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AMD unveils Viiv-a-like

Published on 17th November 2006 by Wil Harris

New strategies, new AMD?

Cnet has a picture of a new machine that AMD is pushing as the answer to the living room PC conundrum.

"There will be PCs in the living room. They won't look like PCs." Thus spake Joe Menard, one of AMD's media executives. The system is designed to look like a piece of stereo kit, judging by the small photo on Cnet, the only one we've found so far. It looks pretty much like every other media PC chassis on the market, so AMD isn't exactly pushing anything revolutionary.

Previously, AMD said that PCs were not right for the living room and that the future of media would be a server located elsewhere in the house and a thin-client connection to the TV, possibly with the client integrated into a set top box. The firm rubbished Intel's Viiv scheme, saying that creating an ecosystem designed to put PCs under a TV would be a bad idea.

Apparently, now that AMD Live has proved something of a non-event - not that Viiv has done spectacularly, either - AMD is changing its tune and is pushing this reference design to partners.

Let us know your thoughts on media PCs in the living room over in the forums.

8 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

DougEdey 17th November 2006, 12:01

But it has knobs on!

Faulk_Wulf 17th November 2006, 14:47

A tower will always be next to a user, no matter what the room is. At least until the advent of wireless disk drives. :)

Its not exactly pretty either.

M4RTIN 17th November 2006, 15:28

is spake actually a word?

anyway thats just any old media centre surely, why is amd's any better

phonon45 17th November 2006, 18:40

I am currently thinking that a PC at my desk and an xbox 360 under the TV is a good route to go. What do you really need a PC in the living room for other than playing PC games on your shiny new HDTV? The fewer systems that need constant tweaking the better. Especially when the wife expects the living room experience to be consistent.

DXR_13KE 17th November 2006, 19:30

its just a matter of time until this flops or not vs viiv.

speedfreek 17th November 2006, 23:07

I would prefer to have a set top box that can grab off the network instead of a mainly stand alone unit. And I would not buy anything prebuilt anyway, though the case dosent look too bad.

koola 17th November 2006, 23:29

Yes, a client that pulls from a central server sounds like a better idea tbh. That case does look a bit fugly though!

Cthippo 20th November 2006, 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by phonon45
I am currently thinking that a PC at my desk and an xbox 360 under the TV is a good route to go. What do you really need a PC in the living room for other than playing PC games on your shiny new HDTV? The fewer systems that need constant tweaking the better. Especially when the wife expects the living room experience to be consistent.

That raises an interesting question. The 360 is fundamentally a computer with a network connection in an ugly box. Would it be possible for the 360 to be programmes to act as a HTPC? Potentially MS, and perhaps Sony, could create a huge new market with their existing hardware.