VidaBox Offers Media Center PCs With All The Bells And Whistles

No. But when Steven Cheung and the crew at VidaBox, Garden City, N.Y., began developing media center systems, they wanted to create machines that include just about any feature a consumer could ask for, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives.

"Whatever a person wants, we can customize the system to accommodate them," said company founder Chueng. "Nobody buys a standard system because everyone buys the upgrades."

Even without the upgrades the standard systems are fairly robust by today's standards. The VidaBox units come in three main flavors: the Max (MSRP $4,399), which includes a 7-inch LCD touch-screen control panel; the Lux (MSRP $3,499); and the Slim (MSRP $2,499). Those systems are based on a Microsoft Media Center and dual core processor platform and include the company's patented VidaSafe Storage technology, which is based on a RAID5 multi-hard-drive array for extra data protection. They also include a specially designed quiet cooling system that operates below 30dBA, and a full arsenal of AV inputs and outputs.

"It's a lot easier and more convenient to use one VidaBox than have a separate DVD, DVR, a stereo and all five or six remotes that go along with them," Cheung said. "A lot of people today are also putting all of their pictures and videos on their PCs without any type of protection. What if the hard drive fails? The content is safe on a VidaBox because of the backup drives. We've put a lot of time and thought behind each system design so it will cover everything."

Options on the Max and Lux editions include bays for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives, 750 Gbytes of storage upgradable to 3.75 Tbytes and pre-installed Karaoke. The Karaoke system includes a customizable video package of up to 1,390 videos, which digital integrators then can sell at a profit.

While the Slim shares many of the core features of the Lux, its storage is scaled down a bit to 500 Gbytes, upgradable to 1.5 Tbytes. The company also released last week the Stealth, a miniature form-factor PC that uses special heat pipes and heat sinks, along with sound deadening hard drive and DVD drive enclosures, achieving what VidaBox claims is 100 percent silence. VidaBox also manufacturers the Roommate, a miniature media center PC, which Cheung said is usually scaled down and customized by integrators for use as media extenders to more robust systems.

VidaBox has been selling online for several months and now is ready to launch its channel program with hopes of building a dealer base. Potential solution provider partners have to fill out a questionnaire so VidaBox can determine what type of training they'll need to successfully sell the systems. The vendor will cater the training to fit each solution provider, who then can charge what he wants for the system.

The CRN Test Center was impressed with the design and construction of the systems. Test Center engineers have reviewed plenty of so-called Media Center PCs in which the vendor simply slaps a copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition on a standard computer and calls it a Media Center PC. That is not the case here. VidaBox clearly took significant time to understand how Media Center PCs can fit into the home and designed units accordingly.

In general, audio files are stored differently when used for music from CDs as compared to DVDs. To handle the difference, most Media Center PCs must down-convert the files to access them, which can lead to quality degradation. Users can manually change the settings of their computer to handle the difference in file types, but most are unaware of this. VidaBox avoids this problem altogether by configuring their PCs to automatically switch between frequencies to handle the different file types.

Most Media Center PCs contain one or two large fans to cool their many heat-producing components, and the fan noise often can be overbearing. VidaBox engineered a fix for this problem by using quiet-running hard drives and installing five or six slow-spinning fans in each unit. The computer's hard drive and other components are turned off when not needed, and fan speeds are adjusted on the fly based on the amount of heat being produced.

Another smart feature of the VidaBox units are the rs232 ports that allow them to interface with home automation systems and related devices. VidaBox also can customize its units so they'll work seamlessly with major automation packages.

Integrators will value being able to offer customers a Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drive in a single unit, though adding the two drives can boost the cost of a unit by $1,500.