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From which Group do you belong!? - Printable Version

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- gabbott - 2012-01-08

sparky0 Wrote:Also, I'm not sure if I want to spring for an SSD, or cheap out and try a USB thumb drive for the OS. (I will have bulk storage on the gigabit LAN.) Will the thumb drive be sufficient for any of the distros I mentioned above? Would there be a noticeable performance hit? Will swapping kill it?

Thanks very much for any help.

For openelec and running everything from a NAS, a USB thumbdrive will be fine. I had an SSD in one of my boxes and actually took it out in favor of a thumbdrive as there was no difference in performance. What I did instead was end up putting my SSD in my media server and used it for my thumbnails and to install mysql on.


- bluray - 2012-01-08

coffeeman Wrote:http://www.viako.com/viako/product_view.asp?idx=398

what you guys think about this.. ?

asking around 600 dollars here in Korea.
With that kind of money, I can build a better AMD a8-3850 with BD-RE drive for less money! Smile

But if you don't want to build HTPC yourself, you can give it a try. If you don't want internal BD drive or front USB port, you'll be fine with that case. I hope that it have a PCIe slot available for aftermarket discrete GPU.


- coffeeman - 2012-01-08

bluray Wrote:With that kind of money, I can build a better AMD a8-3850 with BD-RE drive for less money! Smile

But if you don't want to build HTPC yourself, you can give it a try. If you don't want internal BD drive or front USB port, you'll be fine with that case. I hope that it have a PCIe slot available for aftermarket discrete GPU.

yeah that's what I was thinking, I can understand the company they are out for profits, I would want something with more juice if I was paying that kind of money.. the case is nice.. maybe a bare bones option and build myself.


- takoi - 2012-01-17

Your group #2 and #3 are flawed. I'm pretty sure most people (people who don't care about Hulu, Netflix and such, meaning the world - the us) are in these, so not exactly good for the guide

#2 because AppleTV2 doesn't have a HDD
#3 because you can't actually get AppleTV1. It's discontinued..


- AssChin79 - 2012-01-27

ventech Wrote:Your group #2 and #3 are flawed. I'm pretty sure most people (people who don't care about Hulu, Netflix and such, meaning the world - the us) are in these, so not exactly good for the guide

#2 because AppleTV2 doesn't have a HDD
#3 because you can't actually get AppleTV1. It's discontinued..

The other thought to consider is that in order to load XBMC onto Apple1 or 2 you have to jailbreak the device and to load XBMC onto the XBOX1 you have to chip the machine. I seriously doubt most people are going to go to those lengths. It makes a lot more sense in 2012 to come into XBMC with the understanding that it will run on a low powered nettop PC that you buy off the shelf.


- malte - 2012-01-29

Thanks for your guides and this group overview, eskro. Helps me a lot while getting into the topic and finding a build that suits me.

Just some comments as it seems that always the same additional questions come up here and in other threads/forums. Would it be worth/possible to expand the groups with some more variables?
  • What OS can be used with which system? Some little systems just handle OpenELEC or XBMC Live in acceptable performance but will fail to run a full Windows 7 smoothly. Maybe three more variables could be added: 1. XBMC Live/OpenELEC for smaller systems, 2. Linux with light weight window manager (like xfce) in the middle and Windows for more "powerful" systems.
  • Which group can handle heavy skins like Aeon MQ3?
  • Gaming capabilities: What system can handle emulators up to PSX or N64, play old games with Directx 9/10, what is needed to play current games?
  • "Social skills": power consumption, noise, look & feel

The social skills won't be easy to integrate but I guess the first three (OS handling, skin, gaming) should be easy to add to the current groups without bigger rearrangements.


BTW: While searching around I also found a nice overview of example builds in a german hardware forum. Most builds are based on Intel CPUs but some have also mentioned AMD as alternative.


- Dieter@be - 2012-02-10

Hey,
how about people who want all the fancy stuff (1080p, flawless support for as many codecs as possible, hardware decoding/low power consumption) but do not care about Hulu/Netflix etc?
In fact, in Europe hulu/netflix is not even available, so ...
is this also group3 ?


- Jetster - 2012-02-10

Well group 3 is basically AppleTV2. So your talking at least group 4 if not 5 or 6. By codex you mean out side of XBMC sence it does not use Codex.


