Acer Aspire Idea Home PC
Just a refresher of sorts on the upcoming (announced but yet to ship) Acer Aspire Idea digital home PC. As a product of digital convergence, the Intel® Dual core T2300-powered entertainment system looks more like a consumer product than a PC - which, of course, is a good thing if you want consumers to put these pseudo-PCs in their living rooms.
The Aspire Idea comes with 1024 MB of DDR II SDRAM, a 250GB hard disk drive, a slot-loading dual-layer DVD burner, twin TV tuner cards (one analog and one digital) and an integrated Media Gateway with HDCP compliant DVI and HDMI as well as Component inputs. Network-wise, the Acer Aspire Idea comes with 802.11b/g wireless support and gigabit ethernet.
Overall, the system seems like a formidable offering from Acer, especially given the expected RRP of around €1299 in Europe. It is set to retail (in Europe) in May 2006.
Note: TrustedReviews reports an RRP of £1,699 for the UK. The substantial difference in RRPs could be due to differing configurations. Refers to AT3705MGW LCD screen, not the Aspire Idea. Sorry. Thanks to Danny for spotting my mistake.
[News via Acer]
May 31st, 2006 15:38
The way I read Trusted Reviews is that they are refering to the LCD TV not the Aspire Idea. They say you can hook the Aspire Idea up to XXX LCD TV and go on about its features and list a price. €1299 ~ £900 to £1,699 is a massive difference! Lets hope its the former
May 31st, 2006 20:59
Ah. Darn, my mistake. Thanks for spotting it.
June 1st, 2006 08:16
I called Acer before I came here today and they said the RRP is £899 inc VAT, they expect it out anythime this month! can’t wait I want one!!! Thanks for the great review!
June 2nd, 2006 00:59
Nice. But its not for me, I guess. I’m too much in love with “pure” PCs, lol.
June 2nd, 2006 01:08
[…] The Acer Idea 500 home, or rather, media center PC we featured almost two months back is finally (almost?) out. […]
June 2nd, 2006 10:38
If only… they said it would be out in May it now June. I have to admit though, The Acer Blog was on the ball posting over 2 month ago! I think Acer is fantastic value, The Aspire iDea will sit nice next to my Acer AT3202W LCD TV
June 3rd, 2006 04:39
Lol, Acer-mania.
And you’re definitely right. Acer does have fantastic value (for most of their stuff).
June 26th, 2006 03:48
I’ve had this in my sights for while now, just managed to get one from laptopshop.co.uk,for under £825, & will be tucking it into my hi-fi rack over the next few days. This looks great value for this spec, I hope it lives up to Acers hype. Looks better value than the chunky Sony Vaio, that only has 1 tuner, for around a grand.
I’ll keep you posted….!
RD
June 26th, 2006 04:10
Hehe thanks. Would love to get one myself just to see how this “digital convergence” hype actually pans out, but I don’t really have an excuse for it at the moment.
June 26th, 2006 10:37
I got mine from laptopshop.co.uk too, had it a few days and it is fantastic. only down side no driver CD or MCE installation CD, although you are propted to make a backup on 2 DVD’s (or 7 CD-R)
June 28th, 2006 01:45
Danny
Sorry for being thick but why would you need a driver CD, I thought this was supposed to work “out the box” or are you expecting a crash soon??
I havn’t had time to install mine yet, whats the DVD playback quality like? I’ve got a DENON 2800II, 725p progressive scan DVD player & wondered if the ACER’s playback was significantly better through HDMI…..
I know it should be but I’m sceptical computers can beat Hi-Fi separates.
Cheers
RD
June 28th, 2006 04:28
Yes it works out of the box, no I dont plan on a crash, but If im prompted to insert 2 DVD’s to create my own then Acer feel I should have them and should provide them considering the cost! I have not had chance to test the DVD playback yet im afraid.
July 14th, 2006 11:05
[…] Four: Acer willingly pushes for improved customer support (something you wouldn’t have seen from some of its larger rivals until recently). Last but not least, as we have already seen, Acer is more than willing to take the fight to the living room, i.e. pursue digital convegence. […]
July 17th, 2006 12:38
I suspect that the two references to laptopshop co uk are bogus. When I placed an order, they rejected it - repeatedly. I have ordered from dabs.com, and they politely explained that there are still supply problems with the idea 500.
Looking at the general lack of customer reviews on the internet, this seems to be the case - nobody has one yet.
this may be very clever SEO marketing from laptopshop - but it’s dishonest. My business goes elsewhere.
