Kodi Community Forum

Hello,

I'm convinced: I finally want to upgrade from my old xbox, to a machine that will be able to play HDTV content (720p atleast).

However, I'm still unable to find a machine that will suit my needs, and I think I'm not the only one. Standard pcs are obnoxious and loud, plus have all kinds of caveats that will make them not very suitable as a xbox replacement.

So, I would like to call on the collaborative mind of xbmc to help us find a box that is:

• Fast booting as the original xbox. Embedded OS anyone?
  
• Quiet. The old xbox has problems with this
  
• Able to play HDTV content (720p atleast)
  

Does anyone has any suggestions? Does not matter what hardware, operating system or price. Give me your best shot!

Regards,

FLX

verry good question!!!

I also want to know that.

Ive spent the last week researching the very same thing and I've come up with some conclusions.

You need something small, quiet, and energy efficient. So it has to be a mini ITX system based around an Atom or Via CPU, possibly the newer VIA Nano.

If you want it dead silent then an external AC adaptor block is better than an internal CPU.

OS doesn't really matter as XBMC can run on all and its likely preferable to run Live from Bootup anyway.

Price is a huge factor. Who wants to spend $500-$600 on a fully fledged PC crammed into a small case when all your using it for it Media. So you need something cheap too.

And with all those things considered the best solution I have come up with is the Asus EEE box. Its cheap, its deadly quiet, usues notebook Atom parts so its extremely energy efficient. It plays back normal video easily and also does 720p at a high CPU usage. But those demos running 720p were running in Windows so if you use XBMC Live and mypass all the OS drag it should be much better.

Add in the fact that you can VESA mount it to the back of your LCD TV to make it invisible and its a sweet setup.

There is an Atom 330 CPU just out that is dual core so has more power but that won't do any better than 720p either and while it might be faster doing windows tasks it won't make much difference to your Media box. And there are no prebuilt systems out with the 330 yet.

I dont think the Atom has enough grunt to decode anything above 720p and pretty sure the VIA isnt supported....

I think it would be preferrable to play 1080p content on your XBMC just so it was future-proofed.

And any HTPC booting straight in to XBMC I would also want a blu-ray drive too. Anybody any ideas?

Your right XBMC doesnt support S3 so anything VIA is out, with regards to th Atom doing anything above 720p, the OP doesn't want above 720p.

The thing is that this thread could go 20 different way depending on exactly what each person wants.

If you want a Blueray drive and 1080p the only way you can go is a fully fledged PC in a Micro ATX case or maybe a Shuttle barebone. Its bigger, loader and much more expensive and how much do you want to spend on something you will likely only use for Media on your TV?

The Holy Grail is something like a NMT thats pretty much dedicated to XBMC, and of course has the best Media PC software as its front end. It has to be cheap enough, small enough and quiet enough to do what MOST people want it to do.

Most people want nothing more than 720p and 5.1 sound through Optical.

The most promising chip I have seen to deliver everything anyone could want in a Media PC is the Nvidia Tegra. It has CPU, VGA and everything else required in a chip smaller than the Atom CPU is alone. In can decode 1080p in its sleep and does it all using less than 2 watts. Unfortunately Nvidia only seem to have Mobile device plans for it.

HexusOdy Wrote:The most promising chip I have seen to deliver everything anyone could want in a Media PC is the Nvidia Tegra. It has CPU, VGA and everything else required in a chip smaller than the Atom CPU is alone. In can decode 1080p in its sleep and does it all using less than 2 watts. Unfortunately Nvidia only seem to have Mobile device plans for it.

I should add that it will never happen, not with this phase of Nvidia processors as its not an x86 architecture and also puts alot of load on the GPU which XBMC wont do.

But as a vision of the near future a full system on a chip that fits in the palm of your hand, can decode full 1080p out through HDMI and do all that while using less than 2w of power is a nice thought. Give it a year and who knows what we will have on the desktop.

Luckily, Intel has a similar SoC core coming soon "Canmore".

Theres alot of threads on these... I think one formalized best HTPC thread would be a good idea. Heres two threads that I can list off hand, http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=37192&page=1 and, http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=34235

CASHMON3Y Wrote:Theres alot of threads on these... I think one formalized best HTPC thread would be a good idea. Heres two threads that I can list off hand, http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=37192&page=1 and, http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=34235

I think a Hardware Forum would be a good idea. With XBMC available on so many platforms now the hardware is a crucial factor. Plus it could cover things like remote controls and the like.

it is expensive, but im actually leaning towards one of those new 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini's. I tried to create one myself before using a VIA Epia Ex1500G mobo, but that failed miserably due to the cpu speed and the badly supported gpu. I have to agree that it would be great if you could buy a profesionally engineered NMT with XBMC preloaderld. I don't understand that no one started making these yet.

Hi Community!

This is my first post at xbmc.org. The past months i have visited this site many, many times. My name is Patrick, I am from Austria and I study Electrical Engeenering at the Technical University of Vienna...
...and please pardon my bad english skills.

