Do You Need a New Computer to Use Away Mode?

Okay, so the new ‘Away’ mode in Update 2 for Media Center Edition 2005 is supposed to let your turn your PC on and off like a TV (or any other consumer electronic device) and also allow you to continue recording TV shows even when your computer is off. Paul Thurrott gives a good overview:

Next generation Media Center PCs, which will very likely consist almost entirely of den-friendly devices, will feature a new type of power management that will enable them to behave less like PCs and more like consumer electronics devices. Away Mode takes advantage of this technology, allowing these PCs to appear to turn on and off instantly, providing an interesting half-way house between today's Hibernation and Standby modes. In Away Mode, a PC isn't really off, it's just mostly off (the video display and audio are shut down, most obviously). But a small trickle of electricity allows the system to maintain a faint heartbeat and perform tasks--like recording TV shows and streaming content to Extenders--while appearing to be off. In Away Mode, a Media Center PC is virtually silent, another huge benefit. You can reactivate a Media Center PC in Away Mode by pressing the power button on the Media Center remote: Any other button presses will be ignored.

Well, this is a very cool feature but apparently it requires special hardware to be able to run it:

The second big new feature, Away Mode (codenamed "Always Ready"), also requires special hardware. Specifically, to take advantage of this feature, you need a new kind of Media Center PC that hasn't even been released yet.

What is the special hardware that the new power management scheme needs? Are we talking about updating the BIOS on an existing motherboard or is it more complex than that and you will essentially need a new PC to get ‘Away’ mode to work?

Gizmodo had a recent post about Shuttle releasing their latest Media Center PC with Away mode:

The Shuttle XPC Media Center is, of course, small, but is also being marketed as a digital entertainment product. And most importantly, the product was developed to work with all new features from Update Rollup 2 for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, including Away Mode, dual tuner support, and compatibility with new Media Center Extender devices and, of course, the Xbox 360

It is a sleek looking form factor and support Away mode – but do I need a new PC for Away mode?

Update: Reading a post about Away Mode from Tales of Windows Media Center Project Management it sounds like it is an OS update and not necessarily special hardware :

There is no way to enable away mode. It is actually an update to the OS itself (you get a change to the power management control panel). You'd need an installer for it.

I'd love to give it out to everyone but that decision really isn't mine. I'll certainly send that feedback to the away mode team.