July 17th, 2006 16:01
Dear Charlie
I can assure you that the references to the ‘Laptopshop’ are not bogus. I have the item you desire residing in my utility room waiting for a new hi-fi rack to come home from work, & a day off to install & play!!. I hope that the Acer lives up to it’s specifications….. or I’ll have some explaining to do. The ‘laptopshop’ was the only place I could order from, maybe they’ve ran out….initialy I actually logged onto ‘broadbandbuyer.co.uk’ as they advertised this unit on their website a while ago but…. it was not available, they said they would e-mail when it was available.. still waiting!!!
I think its pot luck as to who has stock, though I think ACER should get it’s act together & let all us existing & prospective customers know when they can deliver in quantity to the UK market, & what updates & additions are available.
Hope you find one soon, & NO I do not have any interest in ‘laptopshop.co.uk’ at all, though I think they probably owe me now.
Richard
July 18th, 2006 00:52
Charlie: Could I ask at what stage your order was rejected by Laptopshop? After checking out? Have you also tried out ciao.co.uk’s page on th Idea 500 for various purchasing sources? Based on PC World Business, they seem to have 1 in stock atm, and 64 within 2 or 3 days.
Hopefully, this helped. But if I’m wrong, feel free to notify me. I’ll even post an update if need be, but current signs indicate the Idea 500 is already in the UK market.
Richard: Thx for clarifying.
Edit: There’s even an eBay auction of the Idea 500.
July 18th, 2006 03:30
Yes I can confirm that the reference to laptopshop.co.uk was legit. But I had orders cancelled by them too. At the time they were the only place selling at a reasonable price. Call them to have the problem solved, it was a delivery address issue for me so I sent them a copy of my driving licence to prove my identity, and received the item 2 days later.
July 18th, 2006 07:18
acernotebooks.co.uk are reporting stock of at least 20; and, if the courier company are to be believed (and I do believe them) i will have one tomorrow (order placed on Friday 14th July - pretty quick turnaround for delivery to Ireland!)
also, there is a review at www.cnet.co.uk which you might want to check out too
July 20th, 2006 13:01
Hi Charlie & all
Did it arrive then?? I hope you got sorted OK. Still waiting to get home & install, (working away)…… Mega frustrated or what!! Has anyone got a review they’d be prepared to share with us yet? I would have thought that a real persons review would have turned up by now, the CNET opinion is the only one I’ve found interesting thus far. Still intrigued as to the DVD playback quality, is it keeping it’s cool in this very warm British summer??
Cheers
RD
August 2nd, 2006 07:42
Did not get follow-up notification - sorry for delay in replying. Mine has arrived and it is very quiet. I am using CRT at the minute and DVD playback is great and the range of connection fantastic. I am getting flatpanel within a few weeks (when back from holidays) and will report more then. There are a few annoying things: power on remote or quick press of power switch on unit puts it to sleep, but the power LED/switch on the unit flashes orange (like car indicator); the drives spin up and click when idle - every ten minutes or so, I think (have not been home too much to tell) - I think it might be the PVR playback function - so stopping playback might be enough (will play around and let you know); I’m not convinced by the analogue tuners yet (motion blurring on 28″ CRT is uncommon with TV’s own tuner, but is common with Acer tuner) - will wait for better TV to determine; and, MCE has quirks with screen settings and music database that I have to iron out (lost MCE display for a few hours after messing with settings … and my music is tagged for Slimserver and iTunes use - it is not happy with how WMP/MCE reads artist tags) Sofar happy, but still testing.
August 6th, 2006 02:49
Hi
Does anyone know how to record from an external device onto the ACER’s hard disk. Thanks.
September 1st, 2006 05:15
Thinking of taking the plunge and ordering on of these. Any more updates of actual experience since start of August??
September 1st, 2006 05:15
Thinking of taking the plunge and ordering one of these. Any more updates of actual experience since start of August??
September 8th, 2006 13:44
Dave
Well I’ve managed to install mine OK, initially it was a bit tricky to set my screen resolution to anything like decent quality, however an hour spent trying the various setting in the graphics card menu (right click on tray icon) got me something I can live with. This works a lot better than setting the screen resolutions in windows XP.
No joy through HDMI though, won’t output a signal. ACER think they may need it back to look at!! Screen is Pioneer 434 HDE, one of the first with HDMI, so not sure if it’s compatibility issue or a fault with the ACER.
