A Great HTPC Value
Written: May 09 '08 (Updated Jun 09 '08)
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Pros: Fast, complete solution and good looking.
Cons: A Bit Noisy.
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for a great HTPC value and these are still available, this could be the PC for you.
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| rbinck's Full Review: Hewlett Packard z560 (RE500AA#ABA) PC Desktop |
Introduction
I had built a couple of HTPCs using the MIT MyHD tuner cards that I still prefer for general over the air (OTA) HDTV recording, but once these HP Digital Entertainment Centers came down in price I thought why not get an official Media Center PC. For a price of under $700 this PC was hard for me to pass up since I was looking for something that would be able to play Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.
In order to play the high definition discs I had to change out the DVD drive to a combo drive, but this epinion will not cover that modification.
What You Get
In the box along with the PC itself, all of the cables you would need to connect it to a HDTV was included. Also a RF splitter and a couple of short RF coax cables for connecting the OTA antenna to both the NTSC and ATSC tuners. Additionally there was a dipole FM antenna, a wireless network antenna and various interconnect cables. Of course there was manuals, the wireless keyboard/trackball, remote control. They even included two DVD-Rs and a CD-R with light scribe label for making the restore discs. Finally, there are two infrared emitters used to control connected equipment.
Setup
The PC is ready to go and needs only to be connected to a monitor or HDTV to get started. It is recommended you also hook up the antenna connections to allow complete setup of the media center software. Here it should be noted that the system is going to work the best with a HDTV that is suitable for connecting to a PC. I used my Westinghouse 42” HD monitor that allows 1920x1080 full HD resolution. 1280X720 would also be acceptable. I used the HDMI connection, but I also tested the HDMI to DVI and VGA connections as well.
PC Description
This is a pretty well powered PC with a 3.0 GHz dual core Intel processor that comes stock with 1 Gb of RAM. The hard drive is a 300 Gb SATA drive preloaded with Microsoft XP Media Center 2005. The DVD drive is a burner with Light Scribe capabilities.
The case is a horizontal design that looks like a piece of electronic equipment and would be right at home in a cabinet with a surround amplifier, satellite tuner, etc. The front panel includes three drop down doors that allow access to front panel connections, memory card readers and a HP Personal Media drive slot. Also on the front panel is a Lighted Display and media transport buttons for control of the DVD operation. Of course all of these buttons are duplicated on the remote control as well as on the remote wireless keyboard.
Behind the lower left front door are the A/V (red-white-yellow) inputs, s-video input, Digital camera 1394 input, headphone output and microphone input. Behind the lower right front door are the four different memory card slots and two USB 2.0 connections. Behind the upper right door is a HP Personal Media Drive bay. The HP Personal Media Drives are available in various sizes up to 750 Gb and allow an easy method for expanding your storage requirements. Also the HP Personal Media Drives come with a USB cable and power supply so they can be used on any computer, so they wind up being very versatile.
On the back panel there a myriad of connections including stereo audio outputs, 7.1 audio outputs, coaxial digital audio and optical audio outputs. There is a HDMI output, VGA output and a set of component (Y-Pb-Pr) outputs for connecting to a PC monitor or HDTV. There are 4 USB 2.0 connections, a 1394 connection and a Ethernet connection for hard wired LAN support.
A wireless LAN antenna connection, a NTSC antenna connection, a ATSC antenna connection, a FM radio antenna connection are also provided. Finally there are two sets of SD A/V connections for input from a satellite or cable box and two infrared transmitter outputs.
Software
The HP z560 comes with the Microsoft Media Center 2005 software installed as mentioned earlier. One of the first things that should be done is to make the recovery discs that may be used to reload the software should the hard drive need to be replaced at a later date. This requires two recordable DVDs which are furnished. The Media Center software has all of the support for both of the NTSC and ATSC tuners as well as the FM tuner, DVD player and photo viewer. It features a fairly user friendly interface that can be run via the keyboard or the remote control.
Of course all of the XP basic software is also included and any XP compatible software can be loaded and run just like any PC with the XP operating system.
One of the features that probably was a great thing in prior years is the ability of the system to control a cable box or satellite receiver. I say was because if the unit is used with a HDTV, this feature is not used due to there not being any HD video inputs to utilize with a satellite or cable box. If you are going to use the system with a standard definition TV and source box, the unit can control the source to allow for schedule recordings and running the source via the supplied remote.
Performance
The performance of the z560 ranks up there with any of the dual core Intel computers. There is not much more performance to be had from a dual core than this one. They do make a slightly more powerful version with a 3.4 GHz processor, but I don't feel the cost difference warrants the small gain. The 3.0 GHz dual core processor was more than enough to play Blu-ray and HD DVD discs once I made that upgrade. That is a pretty good benchmark for high performance PCs these days. Also using VideoReDo to mark and remove commercials resulted in the file being sped through faster than I expected. I doubt if you would be disappointed with the performance.
Picture Quality
The picture quality with the PC connected to a HDTV is as good as any other OTA HDTV tuner. There is a pretty good calibration procedure that will help you set up your TV as well. I have not connected a standard TV to my PC so I can't say what that would look like. In order to connect to a standard TV you need to get a VGA to composite or s-video converter, so the z560 is really intended to be used with a HDTV.
Summary
The HP z560 is a very nice package, especially for the price I paid for it. The only thing I noticed that I wish to be better is the noise. It is a bit noisy for a HTPC that gets placed near a HDTV. Fortunately the CPU fan is variable and is on the low speed most of the time. Overall I'd say this is an outstanding value.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 620
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
rbinck
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Member: Richard Binckley
Location: Houston, Texas
Reviews written: 125
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
Retired A/V professional, likes Hawaii and Classic Cars
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