Home Theater PCs have grown in popularity over the past decade. At first these were nice items built by nerds to experience cutting-edge home theater technology. Since that time there have been new home theater appliances that are now mainstream: digital DVRs (also known as Tivos), upscaling DVD players, DVD recorders, MP3 players, and the list keeps on growing. Building a Home Theater PC (HTPC) is one way to consolodate all of these seperate appliances into one sleek box that will have your neighbors drooling.
Manufacturers are working hard to make these new PC cases look like traditional Home Theater equipment. The cases are built with anodized aluminum, come with authentic HT feet, and are adorned with volume knobs, media controls, stealthed DVD bays, and display readouts. One of the latest (and coolest) display readouts is a large LCD touchscreen that allows the user to operate the PC completely without a remote control.
The DH-102 Home Theater Case is Thermaltake’s flagship case that comes with a large 7″ touchscreen LCD, media controls and knobs, and is certainly worthy of being included in any elite home theater rack.
Features
- Piano mirror coating with aluminum front panel design
- Buil-in all revolutionay 7″ touch screen with hot keys modulate:
- Dual monitor display and 7″ touch screen function control
- 10 Functional hot key buttons
- Volume Control Knob
- Applicatoin CD and remote control
- Compatible with Windows Vista, MCE remote and keyboard
- Brushed aluminum surface with polishing process
- Supports ATX PS2 power supply
- High efficiency ventilation: 12cm silent fan in front & dual 6cm fans in rear
Specifications
| Material | SECC |
| Front Bezel Material | Aluminum |
| Color | Black |
| Side Panel | Solid |
| Motherboard Support | ATX, Micro ATX form factor |
| Motherboard Tray | |
| 5.25″ Drive Bay | 1 |
| Ext. 3.5″ Drive Bay | No |
| Int. 3.5″ Drive Bay | 3 |
| Expansion Slots | 7 |
| Front I/O Ports | USB 2.0 x 2, IEEE 1394 Firewire, HD Audio |
| Cooling System | – Front : 120 mm fan x 1, 1500 rpm – Rear : 60 mm fan x 2, 1800 rpm |
| Liquid Cooling Capable | No |
| Liquid Cooling Embedded | No |
| Power Supply Supported | Standard ATX PSII |
| Power Supply Included | No |
| Dimension (H*W*D) | 16.8 x 17.1 x 6.0 in 426.5 x 435 x 153.5 mm |
| Net Weight | 16.5 lbs 7.5 kg |
| Security Lock | |
| Application | |
| Warranty | 3 Years |
First appearances make this case truly stand out the moment you look at it. The U-shaped case cover is painted in a shiny piano-black coating, and has a ventilation grid stamped out of the top and sides. The back looks like a typical PC, with square holes for a standard Power Supply, motherboard connectors, dual-60mm exhaust fans, and eight card slot covers. Poking out of the last bay cover is a VGA cable which powers the front LCD.
The front panel is what makes this case truly shine, and is what justifies most of this case’s expense. The entire front panel is made from thick brushed aluminum, which has been anodized black. The left side of the front panel is dominated by a large 7-inch LCD touchscreen. The center of the panel has a hole for the internal PC speaker. The right of the panel houses a stealthed DVD drive cover, ten media control buttons (iMedian, App. Exit, Esc, Up, Enter, Start, Menu, Left, Down, and Right), and a large aluminum volume knob.
The bottom of the front panel is not anodized, having a natural grey aluminum color. On the left of this part of the panel is a large power button. The center of this panel is a door which conceals two standard USB ports, a firewire port, and two 1/8″ jacks for microphone and headphones. The right-most part of the bottom panel has a single red hard drive LED and a the name of the DH 102 printed below that.
Opening her up
The top of the case is a “U” type cover, which I’m usually not a fan. To open the case you must remove several thumbscrews from the back, slide the top back (which usually takes a bit of force), and then lift up (which usually means bending the sides slightly to get a grip). With the case cover off, we can see all of the internal wires, drive bays, and motherboard mount. The front-left side of the case has a large 120mm intake fan (with Tt’s typical orange blades), and there are two 60mm exhaust fans above the motherboard’s I/O panel. All of the fans use a 4-pin molex connector (everyone hates fans with molex connectors: I wish manufacturers would take the hint). A VGA cable is tethered to the front panel and leads behind the case.