Also seemed reluctant to boot out of hibernation to anything but VGA screen, meant plugging a monitor into back of ACER to “suck” a screen output from it, so it then displayed on the plasma!! Dare not press the button on the unit & now only use remote to turn unit off/on. Flashing ORANGE LIGHT very annoying!! Cheap, tacky, awful.
MCE a bit clunky & slow to change channels. Off air recording fine, DVD playback good although not entirely sure it’s as good as quality DVD player. Can see all my networked hard drives & PC’s, plays everything I’ve saved well, displays photo’s saved to shared HD. Audio good quality through my AV set up. Every thing runs through Denon AV 3803 Amp, old but solid.
Pause live TV a revelation, although still wrestling with the EPG, ITV shows no information, & a bit long winded to set recordings.
Live TV picture quality varies (a lot) depending on the age & supplier of broadcast. Screen shows what is broadcast, if it’s 4:3 then you get black side masks. If it’s film you get top & bottom masks, no picture morphing as I can find. Screen format will change during adverts or program change, sometimes with a lot of flickering.
Pretty happy but not entirely convinced this is the answer over quality separates. Useful features but a lot of twiddling required & you’ll never be certain you’ve got the best set-up due to the quantity of options available & all the possibilities available. Would welcome any help in setting HDMI outputs.
Box styling OK, a bit to “Matsui” rather than Arcam or Linn, if you get my drift….
In hindsight I would probably wait a while, better, slicker units will come. Ideal for spare room, office, bolt hole, but probably not best for main viewing room / family situation due to complexity of controls, & usual computer failing of needing to be re-booted every now & again to sort themselves out!!
May take a while to get used to it.
I hope this helps in your decision.
Cheers
RD
September 9th, 2006 02:39
ANyone had the resolution just change on its own to 800 x 600?? not all the time but it does ocasionally.
for shutdown I altered my system to not use VIV as to be honest I could just turn the TV off for the same effect. I want reduced power usage so I use standby and a reg hack to keep the remote working for when I want to turn back on. Just a solid lit orange light then…
For ITV there is several regional listings for the same channel, you need to change your settings to add listing to channel. SETTINGS > TV > GUIDE > Add Listing to channel I think.
There is pic morphing for 16:9 / 4:3 when watching the channel click the “I” on remote then choose zoom for 4 viewing options.
Does anyone elses have random bars lit / flicker on the VFD display for the volume?
September 9th, 2006 10:07
Hi Danny
Yes I had a couple of random re-settings to 800 x 600, however that was before i found the graphics card settings menu. I’ve set it to HDTV_720p60, seems to work best, not reset it’s self since. But start screen in XP a bit lost off the edges.
Anyone else using HDMI? What set up do you have? Is it better than component??
Cheers
RD
September 19th, 2006 08:02
Hi, i’ve had mine since yesterday so have not had too much time to play with it yet. I have it hooked up to a 40″ Sony Bravia (KDL-40S2010) via HDMI (had to have it connected via Svideo first to get resolution set). I used the icons on the start screen to set to 1080i (really nice picture) but the icons and the start icon/toolbar are partially off the screen. Tried a few things, but cannot shrink it to fit the screen. Is this because of the TV, or is there somewhere in the PC settings to make it smaller.
I like it so far (although slightly noisy), but this is for the bedroom, and I plan to cut a hole through the wall into attic and mount it so that just the front is showing, so should be quieter then.
If I get the resolution sorted I’ll let you know.
Scott
September 22nd, 2006 08:10
Got one from PC World Business in anticipation of having to take it back to a human over a counter. So far not had to do this.
Agree with the sentiment about not being the all-in-one solution, but more suited to a study or spare room.
Wish I was tech savvy enough to hack a change in the way it stands by as this does feel very un-green.
I have not yet been able to get bluetooth working on mine. Anyone any idea how to do this?
September 23rd, 2006 04:28
Hi Geoff,
I “measured” (as good as cheap equipment will allow) the power consumption and the results may be not totally accurate but do show a trend:
Away-Mode: 65 to 75 watts (like normal activity!)
Standby mode: 20 watts
Hibernation: 14 watts
“powered down”: 14 watts
Power cable unplugged: 0 watts (duh!)
Personally, I recommend either hibernation (lowest possible consumption but able to use timer) or standby mode which is a tad faster because the RAM contents are not written to disk.
bye
Marcus
September 23rd, 2006 04:30
Also, there is *no* Bluetooth hardware in the machine and Acer doesn’t advertise/specifies it.
