What is the difference between a regular desktop PC hard disk and a Consumer Electronics (CE) drive?

Consumer Electronics (CE) hard disks are specifically manufactured for the PVR market. CE drives are not generally available in retail stores, and can only be purchased through authorized resellers, such as XtendedPlay. Consumer Electronics drives have a few key differences from normal desktop drives that make them far superior to desktop PC drives for PVR usage: • Better streaming video performance - ensuring that you always get a great picture. CE drives are optimized for streaming to avoid the stutters and jerkiness that can be caused by repeated error checking that occurs on regular desktop PC drives. Hard disk drives designed for PC applications are optimized for data integrity through enhanced error detection and correction routines. These error correction 'features' on PC drives cause the data flow to be paused until an error is corrected, which causes jerky playback of video and audio. • Minimized operational noise - whisper quiet operation. CE drives use customized firmware ...