TVSquad

Okoro Media Systems has unveiled its new "entry level" media center PC with CableCard support. And while Okoro has never been known for releasing low-cost machines, the OMS-CX100's $1795 starting price makes the phrase a bit hard to swallow.

You get an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz processor, 1333 MMHz front side bus, 2GB of DDR memory, a 320GB hard drive, NVIDIA graphics card with 256MB of RAM and HDCP output. But we're betting an awful large chunk of the price comes from the ATI digital TV tuner. Slap an over the air HDTV tuner in there instead, and we imagine the price would come way down.

Of course, a few years ago, people were paying $10,000 for HDTV sets. Prices come down if you give them enough time. And if the high priced technologies are widely adopted. But with CableCard PC tuners driving up the costs of media center PCs, we're not sure there will really be enough early adopters to help drive the price down over the next few years. Especially when you can get a high definition TiVo for a few hundred bucks or a generic cable company PVR for just a monthly fee.

[via Chris Lanier]