I also want a small htpc or media center. About one year ago i surfed the web and found a solution for my problem, XBMC. I was surprised about the features of this media center and bought an old xbox 1. I was high motivated and startet my project. I searched the web, especially xbox-scene.com and evo-x for tutorials for creating such a media center. But afer a few days i got dissapointed, because there are many things about the old box, that seems to be a problem (for me):
* the need of a mod-chip or soft-mod
* the lag of CPU-POwer for watching 720p and 1080p Material
* the missing of hdmi, vga-output (except xbox v1.0)
* the missing of native-wlan
* the fact that there is no end-solution for me, the customer, I mean, i have to solder the mod-chip, install the ir-mod for remote-controll and so on...
Thats why i stopped my project and searched again for a solution. I was very happy to see, that the xbmc- team have started the port of xbmc to pc or mac.

I thought, okay, you have the right software for your htpc you need now the right hardware. Important for me are the following points:
* not to expensive
* as small as possible
* powerfull hardware, capable to handle hd-content for at least 3 years
* Multichannel-support (at least DD and DTS) for my receiver

So i searched and found a solution, the "Intel Essential Series", witch Intel ATOM-CPU and mini-itx-format (17cmx17cm) or (6,7inchx6,7inch) http://geizhals.at/a338314.html. This would be a cheap solution but not the right for this project, because it has the following problems:
* the Intel GMA950 is only able to show 720p content, he can't handle 1080p without stuttering or lags.
* the onboard-sound has only two channels.

I was dissapointed about the whole thing, i thought, i would never find a solution (in the near future)... than i found that: http://geizhals.at/a338725.html, a mini-itx-board with onboard x4100-graphic-chip, capable for HD-Content, support for C2D-CPUs and TOS-Link-output for my a/v-receiver. Search the web, you will find some reviews about this board. It combines the power of an ATX-board with the tiny size of itx.
I started a calculation for a possible htpc (in Euro):
* MB for about 105€
* E1200 Celeron-CPU (you need not more, look for reviews, very powefull) for about 40€
* DDR2-KIT 1GB for about 15€
* picoPSU and external Powersupply for about 70€

I need no other parts, i have an old 2,5inch HDD and will create a custom case made of wood or plexi-glass. When you sum the positions above you got about 230€, think, that would be about 300 Dollar.
Would do you think about this solution, please tell me, thanks Patrick.

Avenger_Zero Wrote:Hi Community!

This is my first post at xbmc.org. The past months i have visited this site many, many times. My name is Patrick, I am from Austria and I study Electrical Engeenering at the Technical University of Vienna...
...and please pardon my bad english skills.

I also want a small htpc or media center. About one year ago i surfed the web and found a solution for my problem, XBMC. I was surprised about the features of this media center and bought an old xbox 1. I was high motivated and startet my project. I searched the web, especially xbox-scene.com and evo-x for tutorials for creating such a media center. But afer a few days i got dissapointed, because there are many things about the old box, that seems to be a problem (for me):
* the need of a mod-chip or soft-mod
* the lag of CPU-POwer for watching 720p and 1080p Material
* the missing of hdmi, vga-output (except xbox v1.0)
* the missing of native-wlan
* the fact that there is no end-solution for me, the customer, I mean, i have to solder the mod-chip, install the ir-mod for remote-controll and so on...
Thats why i stopped my project and searched again for a solution. I was very happy to see, that the xbmc- team have started the port of xbmc to pc or mac.

I thought, okay, you have the right software for your htpc you need now the right hardware. Important for me are the following points:
* not to expensive
* as small as possible
* powerfull hardware, capable to handle hd-content for at least 3 years
* Multichannel-support (at least DD and DTS) for my receiver

So i searched and found a solution, the "Intel Essential Series", witch Intel ATOM-CPU and mini-itx-format (17cmx17cm) or (6,7inchx6,7inch) http://geizhals.at/a338314.html. This would be a cheap solution but not the right for this project, because it has the following problems:
* the Intel GMA950 is only able to show 720p content, he can't handle 1080p without stuttering or lags.
* the onboard-sound has only two channels.

I was dissapointed about the whole thing, i thought, i would never find a solution (in the near future)... than i found that: http://geizhals.at/a338725.html, a mini-itx-board with onboard x4100-graphic-chip, capable for HD-Content, support for C2D-CPUs and TOS-Link-output for my a/v-receiver. Search the web, you will find some reviews about this board. It combines the power of an ATX-board with the tiny size of itx.
I started a calculation for a possible htpc (in Euro):
* MB for about 105€
* E1200 Celeron-CPU (you need not more, look for reviews, very powefull) for about 40€
* DDR2-KIT 1GB for about 15€
* picoPSU and external Powersupply for about 70€

I need no other parts, i have an old 2,5inch HDD and will create a custom case made of wood or plexi-glass. When you sum the positions above you got about 230€, think, that would be about 300 Dollar.
Would do you think about this solution, please tell me, thanks Patrick.

well ... untill GPU decoding takes off the CPU is going to be waaay to weak...
and PicoPSU should be able to -be around 50euro.. well atleast here

icekiller Wrote:well ... untill GPU decoding takes off the CPU is going to be waaay to weak...
and PicoPSU should be able to -be around 50euro.. well atleast here

The GPU takes the decoding. I read a review, where they tested the motherboard with an E8500. These CPU is ways to strong for a media center. The CPU-usage were about 3-7%, i think. The E1200 is, infact the same technology, excapt the 512kB L2-Cache and a lower frequenc. I think, the CPU-Usage will be at about 15-20% for HD-Content without HTCP and about 25-30% for Blu-Ray.
Yeah, the picoPSU cost about 45€, but you need also an external 12V powersupply, which cost about 30€.

How about this?

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/i...tegory_id=