And @James, more inlines below.. :-))) On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:06 AM, James Nzomo <kazikubwa@gmail.com> wrote:
lol Cabinets? Cabinets in the living room is a very old school concept. imagine a PC taking up the space occupied by an old school VCR. Anyway.. if you are worried about a PC not fitting in "cabinets" checkout PC form factors - HERE <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_form_factor> then check these out <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form_factor> Have you seen one that fits inside cabinets?
Prices, casing prices and please include power supply prices too.. Lets add them here to the thread for discussion sake. Agreed, small form factors do not need much space in a cabinet.
If we are to talk about Bluetooth, we need to be on the same wavelength. The BT moodyness you claim is a result of either using ancient first gen bt hardware or working with OSes that have an incomplete Bluetooth Protocol Stacks such as the one that MS and some other vendors provide for windows. Trust me on this...i've been working on my own BT HID Library for the previously mentioned app for some time ...hence my above recommendation on being on the same wavelength before further discussion on this.
Go on, lets talk about BT in the context of the end user. What happens when you are away and the battery of the device needs changing?
OS sleep? I doubt you use this feature frequently. If you did, you wouldn't have highlighted it as a problem. Well i use it often on my laptop and I've just booted into my Ubuntu installation after 3 weeks of "sleep->power->sleep" cycles on FC15. I could'av gone on as long as necessary without any problems. In addition to that, there would be no harm in rebooting a HT PC for maintenance once in a while.
Lets be a bit technical on this. What is sleep mode = System config moved to RAM? Apply this on an .avi file, how much memory do you need, and will the computer wake up from the same exact scene?
Power consumption lol. For this one i will start by asking...do you have a PC in your household? Have you thrown it away because it consumes too much power? According to you there is only one PC type - the kienyeji clone that sucks 450 watts/hr from KPLC. Did you know that consumption depends on the components that constitute the machine? HDD size & rpm, chipset, ram type etc. Look at the power consumption specs of the first gen Mac Mini - a fully fledged ultra low power x86 PC. Another good ultra low power example is the Nintendo Wii - a PPC Arch low power marvel that chugs along at 19W playing the heaviest of its titles.
You answered this yourself, comparison between the PC and a Sony Wii. You are ignoring how much a proper PC needs when it comes to power consumptions, I wonder how you would calulcate the wattage needs for a UPS based on your HDD usage parameters of a proper PC. Next time do add words like small form factors, then the rest is pretty obvious. And I still would keep a "computer" away from the HT area. Too much time to waste on many remote controls or lack off, and difficult for the regular users to to use the system. Me thots :-)