The Niveus Denali: 2005's Coolest Home Theater PC

[@henryokeeffe5835]

I'm a power electronics engineer who deals with thermal management quite a lot. I would estimate a heatsink that size (massive!) would have a thermal resistance of 0.1 degrees C / W, or perhaps even less. That means that if you put 30 W into it, it would only rise by 3 degrees above ambient. The other components in the system also have a thermal resistance too, and judging by the temperatures, they have an even higher thermal resistance than the heatsink, which is backwards from most normal designs. I would estimate that the interface between the heatsink and the heatpipes, the heatpipes themselves, the copper heat block, and the interface between the copper and the CPU each have a thermal resistance somewhere around 0.1 degC/W, hence why the heat just seems to slowly disappear as you move further from the CPU.

[@Laundry_Hamper]

And just think of a storage heater, and how long you can just keep pumping watt after watt into it without it becoming a supernova. Usually you have one of those "pick two" triangles with thermal mass, specific heat capacity and thermal inertia at the corners, but this box cost so much you got all three

[@hyperturbotechnomike]

I work as microelectronics engineer for industrial autmation and we use a similar thermal design for edge computing devices which have to have a sealed fanless casing. Some places require sealed cases, because of dust or other environmental hazards.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I was also thinking from a pure physics perspective, 60C on-die, 50C in-transit, and 30C in the huge thermal mass outside is practically a textbook perfect passive heat-engine gradient. Certainly didn’t seem suspicious to me!

[@humidbeing]

Uh, this is how conduction works. The temp will be lower the further you go in the chain. Heat will not flow without those temp deltas. This is basic physics and totally normal. Why an engineer in this field wouldn't know that is kind of strange.

[@humidbeing]

@@kaitlyn__L Yep, this is a clear and basic example of conduction. I'm not sure how this expert finds that weird.

[@Steets]

The way my jaw DROPPED when I saw the logo reveal at the very end of the video. Can't wait for the next part!

[@unicodefox]

I GUESS THAT EXPLAINS WHY THATS SO BIG??

[@jayc2469]

And the Big Phat *X* on the top of each case!

[@kargaroc386]

Anybody who's seen the thrifting videos knows that its """""just""""" an Xbox in a funky case. Which then makes me wonder what that "just" is hiding there that is so terrible. I'm getting images of some sort of homebrew hack that glitches the CPU to run code that converts it into a media extender, which they then sell you.

[@nitehawk86]

@@kargaroc386Maybe the price. How much can an xbox in a custom case cost? I bet Niveus charged 5x as much.

[@duckwerksofficial]

Thank you so much for not spoiling it.

[@AstralPhnx]

OH YOU DID GO BACK AND BUY THESE

[@Koutsie]

I'VE BEEN CURIOUS ABOUT THESE EVER SINCE THE REVEAL OF THE... OTHER COMPONENT 😮

[@Seren_Derpity]

i was thinking the same thing also, fresh hat

[@JamesTenniswood]

How much did it all cost you?

[@TheNugettinage]

"And I know this because I remember my mom doing pretty much the same thing in our garage when I was 12, making a waterblock for a homemade water cooling system with tools we bought from harbor freight." Your mom is fucking cool, I couldn't imagine mine doing anything like that

[@komidanohitouko]

yo honestly

[@xidarian]

I wanna see his mom's PC.

[@ajroach42]

The way they name things makes them sound like giant dorks, and I love that.

[@Kumimono]

They may be giant dorks, but at least they're cool giant dorks.

[@brantisonfire]

We need a video (unless you have done one I haven’t seen) that goes into your tech industry background. Not calling out any companies you worked for, but just a dive into your history with electronics manufacturing, repair, etc.

[@GoTeamScotch]

"Who is this CATHODE RAY HACKER??"

[@themaritimegirl]

I'll second that! Seems like Gravis has led an interesting life up to this point.

[@gorak9000]

I kind of want to hear more about his mom making a water block "on tools from harbor freight in the garage" when he was a kid - and his name is "Gravis"? Like the gamepad? There's clearly a LOT of interesting material there

[@deneb_tm]

@@gorak9000 huh - i always thought gravis was the name of his fursona?

[@VekhGaming]

@@deneb_tm Those might not be mutually exclusive.

[@Ashe_S_]

I worked for a home theater installation company for a while installing the super high end home theater systems for millionaires from Boulder to Denver and up in the mountains in Colorado (very small operation, I was the third person), and by that point we were using Crestron distribution platforms to distribute not only audio over Cat5, but HDBaseT as well (complete with IR and RS-232 for controlling remote equipment) of any number of sources to as many TV's, speakers, amplifiers or receivers as we had rack space to put it all in (nobody ever gave us enough space, not even the mega mansion in downtown Denver). The tech was/is basically the realization of everything these HTPC setups ever wanted to be, also adding app-based lights, blinds, and outlet control for things like hot tubs. Importantly, the tech just works. Also, by then, only one of the mountain villas I worked in still had a wall-mounted volume control, and I updated it to the mobile app control during my time there. Every trip out at that job was interesting, to say the least. Story time: I met the most stereotypical oil baron while working there, and over the course of the 40 minutes he was in the purview of my life, his general awfulness became so cartoonish that it integer overflowed back to being not just funny, but so funny that it's left an imprint on me that I don't think I'll forget. The first thing I learned about him is that he owed us tens of thousands of dollars-typical, all of our richest clients would rack up tabs like that. Then, of course, that he's an oil baron in his 80's. Then I met his 20-something hot Russian wife. When we got to work I learned that we were there to do pain-in-the-ass work moving equipment to an awful spot because he couldn't walk to the DVD player because his house was too fucking big. Of course he also had awful taste, too-everywhere in the mansion his wife's redesign hadn't been started was tacky and unappealing; it was it was the kind of gaudy and hollow place that only a simulacrum of humanity would cause the creation of when given the means. I'm also not gonna outright say that this guy's tied to the Russian oligarchy, but his live-in personal assistant also spoke with a heavy Russian accent, so it's maybe just a little sus that one of the most likely archetypes of person I can think of to be associated with Russian oligarchs also happens to have native Russian speakers as the two closest people in his circle by far. His wife was nice though, she gave me some expensive wine.

