Guest columnist Ross Rubin blogs on Engadget today that despite Apple not calling the Mac mini a media center device, it has all that in spades. DVD-player? Check. Rip, Mix, Burn? Check. Ken Burns hi-res slideshow effects? Check. Add on a USB TV tuner, and this thing is your TiVo on steroids. Rubin suggests the mini is a stealth MCE. The apps in iLife are all that a user is looking for when they want to access their media (movies, music, photos), and of course, there is the elegance factor. He also talks about the possibility that Apple is waiting to enter this market for a true media center once the CableCard standard is settled. That’s a great point – you should see how my IR blasters are scattered around with my MCEs, TiVo, etc. Anyway, others have blogged about ‘mini as media center’, but I think he hits the nail on the head here.

Interesting bit of info from CES. Shuttle, makers of super-small form factor PCs, showed off a set-top-box form factor Windows XP Media Center Edition box. It’s super slim (like half the height of the AlienWare DHS), so I’ll reserve comment until more specs come to light. Interesting, though.

For those of you who hadn’t heard, Bill Gates CES keynote was marred by three crash/errors last Wednesday. Now, Sean Alexander, product manager for Windows Media Center edition, has posted his behind the scenes post-mortem on what actually happened on his blog, Addicted to Digital Media. Interesting read, for sure. If it had been my call, I would never have tried to run both Sean’s demo as well as the Conan/Bill demo off a single machine far across the stage. Nobody expects real-world in these demos, so the notion that it would be best to play off a single machine with all kinds of enhancements like a USB booster just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, Sean is a great guy (I know him from some dev work I’ve done with MCE), so kudos to him for his open report on the incident.

Despite already offering one of the slicker Windows Media Center solutions, Hewlett-Packard is announcing a Linux-based home entertainment hub at CES this week. Link to C|net report.

HP’s new media hub will run the Linux operating system, include HD TV recording and an ethernet connection to your home network for access to media files stored on other PCs. It will have a remote control, much like the MCE, but likely have an option for a full keyboard.

It’s fascinating that HP is choosing to go the Linux route when they have so fully embraced Windows Media Center. Variety is good, and a statement on Tuesday from Vyomesch Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s imaging and printing group that “customers want simplicity, innovation and mainstream price points,” seems to explain some of the reasons why they have gone the Linux route.

HP has done this before, way back in 2001, also on a Linux platform. And we all know and love another fabulous Linux-based home entertainment box – the TiVo!

I’m looking forward to seeing HP’s new offering.