[icekiller]

Yeah it does not seem like they thought that part through. Two 1TB drives will probably add at least $200 to the price of the hardware, and a TV-tuner almost another $50, so both harddrives and TV-tuner would have to be made optional to keep cost down.

IMHO best would be only to sell a box with a 8GB solid-state flash memory (for example, integrated USB-stick, Compact Flash, or NAND), as that should be enough storage for the operating-system, software, and cache for databases and coverart, fanart and thumbnails. All audio/video media files would have to be streamed of a local network or the internet by default, then maybe also have the box offer a easy slot-in for an optional harddrive (5400RPM 2,5" or 3,5" as 7200RPM drives run too hot and requires a fan for active cooling).

Maybe do what Popcorn Hour does and offer one model with an internal harddrive and one without, and the user can still slot-in a 2,5" harddrive on their own on the model that comes without, (and upgrade the harddrive to a larger one in the model that comes with a harddrive).

hmm there are some motherboard with optional embedded linux, have'n't had any of them yet, going to look thro them and see if there is any nices in the list

example: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l...odelmenu=1

down side is ofcourse that i haven't found one thats matx & has hdmi (yet)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splashtop

Splashtop seems to work with a 512MB flash memory embedded on the PC motherboard.[6] A proprietary core engine starts at the BIOS boot and loads a specialized Linux distribution called a "Virtual Appliance Environment" (VAE). While running this VAE, the user can launch "Virtual Appliances" (VA). Skype is a VA, for instance.[7]