[@purplegill10]

It's wild to me how Crestron is a name I've never heard before until I found out about friends who knew certain people. Said certain people were _extremely_ rich people and he told me that Crestron stuff is _everywhere_ in their homes.

[@EpicLPer]

Bro you better have the next episode ready already cause you can't just leave us hanging on such a surprising cliffhanger 😔☝️

[@CathodeRayDude]

i'm sorry to disappoint but it *is* going to be a bit because I am working on getting in touch with whoever I can reach from the company (already got one but I have a lead on another) because I really, really want to get this one as right as I can. it'll be worth it, it's gonna be huge.

[@EpicLPer]

​@@CathodeRayDude \*insert NOOOOOOOO GIF here\* But jokes aside already really looking forward to the next episode, keep up the good work :)

[@thedave1771]

We’re. Waiting. (It’ll be worth it, but still, this is why I watch stuff on KZbin that’s years old!)

[@kalleguld]

Your personal connection adds a great deal of insight, excellent work

[@AndyDo]

RePC is such a goldmine of 'wtf?' So many memories came flooding back with this video as I was at MS during Vista development. The Windows Vista launch party was in an underground parking garage....draw your own speculations there. Despite working with the WMC team both at MS and on my free time in Seattle film, it never really hit with me due to the overblown costs associated with the formfactor and the noise issue. This was all extremely interesting as nearly all of my experience was scenario testing on very unoptimized hardware (internally we had reworked Dell Optimas in testing labs and a private cable system that ran Pirates of the Carribean on repeat). It does make me want to install WMC on one of my retro systems, though. A little. And it's passed.

[@coolsnake1134]

When I used to do vacations in Seattle I would always go to re PC and always end up buying some cool stuff, the TSA inspectors and probably everyone else in the TSA security line however probably didn't like the fact that I would hold up the line pulling out laptops and small form factor desktops and small form factor home cedar PCs or tivo boxes out of my carry-on bag and putting them on all of the bins that they had at SeaTac airport

[@roypennock8046]

I work for a large mining equipment manufacturer that makes electric rope shovels and hybrid wheel loaders and those heatsinks remind me of what is used to cool industrial solid state switching components like SCR's and IGBT's so they very possibly could be off the shelf with some in-house finishing or made to spec components.

[@mikep8078]

I was the R&D guy there from late 04 to mid-late 07. I would test the Denali in ambient temp of 105 F , running at 100% processor load for hours. When we went to the dual core, the thermals were a bit harder to manage, but still held up well in high ambient temperature. The rainier was a rebadged German HTPC. I forget the name of the company we bought from. The sharp heat sinks came in during the "buy from China" era.

[@DuaneJeffers]

Dude, this video just opened up my eyes to heat pipes. I've been trying to figure out a cooling solution for my salvage pc cluster and this just might have saved me some sleepless nights trying to figure out something. Thanks.

[@nickwallette6201]

Same! I've been working on a powered sub design with heatsinks mounted internally, to prevent the hand-slicing exposed fins and enable more usable panel space. I think this may have provided a solution to a problem I was facing.

[@kentslocum]

You may think this is an "easy" hobbyist build, but I didn't grow up with a Mom who was building water-cooled PCs in the garage. 😊

[@exohio]

It was easy, you just had to dive right into it and learn as you go. It's intimidating but not hard at all. My parents were not tech savvy by any means... I built my first water cooled PC at 14 years old (2004 ish), right before high school, when I should have been saving for a car, instead I spent my hard earned $2000 savings on a computer lol... Kind of stupid because I never made a career out of my passion for computers, even though I knew so much, I actually HATED fixing them (monotonous, time sucking, hunks of junk I was expected to make 'better than new' again), also hated programming for anything but my own self entertainment lol. No one could pay me enough to this stuff for a living. Of course my mom was more of a history buff than a computer nerd, instead she trusted me to do the family's computer crap since I was 7, having a 2nd grader successfully install Win98 on her computer lol. So I became the family's free IT expert... Grr... No wonder I hated it lol.

[@kentslocum]

@@exohio I mean, I've built my own PC and have helped manage my family's PC since I was young, but it is more a matter of reading the instruction manuals than being in a family that encouraged tinkering.

[@exohio]

@@kentslocum I still never read the manuals 😆Unless I'm completely stumped.

[@kentslocum]

@@exohio I would read my family's set of encyclopedias when I was bored. 😂

[@exohio]

@kentslocum 😆 I had a friend that did that. No idea how. I'd fall asleep lol

[@A_Casual_NPC]

As someone who has their pc in another room and runs cables under the door; This videos makes me feel extremely validated.

[@Kalvinjj]

Your explanation on how those kinds of low volume stuff are made is so spot on it's like calling me back to work after hours. It's pretty much exactly the same kind of stuff I would do if we were hired to build this kind of stuff at this kind of production volume, or a higher tier prototype/MVP. Except the top part with the holes, I would have just ordered it all laser cut with holes and that's it, albeit it might feel better (less sharp holes) the way they did. The heatsinks are all just extruded aluminium in commercial shapes, doubt they would custom order extrusion molds for these. You are correct about the whole heatsink copper slug situation, tho I'm sadly not gonna be assing myself to check the data to give you precise numbers on the thermal conductivity of copper, it will give you a few degrees of difference between heatpipe and CPU top. The temperature differences between the GPU heatsink and the CPU one are simple to get it too: the GPU can dissipate up to 95w if I got the data corrently on the video (9600 GT?), on one heatsink. The CPU? 65w on 4x the dissipation. Easy task. The hotter heatsink can dissipate heat easily since the temperature delta is high, the other one doesn't even need to dissipate as much, then the whole 5 degrees difference coming from the tall copper slug.