The cage layout is really not much better than a typical desktop case. On the right side of the case is a 5.25″ bay cage, which can take three 5.25″ devices (although only one is accessible from the outside). To the left of the optical drive cage it the hard drive cage, which has been oriented parallel to the front and can acommodate three hard drives. A stability bar is mounted to the 5.25″ drive cage and extends to the rear of the case. The stability bar also has a hole with slots to acommodate an air-intake duct direct to the processor, but no duct is included. Incorporated into the cages are “toolless” plastic pins which secure your drives without screws (more on this later).
As mentioned on the previous page, the internal layout of the DH-102 isn’t much different from a typical desktop case. There are lots of extra wires from the front panel, so they must be moved out of the way before doing motherboard installation. Although I dislike the U-type covers, having extra space on the sides of the case certainly makes installation much easier than some of the Silverstone cases I’ve installed.
Before installing the motherboard, it is handy to remove the drive cages and retention bar, which are easily removed after pulling the securing screws. The stability bar has a hole for a slotted CPU air duct, but since no duct is included, I don’t know what ThermalTake expects their customers to do with this.
Motherboard installation is rather straightforward. Just identify the holes on the bottom of the case that need brass standoffs, and then align the motherboard appropriately and tighten down with the included screws. There are several motherboard connections that must be made for the front panel to function properly. The LCD touchscreen receives its power directly from the power supply, so you must plug your PSU’s motherboard connector into a special extension cable, which siphons off the necessary power to the LCD screen.
In addition to the standard motherboard pin connectors (power, speaker, reset, etc) are internal leads for the external USB ports, firewire ports, external audio jacks. There is also one special USB cable which receives input for all of the front panel. That’s right… the volume knob, media control panel, and touchscreen all work through a solitary USB connection. The cable terminates into an external “A”-type plug, but an adapter has been included that allows you to connect directly to an internal USB lead.
The included motherboard standoffs provide an unusual amount of space underneath the motherboard, which is great for routing and stuffing internal cables so they stay put.. I was able to route alot of the internal cables underneath, which keeps things very tidy, and also helps increase internal airflow (which is critical in a HTPC installation). I did note that the power lead to the motherboard was unusually short, and easily unplugs from the front panel, which requires the front panel to be removed to reattach.
As mentioned on the previous page, the drive cages come with some innovative “screwless” mounting mechanisms. These mechanisms are made from clear plastic and are easy to use… all you do is slide it out and lift up. Insert your drive and then reverse the process. The pins in the plastic mounts keep the drives secure. This is all well and good, but the hard drive cage only has two of these, and the optical drive cage only has them on the right side! What’s the point of having toolless features if you have to use screws to secure the other side of the drive?!?!? Two hard drives can be mounted without a screwdriver, but a third will require screws, which also means removing the drive cage.
The VGA cable is connected to an external video card’s VGA port, so you must have a video card that has two outputs (or you could use a motherboard that has onboard video). The rear option cards are secured with two plastic levers on the back of the case. Loosen the levers and you can install your cards.
Once everything is installed and Microsoft Vista Ultimate is running we can begin to see the LCD display in its full glory. The panel is run using iMedian, which is the type of display in virtually every home theater PC made within the past few years. iMedian makes several LCD, VFD, and LCD displays, and they all work with the same no-nonsense software which has been optimized for home theater operations.
The LCD touchscreen is called FrontView, and the included software has many options available to customize it. Most of the customizations are checkboxes, radio buttons and select boxes, so you just choose the features and screens you wish to see. There is very little configuration you have to do, and no complicated programming involved (like LCDC and other display programs require).
