The case with Internals
Things are rather tight in there, I'm sure you will agree. Looking back, I should have bought a power supply that had modular connections to save on space and clutter a bit.
The IDE DVD drive was replaced with a Sata model which tidies things up a bit with no IDE ribbons to route.
The Hauppage Nova TV card goes in the slot visible above the graphics card.
Case In Place
The media centre all built up, software loaded and ready to go.
Keysonic Keyboard
The Keysonic™ keyboard is well made and compact, wireless RF and was simplicity itself to install. No driver disc needed. Just plug in the receiver, windows installed the necessary and off you go. The case's supplied remote control fully controls the media centre from switching on to off but is a nightmare to type anything with which is done by a keyboard graphic you bring up on the TV screen. Too much hassle that so the keyboard was added.
VFD Display
The VFD can be configured easily to show systems specs, news and weather information from RSS feeds. It also shows information about the media being currently played and the graphic equalizer bars when playing music. Shows time and date when the machine is turned off.
The Imedian software by Soundgraph™ controls the playing of all music and video formats.
Supports .mp3, .wav, .avi, .mkv file types to name a few.
I have yet to find a format that this software won't play.
The current HD version is still in development and won't at present play High Definition DVD's such as Blu-Ray, but this is to be added as is support for internal TV cards such as my Nova T500. The TV card is currently controlled by DVB Viewer which is also launched through the Imedian interface.
Album/Film art is picked up by the interface and displayed by the software.
The interface is mostly controlled by a directional pad on the remote control. Simply a case of following the arrows to play your selected Media.
Photo Albums play through configurable slide shows.
