Media centres and living room PCs are set to become one of the rising technologies of the next twelve months, and Sony is hoping that its brand new VAIO TP2 media PC will set the standard for the rest of the competition.

Its timing couldn't be better either, because in 2008 more people than ever are waking up to the dream of building a digital home.

The popularity of HD TVs is now firmly established.

And what with faster broadband speeds enabling us to download HD video content for the first time, and with the introduction of video-on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer, media centre PCs are no longer reserved for hardcore enthusiasts who spend most of their hard earned cash on expensive kit.

Powerful innards

The Sony VAIO TP2 may look like a biscuit tin, but under that smooth round exterior lays a veritable computing powerhouse. It has been granted a major upgrade from its iPod styled predecessor the TP1, with faster clock speeds and most importantly the introduction of a Blu-ray drive, bringing Sony's high definition format into the living room.

Sony has included one of the new 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors in the VAIO TP2. This revised Penryn version of Intel’s dual core processor has been lauded for improvements in video processing and decoding, making it perfect for the inclusion in media based PCs.

Inside the case you’ll find 2GB of RAM and also a laptop-style Nvidia 8400M graphics card which gives it enough power to drive video playback, Windows Vista's demanding Aero interface on HDTVs and even some low-end games if you have the desire. There’s also a 500GB hard drive in there for good measure.

HDMI connectivity

Behind a sliding panel in the front of the VAIO TP2 are all the connections and sockets you would expect to find on any PC, with Firewire, SD card, multiple USB, DVI and HDMI ports.

Disappointingly, we were given an early preview model which had no Blu-ray drive fitted. All retail models will have Blu-ray included, and while all the signs look good for quality, there have been reports that Sony has limited the capacity of the HDMI 1.3 ports. That means the TP2 will downgrade fully lossless audio such as Dolby TruHD to Standard or Dolby 5.1 to lower standards.

This will anger some audiophiles, but the truth is that most HDMI 1.3 devices are having issues with lossless audio.