Finally a passable Blu-Ray machine
AMEX DIGITAL is announcing the first Blu-Ray media centrr/recorder that makes a bit of sense to me.
While not without a few flaws, it looks to be the first one that has the tech specs to cut it as a product for the mainstream instead of the early adopter/bleeding edge set.
DRM infection aside, the
AMEX 505 Series has a lot of goodies, starting with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB or DDR2, 1.5TB of SATA drive space, and the obligatory Blu-Ray recorder. For networking, it comes with a standard 100/1000 lan and a 802.11b/g adapter. The only down side to this is the i945P chipset, for something this high end, you would think they would go all the way with an i975, but that is hardly a killer.
On top of this, it has a dual hybrid tuner for PIP, recording-while-watching and all the other goodies. There is also a front panel display for use as an appliance.
The OS is MCE05 which luckily forces more crushing DRM on the vict^h^h^h^hbuyer, but does support all the goodies AMEX addded on. Anyway, look for the AMEX 505 Series to make its debut at IFA on September 1. It should start out at around $2000 or so, and probably go up from there. DRM infection aside, it looks like a decent box.
The INQuirer