Simply uninstall the unnecessary Bluetooth software.
bye
Marcus
September 27th, 2006 05:17
Dear all
Well it’s finally had to go back to ACER to be looked at. The customer support has been fine, all collected & paid for, will now see if repair does the job. Would not boot out of hibernation at all. Got HDMI output one night by a fluke, no idea how, anyway it was a pretty good picture from the BBC. Shame can’t see it again for a bit. Somehow I managed to get the solid amber light in sleep mode that Danny reg hacked, but this would not then work with keypad or remote.
I hope the repair is OK or it’ll be on E-bay shortly, the other half is a bit fed up with the messing around!!!
Cheers
RD
September 27th, 2006 10:56
Hi to get the remote to work you need to apply the reg hack which will feed 5v to to USB (for remote) and in control panel > Power Options > Advanced tab select when i press power button “shut down” when i press sleep “standby” in stand by it will wake from the remote, all fans are off and last state is saved, uses a little more juce but less than VIV, also in power options I unchecked VIV I think it pointless, if that is what you want, just turn your TV off!! same effect. Still no joy then goto device manager and find USB devices then eHome, power options and check alow this device to wake computer. RE 2nd half, same here but its not hardware its microsoft stuff for me.
September 28th, 2006 08:52
Hi Danny,
can you give a link to the registry hack?
bye
Marcus
September 28th, 2006 12:47
Microsofts doc on the issue is here with instructions for the hack ->
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;%5BLN%5D;841858
September 28th, 2006 20:07
Thx for the link, Danny!
bye
Marcus
October 1st, 2006 14:59
hooked it up to a P37PF9731D/10 Worked okay. Went to bed. Got up in the morning - screen now flashes so its impossible to use. Will contact support on Monday. Tried different cables and scart output to no avail.
January 13th, 2007 12:08
Hi, Just received my Idea 500 and I am having problems with the tuners.
If during setup I ask MCE to setup TWO tuners, then I receive No TV signal (although all the channels/services are displayed in the list). When I ask MCE to setup ONE tuner the everything works as it should.
Has anyone else heard of this problem.
January 15th, 2007 04:27
Colin,
could be a defective or misconfigured tuner.
What does the device manager say?
Are two capturing devices in the list?
bye
Marcus
January 16th, 2007 08:16
I’ve recently had a very unpleasant experience with laptopshop.co.uk - it is dishonest seller, to be avoided.
I’ve placed an order for a laptop, but they had put my order on hold. Called customer service next day, they said “there was a problem validating my credit card address” (which is a lie as my credit card details are perfectly ok). They offered payment options via cheque or bank transfer - so I agreed. However, when they reactivated my order, laptop price had increased without any notice! If I didn’t notice, I’d have lost £££s. Called them again - the guy on the other side was very rude, no aplogies, nothing.
January 31st, 2007 04:06
In response to Marcuss posts regarding the loss of the epg, i think there is some info on the green button on this also, but it was a bit sketchy on the UK support, as it involves downloading an xml copy of the guide, i think from tvtimes and then using some hack to get MCE to look at the local copy of the guide. It appears if mce cannot connect to the web or has issues downloading the guide when it tries, it just gives up and blanks the guide.
Hope that helps.
P.S. Have Acer Idea 510 on order, so will post details on this when I get it setup.
Ashley
January 31st, 2007 09:31
Ashley,
thanks for your interest!
However, I solved my problems with the corruption of the planned recordings - it never had anything to do with the fetching of the EPG data.
From a blog of an MCE developer I got the info that the problem is in my case a program bug which can’t be fixed easily.
Indeed Microsoft chose to integrate an optimize function into MCE - which in my case never gets executed successfully. If at all.
The guy also provided a batch script to close and restart all MCE tasks and services which I modified a bit and execute every morning at a fixed time (right after getting EPG data).
The script then puts the machine back in hibernation with the help of a freeware command line tool.
The advantage of this method is that the machine is being reliably put into hibernation after the EPG download.
The disadvantage is that one obviously cannot schedule recordings at the time the services are shut down and restarted.
Therefore its not a perfect solution but it works for two weeks without the slightest glitch now.
bye
Marcus
February 1st, 2007 05:54
Hi Marcus,
Good news, I would be interested in that solution if you could post it here.
I have received my Idea 510 today, so will be setting it up soon. I know I have my work cut out, as I have built two MCE 2005 PCs already, and there are usually a number or little fixes that are required to get things running smoothly. Your fix above would prove very usefull.