[@0000Sierra117]

CRD mentions future video I scroll down > 7 hours ago FARK! I wait with great interest and anticipation :)

[@floogulinc]

My face when you turned that thing on... Our family actually used a Windows Media Center PC for our cable and OTA DVR for many years and I used my 360 as an extender. It worked very well. Can't wait for the next video to see the inside of this abomination.

[@CollynPlayz]

What is an extender

[@MaxPrehl]

​Basically a lighter weight streaming box that connects back to your main media center PC

[@sdomi1337]

re: heat dissipation; 65°C is reasonably low for a CPU of an s775 era vintage; intel stock coolers could easily go 80°C+ under load (or even higher in poorly ventilated cases). I don't exactly know why the heat is disappearing so fast in here, but I have a theory: it seems that you measured the temps with the system on a table; it likely gets much warmer when inserted in a cabinet, so I imagine that the whole cooling system is overengineered to account for that. This may be also why the GPU side doesn't have heatpipes connecting to the rest of the cooling blocks - given enough heat, it will migrate over there naturally, unable to dissipate anywhere else. great vid btw, really happy to have enough funds now to join the patreon supporters after a very rough year financially.

[@Pasi123]

My Core2 Quad Q9550 overclocked to 3.4GHz runs at 65-70C under load with a Q6600 stock cooler. The C2Q Q6600 (G0) @ 3.0GHz it had before ran at around the same temps. I do also have a C2D E8400 @ 3.5GHz being cooled with a C2D E6300 stock cooler. I do also have the E8400 stock cooler (thin, full aluminium) which I'm sure is a lot worse than the E6300/Q6600 stock coolers which are a lot thicker and have a copper core, but I've never compared them.

[@sdomi1337]

i stand corrected; i was aware of *two* models of the intel stock cooler, but it seems that there are a dozen, all with different heat characteristics

[@404_11]

Man stuff from the 2000's being retro now and seeing stuff I could have come across but never did just fascinates me, great work.

[@WankieYT]

I'm surprised that no one has revealed the real reason the CPU heat sink never gets very hot. The CPU in this system is an intel e4500 made on a 65nm process. This chips main purpose was to be a good LAPTOP CPU. Ignore the 65 Watt intel Thermal Design Power rating for this processor, in reality this chip can barely pull 25W on the most brutal loads. That's why the temps on cooler are so low, this entire setup was designed when intel's desktop Pentium 4's went from 45W to 65W to 90+W over time and cooling needs went crazy. So Niveus designs this insane overkill cooling solution while at same time intel realizes its Pentium 4 is a dead-end solution and takes a chip designed by their Israel branch called Conroe and releases onto the desktop market. So now you have this ludicrous cooling solution for a chip that runs fine in a laptop with a tiny heatsink and impeller fan combo.

[@rich1051414]

The most important part of a heat pipe is the wicking material/structure, not the fluid used to transport heat, but there can be some gains with a more ideal fluid. Also that mass of copper would still soak a lot of heat. It would function as a thermal buffer, which would delay spikes in heat, however, that delay is in both directions and the more material the heat has to travel, the more thermal resistance. If your cpu is periodically spiking in utilization, but not maintaining load, the approach of using a giant slug of copper as a thermal buffer makes sense. FYI, water cooling rigs, the entire reservoir of water is also a thermal buffer, and it does a lot of good. Think about how far the heat has to move before making it to the radiator, and you will see my point. However, the water is mechanically moved, so calculating the thermal resistance itself is more complicated.

[@marblemunkey]

Thats the most important if you're not strictly orienting your heatpipe vertically. I remember before they were common in PCs I first became aware of the technology was the giant versions they use to keep the tundra under the supports for the Alaska oil pipelines frozen during the summer. There's a writeup on NASA's web page from 1976 about them. They're apparently 2-3 inches across and 30-60 feet long (deep)

[@marcberm]

If I find out the Edge is some kind of parasite chassis built around a secret internal xbox, I'm gonna flip the f$%k out lol.

[@MaxPrehl]

Probably not secret man. Probably actual, retail xbox that the shoved in their own chassis and marked up 200%

[@craned]

This thing probably didn't have enough... Fans... That's why Niveus didn't make it. ... I'll see myself out.

[@GoTeamScotch]

Yes officer that's him right there

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

@gluttonousmaximus9048 They took the heat of all those machines and...

[@kaitlyn__L]

This was so nostalgic. I used an XBMC fork called Boxee back then, which had “deep integration” with KZbin, Vimeo etc on the top level instead of being a buried plugin in native XBMC. Also podcasts IIRC. That bit of text about how Kodi is a more-known name but it wasn’t called that back then, was hilarious. Thank you

[@AstralPhnx]

ONE HOUR CATHODE RAY DUDE LETS GOOOI

[@espkev]

This is the best thing that could possibly happen on a day off work. My day just got that much better.

[@tulippasta]

My thoughts exactly!!

[@henryt112]

This guy gets it

[@AstralPhnx]

@@henryt112 *gal but the sentiment is appreciated non the less ahahaha. We all appreciate one hour Cathode Ray Dude in this house

[@GoTeamScotch]

Hour-long CRD vids are like raking sand in a zen garden

[@RubyRoks]

We've come a long way to bolting 20lbs of aluminum extrusion to a CPU. Now we bolt 3lbs of aluminum to the CPU but with more surface area. I had written up a huge paragraph about why people didn't just use a certain other device instead of a home theater PC...I wasn't expecting that reveal at the end. That's like the 3rd or 4th time you've made me exclaim audibly over some absurd bullshit :D

[@Finakechi]

I actually have one of the accompanying monitors for the Gatewayway Destination. Basically a giant PC monitor.

[@Okand2]

I remember using my xbox 360 as a media center extender, together with a plugin that would make your server (my laptop up in the bedroom) start to transcode xvid files before they finally added mpeg-4 part 2 support in a dashboard update I think sometime in 2007. Edit: I wrote this comment while you were still talking about it and leading into powering on the media extender edge, that was really funny!

