Reycom, of Aarau Switzerland, is at CES displaying an amazing new box called the REC at Microsoft’s booth. The REC is a set-top box built upon Windows Embedded Standard 7, utilizing Windows 7 Media Center as it’s user interface. Inside it packs an Intel CPU, Nvidia graphics, dual ATSC tuners, hard drive (320GB or 500GB) and optional DVD or Blu-ray. All of this should be available in Q1 2011 in the United States starting at $499. It sounds like the Blu-ray option will cost more, although it was not specified as to how much more it will cost.
The box will be capable of full 1080p video playback, along with Silverlight, Flash, HTML5, YouTube, and DLNA support. Because it is built on Windows 7 Media Center it will be able to display and stream all of your content from other Windows PCs on your home network, giving you access to all of your music, videos, and photos from across your home. You will also be able to connect XBOX 360s to it as Media Center Extenders, giving you access to this media in other rooms of your house. It will come with an RF remote, but it is also stated that you will be able to control the device via Windows Phone 7.
The two models, the REC 100 and REC 1000 mainly only differ in hard drive capacity (320GB vs 500GB) and optical drives. The REC 100 includes a DVD-RW, while the 1000 includes a Blu-ray drive.
REC 100 Features:
Connections: 1x HDMI, 1x DCIN, 1x TV-IN, 1x LAN, 4x USB2.0, 1x Analog Stereo Out, 1x SP/DIF Coaxial Out. |
REC 1000 Features:
Connections: 1x HDMI, 1x DCIN, 1x TV-IN, 1x LAN, 4x USB2.0, 1x Analog Stereo Out, 1x SP/DIF Coaxial Out. |
Source: Press Site, Press Release (pdf)
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It looks like a cool box, but I hope a good chunk of that $500/box is going toward marketing or it will never catch on.
Oh, and cablecard would certainly help its cause…
CableCard support is missing from Embedded, clearly a fail from Microsoft, regardless of the reason. I would like to see larger harddrives and at least a 3rd tuner (possible a 4th). I’m pretty sure they could have fitted them in. Otherwise, it looks really nice.
But what is an I-Phone? An iPhone probably? I personally haven’t seen anything about that in the press release, just WP7.
Can’t drop the tuners? I like the HD Homerun.
Attila, Embedded does support CableCARD now. This particular manufacturer just choose not to implement it.
Yeah, CableCARD was added in SP1 if I’m not mistaken, which just came out recently. I think I should try out the demo in a VM and see for myself.
Yep, I realized it later yesterday that SP1 has it (as SikSlayer wrote). I just never heard of that. Still, w/o CC support in this box and only 2 tuners… meh. Now, the Gateway box with InfiniTV 6, hm… Although I think it looks a bit ugly but still very impressive.
Actually, the Gateway box would make me think about subscribing to FiOS TV… I don’t need 7MC to play back my local or internet content (see the last standalone HTPCentric episode 🙂 ). But: if it could record to whatever external drive and I could use my Xbox 360 as extender, man, that would be awesome. I also wouldn’t have to worry about a HDMI switch as I don’t have a free HDMI input anymore.
[…] Reycom REC Windows Embedded Media Center Set-top Box […]
full 1080p video playback make me fun, hope can support more, will like more.
full 1080p video playback make me fun, hope can support more, will like more.
Well, interesting post, thanks!
It looks like a cool box, love it.
This is a cool box. Thanks for sharing with us.
[…] is a company that we heard from, and wrote about, last year at CES. They displayed a set-top-box DVR built on Windows Embedded Standard 7 utilizing […]