Thanks
Ashley
February 1st, 2007 10:21
Ashley,
the explanation and the script (called “recycle_mce.cmd”) can be found here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/peterrosser/archive/2006/02/15/DvbGuideProblem.aspx
But you may have to do some fine tuning:
If you have problems with the restart of the MCE shell replace this line:
start “%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehshell.exe”
with:
cd C:\Windows\eHome (or whatever path)
start ehshell
For some unknown reason the first method doesn’t work…
If you want to put the machine immediately into hibernation mode, add the command “nircmdc cmdwait 10000 hibernate” at the very end of the script to wait 10 seconds and change the mode.
This should give the services enough time to start.
The very versatile freeware tool can be found here:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html
bye
Marcus
March 7th, 2007 07:35
I bought my Daughter a ACER ASPIR 3690 for school she was unable to conect to internet by wireless server. She was home this weekend and I tried set up ips shows it is connected but when you click on internet search can not find connection. Tried everything I can think of ACER web help terrible no response tried to call no response web run very slow, does anyone have any idea. Please e-mail.
March 20th, 2007 15:42
I can only get the Media center to boot when i have a monitor dsub cable in, when i only have the hdmi cable in and the system restarts it just freezes before it gets to windows.
also when i am using the hdmi cable and i turn the tv display off then on it looses the output, and looking at the display properties (using vnc from anouther pc) shows that it is no longer outputting to the digital tv.
the final problem i have is that i cant get the screen to fit correctly on my lcd TV i am using HDMI to a 26″ JVC tv, i have tried all the reolutions avalibe and also the auto setup for 480 720 and 1080 but it still goes off the screen
has ayone come accress these issues or can help me then please let me know.
Thanks
Dam
March 21st, 2007 04:56
Dan,
I have a similar issue when using DVI, when I turn the PC on 2 out of 3 times it does not boot, no video output and hd just whirs. Othertimes it is fine (sending it back to Acer for this problem).
HDMI: If you are expecting it to use the whole screen it won’t, as most LCD Tvs are 16:10 not 16:9 so you will get black borders whilst viewing TV. my suggestions would be to use the DVI if possible.
Thanks
Ashley
May 20th, 2007 01:57
Dan/Ashley,
I’m only using the HDMI connection to connect the media center to my LCD TV (Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000) and the TV menus allow me to adjust the display area properly. When I select “Full Pixel” it perfectly displays my desk top resolution (1920×1080) or any wide screen video, without black borders or parts being cut-off.
Gerard
August 15th, 2007 11:36
A few days ago, my family and I decided to take from Louisiana to Georgia. We took my Acer Aspire 1640 because I wanted to continuously check my bank account, so it rode in the main part of the car. When we returned home, I instantly got onto my laptop because there were some files I wanted to check and didn’t depend on Wi-Fi to keep it to it’s self. Well, thirty minutes into usage, thin whit lines started to take over the screen then flash back to the original screen. after doing this once or twice the screen would turn completely white then freeze. What do you think is wrong?
December 28th, 2007 14:26
Idea 510 Sleep functionality:
I found that, before you press the power ‘off’ on the remote, you need to stop live TV (just press the square dot) in order to let the PC go to sleep using the Power Options settings. As long as one of the tuners is active, Vista can’t destinguish between a recording or just live TV; it is simply detected as activity.
This is why users have the feeling that this function responds randomly. Whenever Live TV is selected once, the tuner keeps running video as a background process. Sometimes Live TV is not selected at all, resulting in normal sleep functionality.
HDMI:
Can’t get it to work on my Sony; picture is always too small. Using ’smart’ as auto sizing option, the TV pulls the video to fill the screen, but this is not he proper way of course. Let you know when I found a way to get it to work.
January 4th, 2008 06:33
has anyone succesfully got Acer to resolve issues with connections to Pioneer Plasmas using HDMI where it freezes/refuses to boot when the cable is plugged in?
Thanks
January 13th, 2008 14:26
If anyone knows of (or wants to set up) a proper forum for the Idea 510, it would be great to know where it is… AVforums has one for the Idea 500, but it has filled up with complaints about the power problems on that and no one seems interested in the 510.
Anyway, any 510 owners out there who have found out how to personalise/control the front panel display, I would love to know - I want to be able to play my music, or at least choose playlists, without having to turn on the telly.
Cheers,
James
January 19th, 2008 11:23
Hi there
I had huge problems getting the sleep function to work with my Idea 510. No matter what I tried in the Vista Powersaving settings it just wouldnt work.
But using the MCE Standby Tool in installation mode solved all problems. Try it if you have problems http://www.xs4all.nl/~hveijk/mst/indexe.htm