[@dieKatze88]

Given the height of the slug from that heat sink I think they actually cut the aluminum fins off of the then standard Intel stock cooler. That flange looks EXACTLY like the ones on the heatsink its self.

[@nyanpasu64]

Did Intel ever ship solid slugs and not hollow cups of copper?

[@dieKatze88]

@@nyanpasu64 I'm pretty sure the taller ones from the earlier days are solid slugs or close to it.

[@nyanpasu64]

@@dieKatze88 God why did they continually cheap out worse and worse on their stock coolers over the years and decades? The later ones didn't even have copper at all!

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@nyanpasu64I remember when people found out about the first stock coolers to be pure aluminium, they were so mad. The copper plate ones were “the good ones” and the copper core ones were the “really good ones”. Some people were like… buying boxed Pentium 4s and Core 2 (Duo/Quad)s just to use the coolers with a newer i7 and stuff, until they got more expensive than a third party heatsink. Or just keeping the cooler from previous builds. OR kicking themselves for throwing one from a previous build away 😂 I weirdly miss PC builder drama from back then. People got soooo mad over AMD Bulldozer’s TDP too. “With my 18 hours a day of gaming, my power bill will make up the difference compared to buying Intel after just a year!” type posts were everywhere

[@nyanpasu64]

@@kaitlyn__L I swear I saw videos showing that old Intel coolers produced measurably lower temperatures than the aluminum ones. I've heard on Discord that old Piledriver CPUs shouldn't be trusted (may have damaged memory controllers etc.), because they ran hot, coolers weren't as good then, and people overclocked them and ran them 24/7 at 80°C for cryptocurrency mining. I still think 100+ watt TDPs aren't a good design, they either run hotter or require bigger or noisier coolers/fans, and heat up your room more.

[@Tony-dq5bz]

holy shit, i didn't expect that cliffhanger at the end.

[@michaelouz]

Gasped watching the motherboard reveal - looks like an Intel D975XBX which was the basis of my first PC. A older friend gave it to me as a hand me down in 2009 or 10? Was still a competent and somewhat relevant computer at the time. Fascinating to see in this chassis.

[@ccoder4953]

Those sorts of fancy electronics for fancy, rich people houses are pretty wild (and fun to look at). We have this annual event in our area (other places have them too) called Parade of Homes. The multi-million dollar houses are the fun ones. Not only do they have the whole house audio stuff, they have stuff like centralized lighting controls and video distribution. That equipment is very expensive (usually like 10's of thousands of dollars). And, like the video mentioned, can only be serviced by proper technicians. Most of these companies won't even let the owner have the software to reconfigure their system - you HAVE to call the local home automation company and, of course, pay whatever fees they charge. Funny thing is most that stuff is stuff that shouldn't be expensive, yet because it's custom built, it's wildly expensive. It's not like in wall speakers or audio amplifiers to drive them are expensive (we're not talking home theater stuff - 50W/channel is plenty). But these systems definitely are. And most of the wiring in the walls isn't something exotic - it's just Cat 5/6 and in wall rated speaker cable. Even if I had the money, I think I'll take a Home Assistant based system over that. I'd rather know what's going on, be able to use just about home automation system imaginable, and be able to change stuff myself.

[@alexanderdesmouceaux4395]

I don't know... there is something primal in me that makes me look at this huge box and think: what if I installed a modern computer in this brutal metal box? She is so beautiful! it looks like a rural cousin of the Next Cube.

[@neckspike4554]

It would be so obnoxious trying to pick components that line up as close as possible with the original system so you can get the cooling blocks on... I get it tho, I'd love to see it, too.

[@harisalic2568]

​@@neckspike4554you could go with a MiniITX board and drill new holes for standoffs, so that you could position the Block

[@bartolomichael]

I bought a Niveus Rainier off ebay, and I am planning this summer to work on getting a modern system running in there.

[@neckspike4554]

@@bartolomichael godspeed!

[@bartolomichael]

@@neckspike4554 I've looked into how to use the passive cooling, and it honestly shouldn't be too difficult. Just need to make a new block for the cpu and new heat pipes. I won't need a GPU since iGPUs are more than enough. I'll probably find a local machine shop to do the fabrication.

[@draggonhedd]

Oh COOL! You picked these up! I LOVE this era of wacky shit. I was engineering DIY stuff like this back then and as such had a pretty close eye on the state of the art at the time. It's all very fond and familiar for me. I really want that Edge unit, a silent one of those? HELL yeah. I have uses....

[@mattrogers6646]

I feel similar. I still remember building my first HTPC with 1080p HDMI. It was mATX, core2duo e8400, 8GB DDR2, 7200RPM HDD, DVD+-RW, nForce 9400 iGP (first mobo to feature 1080p HDMI integrated), running XBMC (now known as Kodi / OpenELEC / LibreELEC). Still works to this day 😂

[@razorsz195]

i'm SO glad you bought these, especially the edge, a 360 AND its on blades?! I hope you didn't update it on the internet because it'll try to, that dashboard is very collectable due to the e-fuse system not allowing you to go back..and this rare Niveus custom variant even Vs lian li's PC cause box swap idea makes it so special, definitely hold onto these! I just pray its an FG Korea XGPU as these avoided the whole RROD issues of the AA Taiwan chips up to Q2 2008 where the underfill quality issues were finally fixed..considering its still working you might have gotten lucky! New thermal paste needed ASAP! Looking forward to the video!

