HP's Digital Entertainment Center, their first entry into the audio consumer electronics market, is an audio appliance that can catalog up to 9000 individual music tracks or the equivalent of 750 CDs. HP is following in the recent footsteps of Compaq and 3COM because at the heart of the digital audio revolution is a rather sophisticated specialized computer -- the audio information appliance.

With HP's Digital Entertainment Center, people can listen to Internet Radio, download new music in MP3 files directly from the Internet, burn music onto CDs, or transfer the selections to MP3 players, PDAs, or memory cards, all sans PC. Music selections are made using the TV and a special remote that comes with the unit.

But wait! If you dig a little deeper, the unit gets even more impressive. It is designed to plug-and-play on home networks and comes with a variety of broadband and dial-up interfaces for establishing network connections, including Ethernet, HomePNA, broadband DSL, and cable through an on-board 10MB Ethernet connection or 56K internal v.90 modem. HP's Entertainment Center is constructed as an always-on device, taking 50 seconds or so to boot the first time the unit is powered up, but thereafter requiring less than 10 seconds to wake-up when the user pushes the power button. For its audio player it incorporates a special version of Real Networks' Media Player.

The unit possesses a Linux runtime environment, a 40 GB hard drive for primary storage, and a Read/Write CD-R/CD-RW that can run up to 32X on reads and 8X on writes. It is all powered by an Intel Celeron 566MHZ processor with 64 MB of RAM. Other connections include 3 USB ports for MP3 transfer, RCA composite video, or SVideo for TV connection and RCA analog stereo audio jacks for its audio in/out. The remote runs off of an IRDA interface built into the front of the unit.

Essentially, HP has concocted a device that combines a set top box, a digital audio Internet tuner, an embedded computer with preprogrammed MP3 sites, and a CD ROM read/write drive.

Pricing and Availability
This studio component retails for under $1000 and will be on the wish list of audiophiles everywhere by this holiday season.

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