The Ebox is an entertainment centre that is based on a computer. It has the dual function of playing and recording to DVD & CD media. There are the facilities for storing and showing photo albums and playing music. Using my 41" TV with it's high quality sound will give excellent photos and music. It has a hard drive that can store up to 80 films (at medium quqlity). It also acts as a full spec computer. A compromise has to be made with the resolution of a monitor and that of a TV. It can be connected to both at the same time. Problem here is the siting of the unit considering the cables. I have ordered a 200GB HD, and a modem.

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Intel® Pentium® 4 2.8GHz processor (800MHz) supporting Hyper-Threading technology
Mainboard Microstar MS-7003 mainboard

Memory - 2 x 256MB ultra fast DDR RAM (PC3200) 400MHz

Hard disk - 200GB 7200rpm hard drive with 8MB buffer

Graphics - 128MB DDR ATI Radeon 9550 graphics with TV-out & DVI

CD/DVD - Rewriter DVD/CD-RW/DVD-RW

Keyboard and mouse - Microsoft cordless keyboard and cordless optical mouse

TV card - 2 x TV tuner card

Case - Custom design quiet chassis (435x372x95mm)

Standard software - Microsoft Works 8.0 OEM

Misc - Media Center remote control - TV aerial pack

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As far as hooking up the TV tuners goes, Evesham has covered all the bases for you. If you have a very good external aerial, you can simply use the aerial splitter supplied and pump the signal through to both tuners. However, if your TV signal is a little on the weak side, Evesham also supplies a two-way signal booster and some pretty nifty gold plated cables - this probably contributed to the great reception I received, and it's good to see that Evesham is considering those poor souls in bad reception areas..

So, what was the e-box like in use? Well as far as media PCs go, this is a pretty good one, and the new version of Media Centre adds the polish that's sometimes missing from media PCs that use third party environments.

For me, the biggest advantage with Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 is the support for dual tuners, but there are a few other new additions that make the environment a little bit slicker than it was before. For a start, the main menu selections now have a short history trail to them. This means that if you scroll down to My Videos, the last three videos you watched will be instantly selectable without having to actually dip into the My Videos environment.

Another feature that Microsoft was keen to talk about at it's Media Centre preview was "Online Spotlight". Online Spotlight gives you access to websites that have been tailored to the Media Centre environment. Normal web browsing does not lend itself to the "10ft Experience" - this being the environment of you sitting on your sofa with your TV around ten feet away from you. As such, Microsoft is working with web content providers to construct tailor-made sites that are easily navigable with a remote control, rather than a mouse and keyboard. This is nothing new, and at CES earlier this year Philips announced a deal with Yahoo! to create tailor made content for its Stremium TV platform. How successful Online Spotlight is will depend entirely on how many sites Microsoft can convince to sign onto the project.