[@thesledgehammerblog]

Having gone down the rabbit hole of trying to build a MCE box during that era myself (If I recall correctly I had to actually use a MSDN subscription to get a hold of Windows XP MCE at the time) the whole thing seems to have been an idea that somehow managed to go straight from being before its time to being obsolete pretty much instantly when video streaming became a thing. While you could theoretically build a system that could do all that stuff, even simple tasks like playing a Blu-Ray movie on your machine required expensive software (where you were basically buying $5 worth of software and $50 worth of licensing fees) and ripping your physical media required putting up with janky software that required constantly swapping license keys, regularly fiddling with codecs and generally spending more time trying to get things to work than actually using those things. Pretty much all the available solutions for adding a remote to the setup (aside from the big-buck Logitech Harmony ones) required ugly dongles and pretty much worked when they decided they wanted to. Even if you did successfully get the video ripped to your hard drive half the time you would need to tweak about seven different settings in VLC to get it to actually look semi-correct on your TV. And that's not even getting into the travails of trying to get a CableCard tuner to produce usable results... We do actually still have a PC hooked up to the TV today, but it's basically treated as a game console now, and all the actual media stuff just gets handled by the TV itself.

[@Kalvinjj]

Let me tell ya, BD playback on PCs is still an annoyance. The easy route is like pay 100 dollars for PowerDVD (or... arrrr) and call it a day, or... go with AnyDVD and it decrypts your discs and then VLC plays without the annoying BS. 4K BDs tho are absolutely stupid. It just plain doesn't work unless you do who knows how many sacrifices to Behemoth daily.

[@JessicaFEREM]

if you treat the PC like a game console, you can consider adding steam big picture to the startup, just immediately consoleifies your pc.

[@irtbmtind89]

It's not actually possible to buy a new PC that can play a 4K bluray, since Intel removed SGX from its new CPUs which was required for the decryption. So they can only be decoded with the custom silicon found in dedicated players. I guess you could implement this on a PC with a dedicated card with custom silicon on it, but nobody cares enough about physical media anymore to build something like this.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@Kalvinjjand for less than the price of the drives and software you can get a perfectly functional, tiny, silent UHD BD player for the TV. I love using my NAS for music and TV shows and a lot of movies, but the ones I care enough to want the bit rate and motion resolution of a physical disc… I don’t mind just sticking the disc in there, and being unable to quickly watch that version on my phone. Plus it makes watching borrowed DVDs less of a hassle. I used to think, eh it’s only a 5-10 minute delay to rip the DVD first then hand it back to them. But I’d forgotten how quick it was to just stick the disc in the player (and how annoying unskippable menu items are). So I’ve realised I don’t always want to keep it forever, my archivist-hoarder tendencies are much-reduced compared to how they were 10 years ago. Rather than ripping every disc that comes my way, now I’m a bit more deliberate about what I choose to have available at all times. In that way the player is useful for shortlisting stuff to rip, as well as convenient for just “sticking something on” that family brings round (as good natured as they were about waiting for it to show up on Plex when I habitually did that). Oh dear, I appear to have written 5 paragraphs instead of just 2.

[@Kalvinjj]

@@kaitlyn__L yes, I also have the set-top player that just works perfectly, but... I don't wanna use it on the living room TV nor much less with the speakers they have, hence I play them on my PC (the SB Audigy SE with headphones kicks the ass outta the speakers on the TVs here...). I don't archive them either, just play it right away. I just really wish it wasn't such an annoyance to get working, damn Windows 7 had DVD playback on Media Player 12 and so did XP. But well, DRM gotta DRM eh? ...meanwhile pirates still keep pirating as if nothing happened. As it should.

[@BRUXXUS]

Wow.... when you turned on that extender to give us a preview... I actually shouted, "OH NO!" hahaha. Looking forward to that one!

[@blusterkong4556]

Funny to mention the xbox as a set top box... back in ~2012 one of our cable companies let you use a 360 as a receiver. If you paid the $100CAD setup fee, they would come to your house and install their official app on the 360, plug in a MoCA Coax->Ethernet adapter, and be on their way. Their set-top boxes (untill 2021) used SoC's running Windows CE 5.0, so they basically re-packaged the app to run on the xbox.

[@DGTelevsionNetwork]

I remember Dish network being really big on winmce and extenders, so much so that they would advertise it on national TV before they dropped in the later half of the 2010s.

[@Jacobhopkins117]

The edge startup absolutely killed me. I was wondering if “that” MCE would be talked about

[@TonyPombo]

For almost a year after Vista release, the Xbox 360 was the only MCEv2 device available because MS initially refused to license the MCEv2 to third parties. For so many early Media Center adopters (Vista), it was the _only_ MCE device.

[@TheOnjLouis]

In a world of ShitTok videos and short form content that isn’t even long enough to take a single breath, longform work like this fills me with such joy. Just finished the video and can’t wait for the next one. I’m one of the perhaps very few people that *do* always get notified when your videos come out, and always watch as soon as I possibly can. Looking forward to the next one already.

[@ora2j251]

YES. I KNEW IT. The second you talked about WMC Expender i knew there was gonna be a 360 somewhere NO WAY those madlads did what i think they did.

[@cal2127]

i wanna hear more about your moms custom 90s watercooling rig

[@cfg83]

Yes please.

[@Choralone422]

Heat pipes have been used in laptops for a very long time, well before the 2000s. I remember repairing Toshiba Satellite & Satellite Pro 400 series and Tecra 700 series machines in the mid to late 90s. Those machines had a heat pipe in them to help distribute the heat from the original Pentium CPU throughout the rear of the machine and to the tiny fan on the side. Those machines did not have a blower style fan that's been common in laptops for a decades now. They had a tiny 20-30mm fan, usually in a full metal bracket to also help facilitate heat transfer, usually on the left side of the laptop.

[@iamdarkyoshi]

oh man, drooling the whole video. I love PCs in weird places, I've done some abomnations including building one in a VCR... This PC's honestly beautifully well executed. I'll take ten! Side note: I'll bet they were relieved when the core 2 duo dropped. Using that for a HTPC versus any pentium 4 is gonna be a huge upgrade in performance and thermal efficiency

[@CathodeRayDude]

in performance certainly, but a P4 2.8 (non-HT) had the same TDP as this chip. it would definitely be a lot faster, but if the 2.8 was enough, the heat management would be the same. However, the Pentium D, which they did ship in the early Denalis, would have been either 95 or *one hundred and thirty* watts, which is ASTONISHING. I had no idea they were that bad!

