Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater I want an "everything box" for Christmas

OK

Here is what I want:

A box that will fit in my audio rack that will have the following:

- Play blu-ray.
- Play DVD - all types.
- Play CDs - all types.
- Can record DVD and CD - all types.
- Has a 160 gig hard drive that I can record HD content to for all major cable and satellite companies (Starchoice).
- Has multiple USB port that can play and record all media types.
- Has wireless network capabilities so I can access media files from my computer.
- Has an RF remote.
- Has a good functioning user interface.
- Has both HDMI and component out and input connections.
- is Affordable (Doesn't cost a hundred million bazillion dollars).

Santa, can you get your Elves to make one of these for me???

Thanks

paul

With enough duct tape, I'm sure it is possible to find you a "box" that does all that!

I'm not an elf, but for around $1000 I could build an HTPC which does nearly everything on that list. The HDMI input is not going to be cheap, and even more so, it won't support HDCP encrypted HDMI. Component input also is an expensive option, but can be done. CableCARD tuners should be available soon, so you'll be able to record HD cable easy enough. Everything else is well within reason, for a hundred more over a Blu-ray reader, you can get a Blu-ray recorder too.

Paul, I would want SACD & DVD-A capability as well...

My list for an everything box would be slightly different.

What is a box with all that video capability doing in your audio rack?

I keed, I keed!

That's much more difficult from a computer. There were a few versions of WinDVD which played DVD-As, but they lost that privilege after implementing it poorly enough to allow extraction of the uncompressed PCM data. There's never been piece of software to play SACDs on the computer. I believe it's not even possible to get access to the data on the disc without a special firmware in the DVD drive.

Paul, that's certainly within Santa's capabilities, but the question is, have you been good enough for him to bring you one(I got mine last Christmas).

Input? So it wouldn't be a video card then right? I was going to say my HDMI video card only cost me $59 bucks at Fry's. What would an HDMI input be on a computer anyway?

There are video capture cards which have SDI/DVI/HDMI connectors which allow digital video capture. But none of them implement HDCP so it isn't possible to capture encrypted video data.