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Tsunami Ice-1 Media Manager


Date
: 01/23/06 – 01:56:19 AM

Author
:

Category
: Misc

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Tsunami

Price:
N/A

Today's review comes from a lesser known Taiwanese company that was founded some ten years ago by a man who had a vision for more esthetically pleasing computer peripherals. He started with speakers and has since grown the lineup of products to include cases, external storage enclosures and even a complete HTPC system. Not only are the devices they create a work of art from a visual standpoint, but they also perform with the intent purpose to make your life better.

The driving theory behind Tsunami products is the 3E concept. Entertainment, Enjoy, Ease are the components of their 3E motto. With the digital lifestyle taking over more homes everyday, Tsunami has dedicated their time to providing easy to use entertainment components without the sacrifice of style and elegance. This concept is evident in the new Ice-1 Media Manager that we will be taking a look at today at O².

The Ice-1 is an all in one media management solution that remains completely separate from your existing system to allow for easy transfer as you upgrade. The key features of the Ice-1 are hardware decoding capabilities and its independence from your computer. Providing the ability to function without the computer ever being turned on means it is OS independent and will work with any version of Windows, Linux or Mac. Let's take a look at what the Ice-1 from Tsunami can do.

Page 2 : Package

The exterior of the package is nothing flamboyant or excessive but there is still some advertising and enough graphics to help describe what the Ice-1 Media Manager is all about.

The images down the right side outline some features that make up the Ice-1. Having not known anything about the Ice-1 when I started this review, it was interesting to see all the things listed here. For instance, 5.1 Speaker I assume means 5.1 output, and SPDIF for digital output surely equates to quality sound. Going down the list I was able to decipher that the Ice-1 Media Manager allows us to play music and DVDs without turning on the computer as well as watch TV.

The front panel has a check in the box identifying that the unit inside is made for NTSC-N television system. You can see by the other options that Tsunami has pretty much covered every television standards all over the world. So no matter where you are, Tsunami should have a product to fit your requirements.

Tsunami now switches to the use of a worded list to explain more about the Ice-1 along with the same graphics that we saw on the front of the package. This list of features will be covered in the Specifications & Features section.

The rear edge lets us know that there are three different colors, white, black, and red. It appears as if my sample will be of the black variety. The other two models, AQ46, and LEO46 are a little foreign to me. I checked the Tsunami web site to find that the LEO46 is a computer case so I am not sure why they would have it listed on the side of this tiny little package.

The ends of the package simply contain the standard warnings for the end user and people handling the package on its journey.

Page 3 : Specifications & Features

The Tsunami web site is somewhat scarce for information about its products but it does show a lot of photos. Here is the only written information that you will find:

From what I have read above and gotten out of the manual, the Ice-1 will allow us to watch TV, listen to FM radio, watch movies from DVD, and listen to audio or watch video from other sources; without having to turn on the computer. The unit should also allow us to power on or off the computer with the push of a button.

For some of us, this doesn't really sound all that impressive but this would be perfect for those without a TV. It basically turns your monitor into a TV as well. The first group I thought might benefit from this the most is students in dorms that need to maximize function in their allowed space. Let's have a look at the contents and then get into the installation process.

Page 4 : Package Contents

The first step is to open the box and start pulling out packages, and there are plenty of packages.

As you can see, the package is very neatly assembled inside. There is plenty of components, as we will soon find out, and Tsunami has them all securely placed inside this fairly small package.

First out of the package is the installation and operating manual that is accompanied by mounting hardware, batteries for the remote, and what appears to be an audio cable of some extent.

The manuals are followed out of the package by the plethora of cables that are required to get this box to work. There is a little bit of everything in this photo including another audio looking cable, a VGA cable, and some ribbon cables of various widths, as well as a short length of coaxial cable. You will notice that every bag is clearly labeled with a number. This will ensure easy setup and identification when going through the install guide.

The next layer of plastic bags contains the three circuit boards that will be mounted in expansion slots at the rear of the case. From left to right, you can see that they are clearly marked AV-In Board, VGA Board, and Audio Board. I guess the labels are pretty much self explanatory as far as what each one is.

