Shuttle M2000
Viiv Media Center PC

SHUTTLE M2000 VIIV MEDIA CENTER PC Viiven Up Your Media Center

December 2006 By —Grant Clauser

The M2000 works pretty much like any other Media Center PC, but the Viiv layer ensures a smooth operation. Switching between Windows and Media Center is seamless and fast. You also get smoother access from the Media Center screen to a variety of online services like Movielink and Yahoo MusicMatch, instead of having to go though a Web browser. A feature called Online Showcase includes a double handful of links to news, music, TV and other services. Many of those, such as Akimbo’s IPTV, require a subscription, but others are free to use. Accessing your own stored media is also quite simple, so making the M2000 the apex of your entertainment world is actually quite easy. A CableCARD slot and HDMI output would make this a real challenger to Tivo’s new Series 3.

The Media Center layer lets you access your stored music, pictures and video in an easy couch potato fashion. A larger hard drive would be nice for more DVR and music storage (250GB won’t get you a lot of high definition video). An HD DVD or Blu-ray disc drive would also be welcome. In the meantime, this is a very well-configured living room PC that will happily do your taxes but is a lot more comfortable showing you movies.