[@iamdarkyoshi]

@@CathodeRayDude In my early HTPC days, upgrading to a core 2 duo dramatically dropped temps and noise in the secondhand slim dell optiplex I was using. The idle power draw was considerably better and it wasn't bursting a blood vessel trying to do simple computing tasks so it often wasn't running at 100% like the pentium 4 was. The TDPs on paper are the same but at least in my experience the C2D was so much calmer in terms of heat. Side note, if high TDPs tickle your pickle, get a thinkpad G40. 3ghz desktop pentium 4 in a laptop. It's amazing and the 12 cell battery lasts 2 hours

[@CathodeRayDude]

That's a fair point yeah, the more efficient chip would hit its TDP less.

[@hyperturbotechnomike]

@@CathodeRayDude I wonder, why they have chosen the Pentium D, when there was the Athlon 64 X2, "the Ryzen of the early 2000's". I built my first HD-HTPC with one of them back in the day in 2005, before i replaced it with a downclocked core 2 quad in around 2008/2009 for Full HD. The Pentium D was perhaps one of the most terrible abominations of a CPU, but people still bought them in masses.

[@CathodeRayDude]

@@hyperturbotechnomike I actually already have some deep background that suggests there was a partnership with Intel, that they were actually invested in the company, so I think that's the answer right there. Honestly makes perfect sense given that it was silicon valley at that particular point in time, haha.

[@tubeDude48]

Bet you haven't heard of Speakers called: *EOSON.* The man that created these for home Theater system's, created the speakers for IMAX Theater's. I bought a set of them for a 5.1 system. Along with a Harmon/Kardon AVR80 which was a true THX Receiver. I spent around $7,000 for the whole system back in 1984. It still runs great. And the speakers are just as good as the day they were bought!

[@unknown3090]

I will always love that older audio equipment doesnt 'age' like video does. Like yes we now have new codecs and technologies like Bluetooth but a good set of speakers or headphones from 80 years ago will still sound great when given the right circumstances.

[@brantisonfire]

I have an, admittedly pedestrian, Onkyo receiver from the late 80s that has a built in Pro Logic decoder. I have an OK speaker setup with Kenwpod JL703 floor speakers for the left/right channels, a KLH center speaker and Pioneer HS125BK bookshelf speakers for the rear surround channel. Even watching a VHS tape with Dolby Surround sounds great and immersive even for just the 4 channels. I always love watching the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan and hearing the bullets buzz by.

[@michaelisveryvintage]

I can't believe it, Gravis actually went back and bought it.

[@Just.A.T-Rex]

I can

[@cogspace]

This rules. I love this so much. Shout out to the person who tried to turn it into a router too. "Dudes rock" indeed. XD

[@nightpups5835]

loved the monitor having an automatic adjustment for going into movie mode.

[@LayneRuley]

I love your videos so much. I actually get a little sad when I don't see one released in a while. I have been keeping up with your inner-perspective channel updates and I must say, whatever you are doing video production wise and what you want to do are A-okay with me, the viewer! Your passion and knowledge shows, who gives a rats ass if this video didn't get alot of views, or this machine isnt very popular so no one cares.....I do! I feel like sometimes your videos are made EXACTLY for me, so thank you! I am working to become a patreon supporter now that I have health insurance. yay adulting! Sending digital love! Thanks CRD!

[@punksci6879]

I'm glad I waited until the end to comment, 100% this was sold to installers and I bet most of them had completely custom software on them.

[@jongeo]

Dude, you're my favorite damn youtuber by a mile.

[@DosGamerMan]

What a cliffhanger!

[@phibian00]

I'm always impressed with the depth of your research.

[@nitsuagaming1201]

ive been loving the more constant uploads. you also seem to enjoy making video more then before

[@G_Fresh_UK_Extra]

I like his style ( sorry I'm a new sub & don't know your name yet), relaxed and informative, but like Technology Connections. deserves more subs.

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

My friend used to work at McDonald's Detwiler and now works in Southern California add a similar job. His last job was doing electrical work on the Parker solar probe. His biggest problem with electrical components was figuring out how to get rid of excessive heat from inside to a radiator outside. In space in a vacuum heat only Travels by conduction or by radiation no convection

[@unavailablenumbers]

Told ya this one was a genuinely interesting system! I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that the reason they went with BNC was look and feel; BNC was regarded as 'higher end' and more 'premium.' Everything on this machine is 100% genuine, top end, AV fanatic grade parts. And Niveus had some really top notch engineers. For example, they didn't just use tape because it was cheap - they used it because tape wouldn't communicate vibration. The heatsinks are also standard extrusions sold as 6 foot bar stock - I believe Wakefield made those; I know I used the same exact ones. The heatsink anchor, they probably bought from Mouser or similar; it was sold as a standard part, no joke. Including the push-pins. The ICH RAID is extremely necessary for the drives as well. The DB35 drives are also special - the first 'DVR optimized' hard drives. 500GB was the largest capacity, and aggressively tuned for sequential, but only able to handle a whopping 65Mbits/sec. (That's 8 *megabytes* per second.) Random seek, like when your file system was fragmented (gee, that never happens) quickly dropped. They also had a unique 'multisegmented' cache to try and support more streams at once, but, uh, yeah. It absolutely needed the RAID0. Without it, recording was right out. The Seasonic is probably a replacement; Niveus started with customized (don't know who, but not my ODM) power supplies, but the setup did not work. By '05, there were multiple silent (fan off) and fanless ATX power supplies on the market which weren't junk and didn't result in warranty calls. If you look at the later production Denalis, they had switched to Seasonic. The cables would have been the exact same between the two. The BIG problem here is the missing tuners and audio. This one should have had an ATI TV Wonder 550-series, or two of them, minimum. These provided *hardware* MPEG2 encode/decode. Likely this specific box would have had ATI DCT CableCARD tuners before it was scrapped. THESE are what made the box, and they were NOT cheap - 550's were over $150 each, DCTs were OEM only and I still can't tell you how much other than 'a lot.' The Asus Xonar is also definitely a replacement - those didn't even launch until 2008!

