Hi-Grade's Digital Media Station (DMS) comes in DVD player like from factor and capitalises on Hi-Grade's experience in the European market.
This explains the SCART connections (de-facto standard in Europe), not very useful here but serious home theatre buffs might welcome it.
The DMS doesn't ship with a separate monitor/TV or speakers as it's designed to work with your current entertainment setup. It does so extremely quietly and does not appear to have any heat problems. The use of low noise components means that, unlike some Media Center PCs, it's unlikely to be overheard in any but the quietest scenes.
Infrared receivers for the bundled Media Center remote and wireless keyboard with built in trackball are integrated into the DMS making for a neat set up.
If you have Pay TV, you could opt to plug the supplied "IR Blaster" cable into the back of the DMS. This is then placed in front of the Pay TV box, enabling the DMS' remote and recording scheduler to change Pay TV channels.
Of course the DMS is also a standard PC running Windows XP. It performed reasonably well in tests returning scores of 286 in SySMark2001 and 5161 in 3DMark 2001.
The DMS offers just about everything you'd expect from a Media Center PC. From the comfort of your couch and using your TV as the display you can watch, pause and record live TV, listen to the radio, access NineMSN and Telstra Broadband premium content, manage your photo and digital music collections and chat away on an enhanced Messenger interface or browse the web - all backed by a one (1) year nationwide pick up and return warranty.
Price: $2,795
Distributor : QDI Technology
Phone: 1800 660 280
URL:
www.qditech.com.au/dms.php
This review is an extract from the December 2004 edition of Australian PCWorld
