COMPUTEX: Shuttle Offers Complete Media Center System

Shuttle will not offer a 'barebones' version of its Media Center computer, an executive said today.

The Taiwanese company, best known for selling PCs that require users to add some components such as a processor, is offering its XPC Media Center M1000 to users as a complete system, said Samuel Chung, a sales executive at the company.

Unlike Shuttle's other offerings, configuring the Media Center computers requires some specialist training that is not available to most users, Chung said. For this reason, the company is relying on its distributors to configure the PCs for customers, he said.

On Display

At the Computex exhibition in Taipei, Shuttle showed its latest addition to the Media Center line, the M2000. This system includes an Intel 1.83-GHz Core Duo processor, instead of the 1.73-GHz Pentium M chip used in the M1000. The faster processor is accompanied by other technical tweaks to the computer's insides that will mean better performance for users.

Like the M1000, the M2000 runs Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system.

The computer includes a 250GB hard drive to hold music and video files, support for Wi-Fi, and dual TV tuner cards. The two TV tuners allow users to watch one channel while simultaneously recording another program using the computer's video-recording function.

The M2000 will be available around August, Chung said. Pricing has not yet been decided.

Computex runs through June 10.