- takoi - 2012-02-10

Dieter@be Wrote:Hey,
how about people who want all the fancy stuff (1080p, flawless support for as many codecs as possible, hardware decoding/low power consumption) but do not care about Hulu/Netflix etc?
In fact, in Europe hulu/netflix is not even available, so ...
is this also group3 ?

Jetster Wrote:Well group 3 is basically AppleTV2.

No, group 3 says AppleTV1, which you cant buy. There are no group for people who just want 1080p and doesn't care about American streaming services, but i guess 4 would be the closest.


- bluray - 2012-02-10

@ Dieter@be- the first build in my signature, but replace AMD A8-3850 with AMD A6-3500. You'll have a very low power consumption AMD HTPC that will playback everything! Smile


- MarvinMar - 2012-02-10

Quote:and to load XBMC onto the XBOX1 you have to chip the machine. I seriously doubt most people are going to go to those lengths.

This is not true. (And even if it was, difficulty or having to buy used parts does not change the group you are in)

I have 4 XBOXes at my house all running XBMC. Nod only 1 of these has a modchip. Big Grin
You can softmod an XBOX pretty easily using 1 of 3 hacked save games and an installer disk.
At that point you can play all of your SD and maybe some 720p right off your network or files loaded on dvds.

You can also install a larger hard drive but this does require a modchip or at least access to an XBOX that is already chipped.


RE: From which Group do you belong!? - AllanMarcus - 2012-04-14

Great thread. Much appreciated.

I'm in group 2.5. Mostly I play TV and Movies in either SD or 720, which the very occasional 1080p. I don't care about netflix or skins. Basic XBMC is great for me. I have a linux server that handles all the media, so I don't even need local storage.

I have one ATV2 and it works well, but yu can't get them anymore and there' no jailbreak for the ATV3. I'm keeping my eyes open for another ATV2 on the used/refurb market, and if I see one for $100 or less, I will probably get it.

That all said, what's one step up from the ATV2? Seems like an ION based system is it. Seems like there is a pretty big jump in price from an ATV2 to the next level.

Can anyone recommend a complete build (linux is preferred over windows) for under $300, or even better, $200?

1080p
HDMI
Remote
Silent

Thanks,

Allan


RE: From which Group do you belong!? - maddog808 - 2012-04-15

I use an Apple TV 1 with crystal HD in the bedroom. I had a Acer Revo 3610 in my living room for over a year. I just upgraded to a ASROCK A75 & A6-3500 in a mini ITX case. I like the new setup, but really for xbmc, the Revo was fine.

The gap between the ATV and Revo is MUCH greater than the gap between the Revo and my custom build.

For someone on a budget, I still recommend the atom/ion combo. Most who own it have been pretty happy with them overall.

Here's a used one on Ebay, if you're interested.


RE: From which Group do you belong!? - AllanMarcus - 2012-04-15

(2012-04-15, 00:06)maddog808 Wrote: I use an Apple TV 1 with crystal HD in the bedroom. I had a Acer Revo 3610 in my living room for over a year. I just upgraded to a ASROCK A75 & A6-3500 in a mini ITX case. I like the new setup, but really for xbmc, the Revo was fine.

The gap between the ATV and Revo is MUCH greater than the gap between the Revo and my custom build.

For someone on a budget, I still recommend the atom/ion combo. Most who own it have been pretty happy with them overall.

Here's a used one on Ebay, if you're interested.
Very nice. What would I use for a remote?



RE: From which Group do you belong!? - maddog808 - 2012-04-15

(2012-04-15, 00:26)AllanMarcus Wrote:
(2012-04-15, 00:06)maddog808 Wrote: I use an Apple TV 1 with crystal HD in the bedroom. I had a Acer Revo 3610 in my living room for over a year. I just upgraded to a ASROCK A75 & A6-3500 in a mini ITX case. I like the new setup, but really for xbmc, the Revo was fine.

The gap between the ATV and Revo is MUCH greater than the gap between the Revo and my custom build.

For someone on a budget, I still recommend the atom/ion combo. Most who own it have been pretty happy with them overall.

Here's a used one on Ebay, if you're interested.
Very nice. What would I use for a remote?

If you have no need for RF, or universal to control multiple components, this $15 one works great.

If you want to hide the HTPC out of sight, and want to control the TV, AV receiver, etc, I use and like this $70 kit a lot. I'm not much of a Harmony fan, when it comes to RF remotes. I've never had problems with URC.