Switched Splurge: High-End Vista PC
by Tom Samiljan, posted Apr 11th 2007 at 7:17PM
What is HD-quality music, you may ask? In this case, it's tunes sold by HD media store MusicGiants in Windows Media Lossless (WMA) format, which is about as close as you can get to the original digital recording and way better than anything you'd buy on iTunes (no more disappearing instruments and other audio nuances that get lost in a typical CD-to-MP3 conversion).
In addition to HD-audio and all the usual Windows Vista Media Center features, Niveus's Media Centers will play 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound audio, the highest-resolution HD video (1080p), upscale regular DVDs to HD-quality, play HD-DVDs, record up to four TV shows simultaneously, and take CableCARDs (which means you can get rid of your unsightly cable-box). These features and functions are all rarities in PCs, but the Niveus is also one of the first Windows Vista Ultimate Media Center systems to include Intel Viiv technology and Core 2 Duo processors, which help render such audio-and-video-phile output (not to mention help you compute).
One other big difference: Unlike standard Windows Vista PCs, the Niveus models automatically go right into user-friendly Windows Media Center after startup, so they're perfect for the PC-averse (despite all our mumbo-jumbo above). Just make sure you get an expert, or even a custom-installer, to set one up for you (not hard since these are available mostly at high-end, custom-install audiophile specialists like Harvey Electronics).
Now for the painful part: These babies start at $3,199, for the Rainier, but the high-end Denali (pictured) and Pro Series models start at $7,199.