The last component in the main compartment of the package is the Ice-1 unit itself. Like the three boards, it comes wrapped in bubble wrap for safe keeping.

Removed from the protective bag we get our first look at the front panel of the Tsunami Ice-1 which comes with a protective film over the display. Tsunami has taken every precaution to get this device to you in perfect shape. The buttons are nice and clean fitting into the look of the display nicely. They should also blend in with the front of pretty much any case.

The rear of the 5.25" Media Manager is where all those cables we pulled out earlier will connect. It is fairly busy back here but the stickers above the connections help with identification and with a decent install guide should make it simple enough.

The last of the components to this elaborate setup are the power adapter, accompanying cord, and remote control. I have had my share of remotes in my day with some universal setups that can control everything from the TV to the lights in my house and this one appears to have plenty of buttons. It certainly contains more than your standard TV remote. That about wraps up the contents section but we will be seeing all of these components one more time while they are going into the Antec Take 4 during the installation section.

Page 5 : Installation

Installation will first consist of me connecting everything to the Ice-1 unit and laying it out so I can get a better idea as to what will have to go where in the Antec Take 4. There is quite a bit of cables, connections, and accessories so the installation manual better not let me down.

After briefly looking through the manual and the steps involved, it appears as if I will not be let down. You can see by the diagram that the three language manual provides excellent diagrams and intelligently walks us through setting the system up.

I will spare you the details of each connection, as that is a bit tedious, but I will say that there is a lot to this setup and the manual does an excellent job of walking you through it. How I am going to make all of this fit in the fairly quaint Take 4 is the next challenge facing me in life.

Having removed the optical drive cage to provide access for the Ice-1, we can get an idea of how to route cables to achieve our goal. Having done this I quickly realized it will probably be easiest to leave all the cables intact, mount the unit in the drive cage, and finish hooking up all the appendages of this electronic octopus.

The first connections we will make after mounting the Ice-1 and my optical drive are the power and reset switches. Connecting them to the Ice-1 and then to the appropriate motherboard headers will provide the Ice-1 the ability to control the power for the computer.

The ribbon cable connecting the optical drive to the Ice-1 is easy enough so I will do that now. The optical drive also receives its power from the Ice-1 unit sitting below it. This allows the optical drive to be used to play music or DVDs without the computer being powered up.

From here, we now just have to route the rest of the cables to the rear of the case for PCI expansion slot mounting. As you can see in the photo above, I have all the I/O ports labeled so you know exactly what this setup is capable of. Getting the ribbon and other cables routed to the back of the case does cause a lot of congestion inside the Take 4 that I used and I think would be even tougher in a standard mid-tower design.

I tried the best I could to neatly get all those cables in the case but in the end they pretty much just bulk up behind the optical drive bays. Airflow isn't too bad over the important components on the motherboard but the northbridge area is very stuffed up with this setup. Again, in a standard mid-tower design this will differ and shouldn't cause such a problem.

Since there is no software to install or configure, the last step of the install is simply connecting cables. In total, all that we have to hook up is the coaxial cable for TV, the audio in from the systems audio outputs, the power adapter, and the VGA pass-through with the monitor.

This is when I realized that the audio connection was far from the 5.1 cables in the manual. All I received with my package was the cable on the left with a single 3.5mm stereo connection and not the 5.1 dongle shown in the manual. Perhaps this is an option but a silly one at that. To hook up my receiver I simply connected this to a 3.5mm stereo > RCA cable and connected the RCAs to my home receiver.

There is a coaxial connection for the FM antenna but I don't have one and the package did not come with one so I guess I won't be testing the FM radio reception. With everything connected we can begin testing.

Page 6 : Testing

Before showing what the Ice-1 can do, we will go over setting it up. With the extensive and somewhat confusing manual in hand it shouldn't be too hard to figure out the menu settings and get to using the unit.

This is the main screen that will come up upon turning the Ice-1 on when in the DVD screen. I checked to see if the Ice-1 remembers what mode you were last in and it does. So if you power down the unit while watching TV, when you turn it back on, you will be in TV mode. The first step will be going through the setup options.

