Velocity Micro CineMagix M50 HTPC

Velocity Micro's CineMagix M50 misses on so many marks that it is really hard to recommend to anyone looking for a home theater PC. Its most notable problem is the old outdated components used in the system that put it far behind the competition in terms of performance. To make matters worse, the pricing of the system puts it on par with other systems that offer more features and better performance. Put simply, this is one home theater system that is in desperate need of an update.

12/6/06 – Dual core processors have been out for a while. It is too bad that Velocity Micro has not kept their CineMagix M50 home theater PC up to date. Rather than the new dual core processor, the system is powered by the older Pentium 4 desktop processors. This puts it far behind competing systems both in terms of single applications and multitasking that is key for home theater systems. At least they have included a full two gigabytes of memory to allow the system to not be bogged down in memory intensive applications.

Storage is critical for home theater PCs and Velocity Micro does this well for the CineMagix. The 400GB desktop hard drive provides plenty of space even for recorded television. The main reason the drive is a good fit is that the system doesn't have any digital or HDTV tuners keeping the video file sizes down. Most people don't use over the air HDTV so this isn't too much of a problem. The dual layer DVD burner allows the system to be used for either DVD playback or the record of data, music and movie CDs or DVDs.

the ATI Radeon X300LE graphics are a step up from integrated graphics found in notebook computers and low end desktops, but this is a very underpowered processor when it comes to the CineMagix. Don't expect to be doing much in terms of 3D graphics, especially at high definition resolutions. There is also no HDMI connector on the CineMagix that limits its use with high definition televisions used by consumers.

All of this wouldn't be so bad if Velocity Micro were willing to offer prices below competing home theater systems, but the cost of the system for the components is just not justifiable.

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