[@marcberm]

Serenity now!!!

[@thermionics]

Those heatsinks remind me of what you might see on Class A amplifiers - glad you brought up high-end audio components. Also, FWIW, BNC was standard for 50 ohm / 75 ohm RGB connections around this time (I had a Mitsubishi rear-projection HDTV that used BNC RBGHV inputs as well as standard component inputs)

[@ShawnArmstrong-p4n]

I truly love your deep dives like this. I remember my first HTPC that I built circa 2005 and now I feel may old AF. For anyone interested I currently run a Fractal Design R5 case with the acoustic treatments and all Noctua fans, it is truly silent. Running a high end PC as my entertainment device makes smart tv's feel not so smart.

[@JoshuaSolanes]

Okay you can't casually mention that your mom was making custom waterblocks in your garage without a possible follow up video. I'd love to see more about custom waterblock making (I suspect it was crude, but regardless); and I'd love to hear more about your upbringing with your mom doing this and what else. Was the waterblock for you? For her? I'm *very* much into computers and love nerding out about many of your videos (made a custom HTPC for my dad ~2009 or so, for example) but generally speaking computers for my parents were just appliances. For me, they were an obsession for as long as I remember. I couldn't imagine having that obsession and having highly supportive parents who were into it also (to the point of making a custom waterblocks)

[@RicardoRamosRetrocomputacao]

I still use HTPC, I really like that idea. This led me to build an xbox classic htpc, but with updated hardware, it's actually a whole pc inside an xbox classic case. I believe I was the first guy to be able to fit an entire PC inside the og Xbox including the power supply and dedicated video card. The xbox was not sacrificed, I had just sold it, but the buyer stole the parts and returned them to me. I've been collecting movies stored on my HDs for many years, and this htpc is also my personal NAS, to access anything I have from anywhere in the house.

[@pseydtonne]

I've been a huge fan of fanless cooling for audio production and audio fidelity. Now the term "sixty-pound Roku" will have a small shelf in my brain for the rest of my life. I am very glad to be one of your Patrons, sir.

[@Ironclad17]

It's nice to hear more personal anecdotes and insights into the manufacturing. That case is a beauty though. Could still be used for a modern passive build, but I do agree direct contact with the heatpipes and just a couple more bends would be a huge improvement.

[@JessicaFEREM]

I know someone that to this day hacks together laptop motherboards into cable box shells to make media center extenders. I still have no clue why they would do that over just getting a roku or something. I appreciate the effort of turning e-waste into something useful though.

[@TheKorgborg]

I used a hacked xbox, it was perfect. Never was that mutch in gaming on console. Always a pc user. i got the xbox with my phone or somthing else. Dude you are looking more healthy then normal

[@ihartmacz]

Glad to see you back. It looks like you're feeling better and I am excited to watch an hour long video about something I never knew existed.

[@joethemanager1]

Well, you got me for the next video.

[@sonicSnap]

so glad you made a video on this!! i saw you mention it in the one thrifting video and ive been on the edge (haha) of my seat checking your channel since. insane that we get two videos too!

[@GalileoAV]

Really cool seeing a Xonar D2 sound card in the wild in such a strange system, I had one in my first gaming rig and loved that thing

[@CathodeRayDude]

The colored LEDs in the jacks!!! I had never seen them! I love them so much

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

The monitor falling down. That was comedy. Anyway, this is an awesome video. Glad to see more from you. Imagine JTAGing/RGHing a Niveus 360

[@patrick6350]

I still have a Niveus Rainier Edition (the 2008 redesign with a core2 and Blu-ray) I literally found on the side of the road at the end of my street about 12 years ago. Despite it having given up the ghost long ago, being quite heavy, and the heatsinks cutting the shit out of my fingers a couple times, it's followed me through nine moves because I can't bear to part with such a cool thing I lucked out on finding. I'll get around to replacing the innards with something more modern, one day, I swear!

[@CoreyKearney]

I had a media centre PC about when this came out, mine was just windows shares on my pc going out via DLNA to my PS3, my stock gen 1 PS3. Through witch I could browse the file system, play music and legal obtained movies. This was back when you could squeeze a 2 hour movie into a 700mb cd. The blacks were garbage but overall it was passable. God bless Trinatron CRT's. Now I just have a plex/file/minecraft server, complete with a Digital tv tuner. It runs a second gen ryzen 3 chip on an ITX board. The case I bought is a small run aluminum thing that looks remarkably like this one, minus the heat sinks. I do miss the days of being able to just live with a less than perfect signal. I'd get four more channels if the signal wasn't corrupted beyond usability. Anyhow That was all pointless except to say that HTPC is still a thing for some of us.

[@Ranger_Kevin]

Damn, I was just about to go to bed, guess I'll have to watch this now xD

[@oddball_the_blue]

The amusing thing about windows media centre edition was that it was a full fat Windows XP Pro underneath. So a useful OS to have for development. It also came on a number of laptops (which was weird) like the old Sony Vaio the wife had at the time, due to it also having a 'Full HD screen' aka 1080p in around 2005 iirc.

[@EXiLExJD]

Great video, loved the insight you were able to add about the manufacturing.

[@sciguy4297]

Random modern PC nerd chiming in with some thoughts on that thermal solution: Honestly, not at all surprised it is taking that CPU so well, 65 watts is low by modern standards, that is the kind of wattage a dinky intel/AMD stock cooler will be able to handle with ease, a heatsink of that shear thermal mass will not even break a sweat. The likely reason your GPU is showing up more clearly is because it is only attached to one of the heatsinks, dumping all of its heat into one place and making for a much more obvious delta for the IR camera. Also, 60C is a perfectly fine temperature for a CPU. Most modern chips are perfectly happy all the way up to ~80C or so, only starting to properly throttle around 90C+. Older chips are probably a bit less tolerable than that, but 60C is well under. I would be supper curious to see this thing on a newer CPU of a higher TDP, it seems like it should be able to handle it...

