Microsoft has been desperate to claim the living-room as its trophy wife, but a series of attempts to nail the Media Center concept have largely failed. Noisy PCs with fans blaring don't really appeal to many of us.
After a hard day at work, slaving in the sickly glow of an Excel spreadsheet, the last thing you want to do when you get home is run a spyware removal tool and edit the registry before you can get Shrek to play. Still, Microsoft was the only real option last year.
We've decided to pit Microsoft's Media Center offerings against Apple's new Intel Core Duo Mac Mini. A newcomer to the PVR scene, the dual-core Mac Mini is no bigger than a Bible (indeed some Mac fans will consider it thus), and capable of running full 1080i high-definition video. It also comes with a bundled remote control. The Mini is practically fanless. Although a small fan will audibly kick in if things get very hot, in normal operation it's almost silent.
Unlike our experiences with most Windows PCs, you won't have to turn up the volume to mask the sound of the small jet plane taking off inside. But Apple's G4 towers were once notoriously referred to as 'wind-tunnels', so PC manufacturers are not alone in this problem. However the majority of Media Centres we've looked at are distinctly noisy, especially in comparison to a DVD player or video recorder.
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