2A690G assembling. All wires are tied up into braid and placed around case. So, internal space looks very clear.

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