The major complaint I have with the front LCD comes primarially from my hatred of ATI video cards. ATI cards try to be “smart” when initializing initialize displays, which translates into several problems when using this LCD screen. When I power on my HTPC, nothing displays on the HDTV, but instead appears on the small LCD. Once Windows has started, everything works fine, until the TV it powered on or off. The LCD screen flickers, trying to figure out which screen to use, and sometimes changes focus to the wrong screen… which means that MCE is displayed on the tiny LCD and FrontView is on my 60″ Sony HDTV. Since FrontView doesn’t have any “minimize” buttons (it takes up the entire screen and stays on top of anything else), I have to close iMedian, move MCE to the correct display, and start iMedian again. Sure there are tools to change application focus for a particular screen, but these are inconsistant.
The point to be taken here is that it’s difficult to get this working trouble-free like an appliance. You are always painfully aware that you are on a PC. I’ve had much better results with nVidia-based cards (68xx cards and higher), as they seem to behave and stay where you set them.
When it works, it works beautifully. FrontView is so powerful that you don’t even need a remote (which is good news for those who keep losing them). You can even do functions like a virtual keyboard and mouse movements, but the usability doesn’t lend itself to work easily.. but at least the functionality is there.
The great thing about the LCD is that there is NO lag at all. iMedians other LCD and VFD displays are typically character-based and driven by serial USB connections. This means there is a significant delay when transmitting infromation to be displayed. This usually isn’t a big deal for static things like movie titles, but any animation such as scrolling text or graphic equializers are noticably off. Using a VGA-based LCD means instant response, so the graphic equalizer looks absolutely amazing, and the FrontView animations are fluid and beautiful.
The touchscreen is effective, and the icons used on FrontView are large enough that even those with fat sausage-digits can control their HTPC. There is a central “home” hub, where you can access everything available, from news, weather, home theater functions, mouse and keyboard controls… just about anything. It can be easy to get lost, but the software resumes to “automatic” mode after a while.
If you are using Windows Media Center, then the screen changes appropriately depending on what you’re doing at the time. If you are playing a movie, FrontView shows the title, time and graphic equalizer. If you exit MCE, then FrontView starts to show PC information such as CPU load, hard drive and memory utilization, etc.
The LCD’s backlight can be adjusted for your taste. If you have a dim living room and don’t want the LCD to be too distracting, you can tone it down. If in daylight, you might need to adjust the brightness up. The iMedian software can automatically adjust the brightness when you’re watching TV, but resumes full brightness when you use the touchscreen, stop watching a movie, or switch over to audio. I do wish there was a feature to completely turn off the backlight based on the time of day, however. The backlight is on in the middle of the night and is wasting electricity.
Of course, you CAN watch a movie on the LCD screen if you so choose, and FrontView has on-screen media soft-buttons to control the media as you’re watching it. This feature is really neat and is a great way to show off your home theater PC to your friends. It really isn’t very practical unless you have your PC on your desk, and most people are going to have this installed in their living room or den.
The ThermalTake DH-102 Home Theater case should be on your short list if you are looking for an awe-inspiring drop-dead gorgeous case. The front LCD panel is one of the most jaw-droppingly spectacular features you can find on a home theter PC. The front panel looks very beefy and sturdy, and has all of the hard physical buttons you’d expect to find on any top-tier audio/video gear.
Unfortunately the other parts of the case are not as impressive. The internal layout does provide a lot of extra room in which to work, but isn’t much better than a standard desktop case. The “tooless” features of this case really aren’t that tooless, as you must still mount the right side of your DVD drive with screws, and a third hard drive can only be mounted with screws.
The LCD touchscreen functionality is awesome, but sometimes has some focusing issues. Sometimes iMedian and Media Center will switch places, and it can be a painful chore getting them back to their proper places. This really isn’t the fault of the hardware, but of the Operating System and video card drivers. I’ve found that nVidia cards are better at handling this, as ATI’s drivers try to be more intelligent than you are.
Once you get the unit built, then these installation issues really won’t matter. You can fit up to five hard drives in this unit (if you outfit two with 5.25″ cage mounts), so this ThermalTake case can easily become a Media Server. It is relatively quiet, slthough not completely silent. Overall the DH-102 is very impressive, has great functionality, and will be the star jewel of your entertainment rack.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||