I just wanted to give you all a quick update, kind of a sneek preview as we haven't announced these yet.
In direct response to some of the comments below about the front ports we are adding the bb014 to our product line which you can see on here
We will also be offering some limited edition cases in various finishes from the guys on the anodising station who have gotten a bit creative. Due to the way the finishes are created no two will be the same and as soon as we can we will be posting pictures of the ones available for sale. You can see some examples in our gallery
I also wanted to upate you on the quality issues. Just to let you know that these have been fully addressed and after much searching for the right materials and adhesives this has been sorted.
We are also using new 40mm fans (rated at only 16dba) which are super quiet and just on the market. Still not as quiet as a 120mm fan but getting closer. The Pentium M systems with the very nice Coolermaster cooler that we use and these fans are surprisingly more quiet then the VIA solutions.
- I've made 4 calls during office hours and got "nobody is here...",
- the direct shop is still offline
- the external beblushop redirects to to elonex,
- all but one of the other 'where to buy' sites don't even mention their products
- their sales/support haven't responded to two emails.
If indeed they are still in business, as a prospective customer I'm a
bit concerned that even if I do buy from them, perhaps there won't be
anybody around to provide support if I needed it.
I had a few questions which I was hoping they could answer...I'm wondering if anyone here can help instead
What's important to me are:
1. chassis form factor - it must fit 20cm deep (bookshelf) x 15cm high x whatever long
2. dual Freeview tuners (preferably on one card and with one aerial input)
It seems the beblu chassis might work, but I need to clarify a bunch of things...
Motherboard:
I'm curious about i-Base as the Pentium M board choice? - Why do you suppose they went for that vs the Commell or DFI options? (Has anybody had any success with the new i-Base board that has the Intel 945GM chipset? 899 I think it is? - is it out yet?) The Commell LV-673NS for example appears to be what TranquilPc uses quite reliably - has anybody had experience of this board?
To get Gigabit Ethernet out of the i-Base board, would I have to use up the PCIe slot, and hence couldn't use a PCIe dual DVB-T card?
Audio:
The speakers I have are not connected to a special receiver/surround decoder, so I want to be able to connect directly to whatever the outputs are in the motherboard, without having to worry that the satellites are being sent low frequencies that they cannot handle.
Do all/any of the P-M motherboards allow that?
TV:
For the dual Freeview, It seems I can either:
a) get 2 PCI cards (e.g. BlackGold), but there seems to be only room for one in the rear of the beblu chassis?
b) get a dual DVB-T card, which means either
- a Terratec 2400, which is PCIe only,
- or a Lifeview FlyTV Duo/Hybrid PCI
- or a Lifeview FlyTV Mini-PCI
- or perhaps that twin USB on a an expansion card thing someone else found here
Does anyone have experience of any of these?
Also, does enabling the DVI connector definitely mean losing one of the PCI/Mini slots on the i-Base board, as it seems to depict here and here?
Hard drives:
Do you have experience of the Samsung Spinpoint drives? Do they fit into the Beblu chassis without issues? (I've heard reports that they are quieter and more reliable than the Seagate Barracuda drives?).
Is it possible to fit 2 HDs into the beblu chassis?, if possible in a RAID array? Is it possible to fit 2 x 2.5" drives, for example? Or could one of them go into the 2nd unit, on the top, say if the optical drive was a low profile/slot-loading version?
On the 2nd unit:
Could anyone tell me what the quietest DVD writer drive you have come across is?
Finally, I'm just curious to know how Windows/MCE knows what info to send to the LCD display? Is there some proprietary software that controls this?
Comments 26 to 27 of 27
In direct response to some of the comments below about the front ports we are adding the bb014 to our product line which you can see on here
We will also be offering some limited edition cases in various finishes from the guys on the anodising station who have gotten a bit creative. Due to the way the finishes are created no two will be the same and as soon as we can we will be posting pictures of the ones available for sale. You can see some examples in our gallery
I also wanted to upate you on the quality issues. Just to let you know that these have been fully addressed and after much searching for the right materials and adhesives this has been sorted.
We are also using new 40mm fans (rated at only 16dba) which are super quiet and just on the market. Still not as quiet as a 120mm fan but getting closer. The Pentium M systems with the very nice Coolermaster cooler that we use and these fans are surprisingly more quiet then the VIA solutions.
Anyways - thanks for all your comments!
Thanks,
Susan
- I've made 4 calls during office hours and got "nobody is here...",
- the direct shop is still offline
- the external beblushop redirects to to elonex,
- all but one of the other 'where to buy' sites don't even mention their products
- their sales/support haven't responded to two emails.
If indeed they are still in business, as a prospective customer I'm a
bit concerned that even if I do buy from them, perhaps there won't be
anybody around to provide support if I needed it.
I had a few questions which I was hoping they could answer...I'm wondering if anyone here can help instead
What's important to me are:
1. chassis form factor - it must fit 20cm deep (bookshelf) x 15cm high x whatever long
2. dual Freeview tuners (preferably on one card and with one aerial input)
3. large (but quiet) HD capacity
4. as near silent as possible
5. Gigabit Ethernet (& I don't need Wifi)
6. DVI and HDTV output
7. Surround audio direct to my speakers (Gallo Nucleus & MPS 150 Sub)
It seems the beblu chassis might work, but I need to clarify a bunch of things...
Motherboard:
I'm curious about i-Base as the Pentium M board choice? - Why do you suppose they went for that vs the Commell or DFI options? (Has anybody had any success with the new i-Base board that has the Intel 945GM chipset? 899 I think it is? - is it out yet?) The Commell LV-673NS for example appears to be what TranquilPc uses quite reliably - has anybody had experience of this board?
To get Gigabit Ethernet out of the i-Base board, would I have to use up the PCIe slot, and hence couldn't use a PCIe dual DVB-T card?
Audio:
The speakers I have are not connected to a special receiver/surround decoder, so I want to be able to connect directly to whatever the outputs are in the motherboard, without having to worry that the satellites are being sent low frequencies that they cannot handle.
Do all/any of the P-M motherboards allow that?
TV:
For the dual Freeview, It seems I can either:
a) get 2 PCI cards (e.g. BlackGold), but there seems to be only room for one in the rear of the beblu chassis?
b) get a dual DVB-T card, which means either
- a Terratec 2400, which is PCIe only,
- or a Lifeview FlyTV Duo/Hybrid PCI
- or a Lifeview FlyTV Mini-PCI
- or perhaps that twin USB on a an expansion card thing someone else found here
Does anyone have experience of any of these?
Also, does enabling the DVI connector definitely mean losing one of the PCI/Mini slots on the i-Base board, as it seems to depict here and here?
Hard drives:
Do you have experience of the Samsung Spinpoint drives? Do they fit into the Beblu chassis without issues? (I've heard reports that they are quieter and more reliable than the Seagate Barracuda drives?).
Is it possible to fit 2 HDs into the beblu chassis?, if possible in a RAID array? Is it possible to fit 2 x 2.5" drives, for example? Or could one of them go into the 2nd unit, on the top, say if the optical drive was a low profile/slot-loading version?
On the 2nd unit:
Could anyone tell me what the quietest DVD writer drive you have come across is?
Finally, I'm just curious to know how Windows/MCE knows what info to send to the LCD display? Is there some proprietary software that controls this?