Entertainment PC Ltd.
East Sussex, UK
Early in 2003 Ian Cox took an exciting step forward in his ten-year journey as a professional and hobbyist audio/videophile. Like many A/V enthusiasts Ian took the plunge and placated his desire for absolute video quality by purchasing a plasma TV. However, soon after this new addition arrived in his home Ian realized that in order to take full advantage of his HDTV he would need to also purchase a digital scaler, de-interlacer, a high-end DVD player, a digital video recorder, and a lot of messy cables to connect them all together. After considering the time and cost of purchasing, installing, connecting, and maintaining all of these components Ian decided to build a Home Theater PC (HTPC) to take the place of those multiple separate systems. And thus was born the beginnings of Entertainment PC Ltd. (EPC) and what Ian hopes to be the UK's number one brand for quality home entertainment systems.
"People don't believe the level of audio and video quality that you can achieve with a software-based system," Ian says. In fact, because of the careful selection of quality components, EPC was able to build a single system that exceeds the performance of many separate high-end A/V devices costing thousands more and requiring much more time to properly configure and use.
One of the most important components in EPC's systems is the user interface that ties everything together. And for that, Ian and his new company turned to Meedio. "The whole system is about quality but it is very simple to use," he says. And he's not the only one. In Home Cinema Choice magazine's August 2004 review of competing media PCs, the EPC Fidelity II was given the Best Buy award along with a rating of 5 out of 5 stars for its software interface from Meedio. Referring to this software Home Cinema Choice writes, "It's a simpler system than Media Centre and benefits greatly from it. There's far less tweaking to be done and set-up seems to be more automated even though it works on similar principles."
Ian is also happy with how easy it was to integrate Meedio's software into his products. "What's so great about it is the community that is built around it," he says. "The forums are so friendly and helpful." And with the support of the Meedio community EPC has quickly grown and can now be found in several retail chains across the UK. As consumers begin to understand more about the convergence of entertainment and computing technologies EPC anticipates retail distribution at hundreds of stores within the next year. "It's going to be a huge market. It will be massive. The move away from specialized components like DVD players towards new technologies like entertainment PCs is where the whole industry is headed."
For additional information, contact:
Entertainment PC Ltd.
19 Beresford Road
Newhaven
East Sussex
BN9 0LX
+44 (0)1273 611888
sales@entertainmentpc.co.uk
www.entertainmentpc.co.uk
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