This is the menu we are presented with and as you can see there are just a few options we have to sort through.

General Setup

Speaker Setup

Audio Setup

Preferences

I won't go into detail about the various settings as they are all self explanatory for the most part. The manual covers all of the different options rather well and there are just too many to explain them all. With everything setup as I wanted, it was time to drop a DVD in the drive and see how it works.

As soon as you close the drive, the system automatically detects media in the drive and begins to play it. The controls work well enough for watching DVDs using the skip button to shuffle through chapters. The quality of the picture is about the standard that I have seen through a TV tuner and when watching DVDs on the computer through the standard interface of being directly connected to the mainboard. I also tried an audio CD and again, as soon as it was detected it began playing track 1 of the disc.

The one issue that I found was that the audio was very quiet. I had the volume of the unit turned up to the maximum available and was unable to get the volume to a useable level without going through my receiver to make it louder. I only have an older receiver that does not allow for use of the optical output so I was restricted to the 3.5mm stereo connection being converted to RCAs that connect to the receiver. When listening directly to the audio line coming from the Ice-1 with headphones the volume was just not loud enough to enjoy. I thought perhaps it was just an issue with the DVD function so we will quickly look at the TV tuner capabilities.

The TV tuner does just that. Allows us to watch TV on the monitor without having the computer on or while it is on by switching to the TV mode. Again, the quality of the picture was not that of a TV but still very good. Certain channels are better than others but that is the fault of my cable connection and not the tuner. As stated earlier, the volume was very limited in DVD mode and that carried over in the TV Tuner mode although was marginally better. The volume scaled from 00-99 and at 99 was actually useable with a direct connection through headphones. I then realized it was the Ice-1 and not just the mode so I went into the audio setting but could not make any adjustments that helped the issue.

The remote doesn't respond as quickly as I am use to with my digital terminal and this became evident when changing channels as I was forced to pause for a second or two while flipping through them. This was a bit annoying but I got used to it.

Overall the function of the Ice-1 lived up to what I was expecting. The only aspect that I have not covered is the ability to power-up or power-off the computer with the PC button on the remote. It isn't something to write home about but is kind of cool I guess. Look for my final thoughts on the next and last page of the review.

Page 7 : Conclusion

Tsunami has an interesting product on their hands with the Ice-1 Media Manager. For the most part, this is a one-of-a-kind device that does some very interesting things. Being able to watch TV or a DVD on my computer monitor is not a high priority but for those with HTPC systems, it might be. I think the appeal of the Ice-1 will mostly come from those people that are looking to add TV functionality to a room where a computer is present but a TV is not. University dorms or kids rooms immediately come to mind and with the parental controls, the Media Manager has the added feature of limiting the nature of what the user can view.

Of course, there are some drawbacks. The biggest of which is the poor audio quality without the 5.1 hook-ups. I can only speculate that having the 5.1 audio connections would have produced better sound quality because the single audio connection I received with my sample provided good sound, but just unusable sound without a separate amplifier because of the low maximum volume. The remote is not as responsive as I like my remotes to be although the range it which it will work is very good. And lastly, the setup is a bit of a mess. There truly is a lot of cables and this setup will clutter most any case, even with extensive routing techniques.

I think with some refinement, such as a nicer and higher quality interface, the Ice-1 from Tsunami could be a hit. Perhaps adding the ability to hook up a hard drive and play media from that without having to boot the machine from or being able to record data to a hard drive to act as a PVR would be the icing on the cake. As it stands now, the Ice-1 is a nice feature rich product but not something that everyone will be running out to buy or have use for. A decent TV tuner will do everything and more that the Ice-1 does, it will just require your machine to be on.

Advantages

• Computer free DVD/CD/TV enjoyment
• Esthetically pleasing device
• Brings a lot of function to a monitor

  Disadvantages

• Audio was very quiet with supplied connections
• Remote control was slow to respond
• No ability to record TV

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Tsunami for supplying the Ice-1 for this review.