In addition to its mainboards, barebones, graphics cards, optical drives and a huge number of other kinds of devices, ASUS plans to release a consumer electronics product this Fall. The new machine can be described the best using the term “Media Center”, as it can play, edit and even burn different types of media content. The solution will be branded as DiGiMatrix and will be a kind of barebone computer from ASUSTeK, but with consumer electronics-like design.

You will be able to perform the following actions using the ASUS DiGiMatrix barebone computer:

• Watch TV and DVD;
• Listen to Audio CDs, MP3s or simply FM radio even in power off mode;
• Record TV or FM programs on the HDD;
• Play, edit and even burn your digital content, including video, audio and pictures;
• Control everything using remote controller.

The DiGiMatrix will be able to act as home server since it has dual Ethernet Controller and 802.11b-compliant WLAN Software Access Point. The device will come equipped with card readers, FireWire connectors, slim CD- or DVD-RW drive as well as typical D-Sub/DVI-I, PS/2 and USB 2.0 connectors.

In short, all you will have to add in order to get a computer in stylish case able to act as a TV-Tuner, VCR, MP3 player and so on will be a CPU and one or two memory sticks. I do not have any information about software for the DiGiMatrix. Maybe ASUS will provide a special version of Windows XP for this kind of personal computers, but since Windows XP costs an extra $75 ~ $100, ASUS may supply only its own software with the DiGiMatrix.

Our unofficial sources remained tight-lipped about the pricing and availability of this terrific device.

Personally, I do not expect this one to be too expensive since in that case ASUS will have to compete with the consumer-electronics devices live Home Theatres that offer less features, but higher quality DVD and audio playback.