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A
Closer Look:::...
Rather
than give the LC10M an easy ride, I decided to use the hottest
components I had to hand, namely an FX5700 Ultra and an
overclocked P4 3.2GHz with a stock cooler on top.
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Assembled
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Not all motherboards will suffer this fate, while some
may be worse, but the ATX power power connector on the motherboard
I used was right beneath the external 5.25" optical
drive tray which meant I had to bend the wires quite sharply
to fit it. Braided cables may not bend enough to get the
necessary clearance, depending where on the motherboard
the connector is situated.
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ATX
Power Connector
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The
VFD used in the LC10M is of the more expensive dot matrix
variety, which adds to the price but adds even more to the
versatility it offers allowing for animations, bar graphs,
spectrum analysers and so on.
Here's
a couple of the many things you can get your VFD to display.
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VFD
Display
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VFD
Display
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VFD
Display
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Yes,
it was getting quite late!
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VFD
Display
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iMON:::...
At
the heart of this system, in the truest sense of the word,
is SoundGraph's iMON hardware and accompanying software
suite. The software, which is known as "Multi-Median"
runs on top of Widows XP and provides a very slick interface
that makes choosing your music, pictures, videos, TV and
other multimedia components an absolute breeze.
There's
no denying the software takes a little getting used to,
but I don't realistically see how any software designed
to access so many functions and so many locations could
ever be truly "simple" in the full sense of the
word. There are always going to be menus, submenus and then
multiple choices to make, but I was very pleased at how
easy Multi-Median was able to make the process, while at
the same time being big, bold and bright enough to use on
a typical low definition 500-line PAL TV.
- Hard
Disk Drive - Music/Movies/Pictures (include Network Hard
Disk)
- Optical
Disk Drive - DVD, Audio CD, MP3 CD, VCD
- Internet
Radio
- Analog
TV Card
- Digital
Camera, Digital Camcorder
There
are a few plugins available to expand the functionality
of iMON, including one for the popular Girder multimedia
application. I'm sure more will appear in time, or more
accurately I hope they will.
With
a little practise the remote, which is referred to by SoundGraph
as the iMON Pad, became very intuitive to use, though as
usual there's a compromise between wanting pointer speed
when you've a large area of screen to cover and wanting
less speed when you're trying to hit a small icon.
The
D-pad is pressure sensitive in that the harder you press
it the faster the pointer travels, a nice idea but again
one you need to grow accustomed to.
By
far the best news is that when combined with the Multi-Median
software, 90% of your regular tasks can, in some way or
another, be automated or simplified, often involving no
more than a couple of button-presses. Even the Multi-Median
app itself is triggered from a large, blue button which
immediately fires up the program along with some slick canned
background music.
You
may need to be a little more regimented about where you
put your files, in particular you may need to start using
the My Documents fileset if you don't already, and I don't.
Though
complex looking, the remote includes some of the less often
encountered remote functions like task switching, aspect
ratio and colour-coded shortcuts
SoundGraph
claim the remote's D-Pad response time matches that of your
keyboard at around 30ms.
Conclusion
The
3DVelocity 'Dual Conclusions Concept' Explained: After discussing
this concept with users as well as companies and vendors
we work with, 3DVelocity have decided that where necessary
we shall aim to introduce our 'Dual Conclusions Concept'
to sum up our thoughts and impressions on the hardware we
review. As the needs of the more experienced users and enthusiasts
have increased, it has become more difficult to factor in
all the aspects that such a user would find important, while
also being fair to products that may lack these high end
"bonus" capabilities but which still represent
a very good buy for the more traditional and more prevalent
mainstream user. The two categories we've used are:
The
Mainstream User ~ The mainstream user is likely to put
price, stock performance, value for money, reliability and/or
warranty terms ahead of the need for hardware that operates
beyond its design specifications. The mainstream user may
be a PC novice or may be an experienced user, however their
needs are clearly very different to those of the enthusiast,
in that they want to buy products that operate efficiently
and reliably within their advertised parameters.
The
Enthusiast ~ The enthusiast cares about all the things
that the mainstream user cares about but is more likely
to accept a weakness in one or more of these things in exchange
for some measure of performance or functionality beyond
its design brief. For example, a high priced motherboard
may be tolerated in exchange for unusually high levels of
overclocking ability or alternatively an unusually large
heat sink with a very poor fixing mechanism may be considered
acceptable if it offers significantly superior cooling in
return.
The
Mainstream User ~
Creating
a worthwhile multimedia or HTPC system for use on anything
but a computer monitor takes more than cramming a regular
PC into a small case. Running Windows on a TV without a
mouse, or even with one, is a slow and laborious task, even
if you can read the text.
The
LC10M, despite what I consider to be minor flaws like the
exposed USB ports, the side mounted audio and Firewire connectors
and the easily dislodged VFD window panel, brings with it
a quick and painless way to store, sort, find and use your
files with a remote that doubles as your mouse and, in a
limited way, your keyboard.
Despite
the hype, I find it genuinely unlikely that Windows will
ever make the transition to our living rooms as the basis
for a mainstream media centre, it's just too layered, too
temperamental and too bloated. For those willing to try
though, and more often than not that means more experienced
users with extensive MP3 and/or more exotically coded video
files, this is a great case to have at the heart of your
project.
I'm
not a fan of the stick-on optical drive panel, it's less
effective on the drives that have shaped drawer front, a
Samsung trend for sure, and can only be used once without
scraping off the double-sided foam and finding a store to
sell you a new strip.
The
Enthusiast ~
The
LC10M is a great case provided your brief is for something
large enough to take a full sized motherboard and for something
cool enough to run the latest and fastest hardware around.
If all you want is a basic box to store your MP3s and movies,
then I think both the size and the fan noise will bother
you. In all honesty, I see little value in a case this
size that has only one external 5.25" aperture.
In
terms of build quality, everything but the VFD window seems
to have been designed for military use, though it's nice
to be able to say that its looks haven't been sacrificed
to achieve this level of engineering.
Cooling
was exceptional for a case this size, and I'd have few reservations
about building a full-on gaming system inside, alongside
all the usual home theater components like TV tuner, wireless
networking card and so on.
I've
already mentioned it, but with the usefulness of things
like memory card readers in such cases, having such a large
box offering just a single 5.25" external bay seems
like a criminal misuse of space.
We're
always looking for ways to make our reviews fairer. A Right
To Reply gives the manufacturer or supplier of the product
being reviewed a chance to make public comments on what
we've said. They can explain perhaps why they've done the
things we were unhappy with or blow their own trumpet over
the things we loved. It's easy for us to pick a product
apart but sometimes things are done a certain way for very
specific reasons.
Should
SilverStone decide to exercise their "Right To Reply",
we'll publish their comments below:
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