[@mzxeternal]

I was a remote PC Tech in and around Manhattan back in that era and I got called into to setup those Media Center extenders quite a bit for a few years there in the later part of the decade. They were really pretty seamless devices and a great alternative vs networking multiple media center PC’s. But boy that market evaporated nearly as fast as it came. I haven’t even thought of them since maybe 2009, so thank you for the flashback! Great video as always and looking forward to the follow-up with what in guessing was an overpriced modded xbox haha. Great stuff.

[@TonyPombo]

When Microsoft released Windows Vista Media Center, it required a "version 2" media center extender. None of the existing extender devices would work. MS initially said they would not license MCEv2, and the only available MCEv2 was the Xbox 360. So, if Niveus released that Edge device in 2007, they had no choice but to embed an Xbox 360, and set it to launch Media Center by default. In late 2007, MS announced that third-parties could start making MCEv2.

[@AgentAsteriski]

You bought the crazy heat sinks! This will be a fun watch.

[@tekvax01]

lots of surface area on those heat sinks!!!

[@trustyvault13canteen32]

My first laptop ran Vista and you playing around in Media Center (specifically the Vista sample pictures) gave me a weird hit of nostalgia

[@WDC_OSA]

Thanks Gravis ♥

[@SimonZerafa]

I've never seen such a judgmental and profoundly disappointed Dell monitor before! Clearly not a Tron fan! 🤣🤦‍♂️

[@Fir3Chi3f]

Hah, most Moms are NOT making this in their garage! That is awesome hearing you had a cool Mom though! Also, I WISH I had a re-pc near me! That is some pretty cool old stuff!

[@rhubarb99999]

The big advantage of an HTPC if you had a CRT projector was the ability to double or quadruple the scan rate. Back then a line doubler was thousands of dollars. Using a PC gave you all the advantages of a doubler for a lot less. You just needed a projector that could support VGA/Component input at higher scan rates. I had a Sony VPH-1271Q (160 pounds hanging from the ceiling) projecting on a 100" 4x3 screen. Pretty cool for 1995.

[@kathrynradonich3982]

Got an HP Media Center PC (a1350n if I remember right) in early 2006 that shipped with MCE 2005 but upgraded ram and to Vista upon release. Absolutely loved that thing and with a GPU upgrade is what I experienced Oblivion on for the first time. Great memories from this time period.

[@codlgaez]

i can't express how bad i wanted you to spin the cpu mounting hardware on that copper slug like some fucked up fidget spinner

[@neckspike4554]

I was into the silent cooling scene in the early 00s, heatpipes starting to hit the market in 2003-ish is exactly what lead to things like the Denali and the $1200 Zalman TNN case you also showed being possible. Before that you only had the direct touch heatsinks trying new and interesting shapes like the Zalman 7000 I ran for years.

[@neckspike4554]

I love how unrefined the engineering is. There's probably tons of room to make it more efficient, but the performance is good enough so don't make it any more complicated to build.

[@martinw89]

Absolutely loved this, as always. Great story of a little company with big dreams, and a look into the mansion abyss. Can’t wait for the atrocities that will be unleashed in part 2. That Xbox 360 boot screen is a great cliffhanger

[@iRedMCYT]

169 thousand subscribers - Congratz on being double the nice - Been here around 50k or so, so I remember when you were at 69k lol

[@WhatsOnTheOtherEnd]

I audibly said “what” when the boot animation came up. What a cliffhanger.

[@WOFFY-qc9te]

Excellent presentation........ I am going to lay down in a dark room for a bit my head hurts.

[@sandrin0]

Oh My God That logo at the end I'm SO excited!

[@benespection]

1:05:46 Plex was originally called OSXBMC (as in, XBMC for OS X), and itself was a fork of XBMC (Xbox Media Center)... so XBMC all the way!

[@CathodeRayDude]

Oh man I didn't know that, I had skimmed the wiki page to see if there was a connection, I knew it was related but I didn't know that first bit. Makes sense!

[@FreudianSlipDK]

Man. Not only have I heard about this, but I actually desperately wanted to buy one back when it came out. Had I been less broke back then I would have :)

[@LordGrayHam]

bedtime video sorted. thank you for existing cathode ray dude, you are the best

[@jasonx7803]

As a sicko who built a media PC back in the '00s, the trick was to find motherboards that would run laptop chips, which for me meant mobile Athlon parts. (Also, went from a primary desktop running on a BP6 with dual celerons at 550 to a board running dual mobile Athlon II chips -- because regular ass PCs are for suckers) One thing that Windows Media Center did that was great was that if you had a folder with a bunch of full DVD image/folder rips it would treat it as a disc changer, and you could get full menu support instead of just naked movie .avi files.

I remember my dorm server in around 2006 running Celeron with 1000mhz but a bit underclocked, running a passive CPU cooler, that my brother got somewhere. PC had one fan that I ran from 5V instead of 12V so it was silent. I had it set up to capture cable TV with a USB capture card to watch remotely via ssh tunnel from a home. The video was around 380p but still watchable for that time. When I left the dorm I put WinXP on that pc and gifted it to a friend...

[@Nighterlev]

Bruh I remember hearing about those Niveus Edge things all over the place back then & how they were just Xbox 360's. There's a video called "Potentially Licensed PASSIVE COOLED Xbox 360 Prototype? || Niveus History" which I encourage you to watch, they're apparently very rare and were at one point were possibly considered to be prototypes back then just because of how rare & unknown they really are. I was very surprised watching the end of this video to see that you actually had one and will hopefully explain what it all does and what it was even for in the 1st place. There's barely any info about it online beyond the odd few pictures of it. Can't wait for your video on it!