MSI Media Live

Nice form factor, all compatible with MythTV. Got this running with minimal hassle (not for the faint hearted though) using KnoppMyth & PCHD5500. Notable things to take notice of ; o Need to set passthrough audio to alsa:spdif to get HDMI audio ; o...

Heat! Unavoidable I suppose given the hardware involved. This aint no Tivo. I put it in the same entertainment center where the Tivo was and it was roasting within 30 minutes. It's not too bad with the door open though and I'll be adding some...

Makes a good MythTV drive-less front end. Just add a CPU (used AMD 5050e) and some memory. Boots from the network in 30 seconds. Runs cool (hardly warm to touch). Good video output. Stable

The fan that comes with it is indeed a pain to put on, but it typically runs at 760 rpm so it's very quiet. Display is rather dim. Audio quality is OK, but some "squeaky" interference at very low volume can be heard

Small has all the features you need in a HTPC. looks great.. Component

Runs very hot. poor air flow. Had to spend another $80 on fans and hrs of engineering to get exhaust and intake working to bring overall temp down to 80 degrees F. MSI does not offering many X64 Vista drivers. Performance is slow in Vista as you can...

This box is indeed capable of outputting 1080p HD through the hdmi port. AMD x2 5000 cpu and 2 gigs RAM. I have it hooked to my Sony Bravia TV and the playback is flawless. I get 1080p output using linuxmce and XBMC

It does get hot when playing HD. CPU fan is tricky

It is a nice HTPC. It comes with everything you would need as HD HTPC: HDMI, 8 channel audio, quiet. With some minor tweaks, it is running very smoothly

It takes lots of time and work to tweak this platform to work well. First of all, you need to dump the heatsink that comes with the machine. My heatsink failed after just 2 months of running (yes, I kept the machine on 24x7) with the 65W AMD Brisbane...

Looks great, has built in DVD drive

The built in graphics chip is really bad with Vista Ultimate. I loaded XP media center 2005 and it works much better. It also get really hot if I put it in a cabnet with the rest of my equipment. I have to put it on outside the cabnet and on top so it...

I fell in love with the form factor and the many connections. I felt like this would be a great set top box to use. It matches my surround receiver

The unit shipped with a test bios. Their live update utility is broken so don't buy this unless you have a bootable usb device / media. Their support is also really bad. It's a clunky web based form that is buggy like their update software ; I don't...

Looks great and has a good range of video and audio output options built right in

Not thrilled with the built in nVidia 6150LE, it's a weak graphics card for Windows Vista. You can't really install a separate video card (unless I am missing something) because the PCI slot riser blocks access to the PCIe slot

excellent form factor and hardware support for MythTV as a media frontend ; nearly every possible television and sound output (except coaxial), which all seem to work out-of-box on BIOS boot ; integrated wireless (802.11g-capable), LCD, IR remote...

tempermental BIOS utility ; the integrated heat sync being "difficult to install" is an understatement ; installation manual thick, but largely useless