The war between HTPCs and PVRs continues to rage
James Bannan03 March 2008
This HTPC rival is a great place to start when next building an entertainment system.
One requirement of any flexible home entertainment system is the ability to bring lots of different types of media together in one place. The TViX M-4130SH is a high-end example of such a product. Primarily designed as an High-Def TV Personal Video Recorder (HDTV PVR), it also functions as a feature-rich media player.
The unit is based on the Sigma EM8623 chipset with 16MB flash ROM. It’s a SATA HDD-based system, accepting SATA-I and SATA-II drives and supports 10/100 Ethernet LAN with optional 802.11b/g WLAN. It’s a true HD device, supporting both HD component outputs as well as HDMI up to 1,080p. It has digital coaxial/optical and analogue/stereo audio outputs, and the VFD display means that you can control the device without having to turn on the TV.
It’s also USB 2.0-compliant — you can connect it to a PC for direct disk access, or plug in two USB storage devices and play back the contents. It’s also flash-upgradable, and Dvico constantly release updates to improve performance and compatibility.
The unit has two effective modes — media player and PVR. The HDTV quality is excellent although the unit seems to require a very strong signal for smooth playback, and it doesn’t like receiving a passthrough signal from another HDTV device.
Although it’s quite expensive and doesn’t come with a hard drive, the M-4130SH is far cheaper than an HTPC and much simpler to use. It makes an excellent base for any multimedia-capable entertainment system.