Rack mounted Tranquil MMC-12 PC claims to be ‘the ultimate in HiFi style media centres’

UK company Tranquil have released a novel, super-slim Windows 7 media centre PC designed to slip into a home hi-fi stack.

Measuring just 1.5in thick and minimally styled in a stylish matt black finish, the unit looks more like an audiophile CD player than a PC, with the  front panel containing nothing more than an on/off button and a CD/DVD writer slot.

Passively cooled and claimed to emit “zero noise,” the MMC-12 packs a regular hard disk offering a rather modest 80GB of storage – Tranquil in fact recommend that their unit centre works best when hooked up with its own network storage solution.

Listed functions of the unit include:

• Watch Live TV, pause or skip back (choose your own type and number of tuners)
• Record / playback and schedule record TV shows
• Playback all media files – pictures, music, videos
• Playback CDs, DVDs, and BluRay discs (subject to disc player selected)
• IPTV (ie BBC iPlayer included)

Attractively hewn from a “single piece of aerospace grade aluminium”, the base configuration of the MMC-12 serves up a Core i3-2100T processor with 4GB of RAM, with upgrade options including a Core i5 processor, Blu-ray drive and an additional 2.5in hard disk.

The unit runs on Windows 7Home Premium and comes with a remote control.

The back of the unit is similarly sleek, with rather restricted connectivity options providing just two USB 3 and two USB 2 ports, a HDMI socket and a gigabit Ethernet port.

The unit has a maximum power consumption of only 19W, with the passive cooling keeping temperatures lover than 46 degrees centigrade.

Much as we’re loving the look of this unit, the lack of twin built in HD tuners is a bit disappointing. Even though Tranquil list recommended external USB tuners, we’re sure most people would rather live without the extra units and cable.

Prices start at £649 for the base configuration costs, with Tranquil offering a three-year, return-to-base warranty. The unit is also available OS-free for £278.

MMC-12 Specifications

[Tranquil]