I found this piece of hardware quite intresting:
check out Hifidelio !


Now comes the part why I thought this might interest somone here at HA:





It´s available in germany soon, but also in UK and other countries which can also be found on the page.

-aexelmetzel

Hmm. Well, minus the custom software, you could build the thing yourself for under $250. Just a matter of using a small mainboard with integrated everything and those are easy to find nowadays. Hook up an LCD display, a 120 gig drive, a cheap processor, cheap RAM. Then write the custom software, and voila. You'd spend more time making the case look cool than actually putting the thing together.

This sounds just like it is a stupid idea to pay for good software. Maybe you'll manage to get the same hardware parts for less than the retail price of 500 euros, but they will just be that: single parts. The right software is at least as much valuable as the hardware - in these open source days people have forgotten to appreciate that.

I think that it is a pretty good offer. It has loads of features, looks nice and is reasonable priced.

I set up my own music server (see my signature) only with free software and it took me ages to figure out how to do approach and configure everything properly. But it still has way less features, looks ugly and is not so integrated. I did it for fun and to learn, but for people who don't want to be bothered how it works and don't have the time it's perfect.

I didn't say that. If it's worth it to you then it's worth it to you. No question. But you could build the box yourself for cheaper is what I'm saying. It might be a nice hobby, type of thing. I'm a programmer, and I take it from a programmers POV. That POV is that software is free because I'll just bloody well write my own if I want to do so. I admit that this is not the commonplace point of view, but it's my opinion and I'll state it as I please.

And 500 Euros is $615 US, which seems like a heck of a lot of cash considering you can buy a full out Media Center PC for less than that at a retail store, right now. And it'll do audio, video, pictures, and everything else under the sun. Hooks right to the TV, has a remote control, runs XP Media Center edition, etc, etc...

No matter how cool a new piece of kit is, there's always someone who claims their $50 used modded XBOX is just as good. I'm used to it.

I'm not saying it's not cool either, just that the price is way too high.