[exoscoriae]

thank you for the breakdown. I have a 3d tv, however that particular TV is running my beast of a media box and I am positibe that it can handle the 3d movies just fine if I chose to try one... so far I have only tried a physical 3d bluray, and while it was alright, I much prefer 3d gaming to 3d movies.

I'm thinking the NUC is the way to go, however I may have to wait as I need at least 3 of the suckers, and I'm not real keen on dropping that much on machines that are 99% going to serve as media decoders =)

[jammyb]

Yes, I am referring to a straight bluray rip.

I am a bit confused though as to why I am 3 pages into this question and noone has suggested an ion2 yet and I specifically asked about them in the original post. An ion 2 would fit my budget perfectly, and that was what I was aiming at before I asked on here.

That said, I am now very curious as to how an ion2 compares to that q190. At $300, it is only 50 or so more than an ion2.... and presumably, it is quite a bit more powerful?

---

No worries bud. Buy it in the US then - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6856102004

Just don't spout tosh that they've been discontinued.

The confusion then would be the fact that when it was originally mentioned, Dougie Fresh called it

The flavor of Q190 I am referring to is the Celeron 847

. And when I went to lenova's website they confirmed they had a q190 with a celeron 847 but that it had been discontinued. So I am "spouting" exactly what the manufacturer told me. The fact that there is a separate model number that happens to contain that chipset doesn't change the fact that the q190 w/ a celeron 847 is no longer produced. Unless there never was a q190 w/ a celeron 847, in which case the guy at lenova was an idiot who misled me.

Where was I talking about the q190? From the way I was reading this thread. We were talking about NUCs and then I read you said you can't get them anymore. Hence my incorrect assumption that you were spouting tosh. Apologies.

Didn't even know they made a q190 with 847. Only ever saw the 887 as it has the HD4000 graphics. You can still buy that box and it has more ports than the NUC. I like the NUC as I only use HDMI, Ethernet and power. Don't need spdif or USB3. Plus it's fecking tiny!

Sorry for any confusion. But have a look at the q190s. For all in one they are smart and the bluray on the side is cool.

[Dougie Fresh]

The 847 was a typo on my part since I am so used to typing 847. The Q190 has the 887 (with HD2000 GPU actually). The only difference between the 847 and 887 is the CPU clock which is slightly higher on the 887.

The Q190/Celeron 887 seems to be available on the Lenovo website here for $299: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/id...index.html. It has been on sale for $249 several times. It shows a ship date of 8/12/13. I have no idea then if it's truly discontinued. They might have been talking about the Q180?

Anyway, good luck. I suggested the Q190 based on my very good experience with the Celeron 847. The NUC should perform the same too. I believe Acer also makes a Celeron 847-based mini too.

[exoscoriae]

No, the Q190 is not discontinued. When I asked the guy about a Q190 with an 847 processor he said it was lno longer available, however i think he was confused and it was never available. The Q190 appears to only be available with the 887 chipset. Thanks very much for the heads up on the sales for $249. I would definitely purchase at that price.

[cwide]

Or these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6856119083

[Dezz]

Or perhaps even these:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008OHRFE0/ref=...1_ST1_dp_1

[Cody-TLBB]

If you haven't checked it out yet. I would look at The Little Black Box.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=169600

[exoscoriae]

Or these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6856119083

Or perhaps even these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008OHRFE0/ref=...1_ST1_dp_1

I really like the form factor on the zotac and the large number of ports. With 4gb of ram at about $30 and a 32gb class 10 SD card for about $20, I'd be looking at just over $200 for this guy. Not bad! However I would be interested in seeing a review or two from someone actually using this guy. It seems for every person who says one of these devices runs 1080p video just fine, someone else states they are having a bad time of it.

If you haven't checked it out yet. I would look at The Little Black Box.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=169600

Intriguing. Also sold out. Reading through threads on it, it seems to chug on skins like Aeon Nox... Unfortunately this does not appear to be a solution for me. 1 gb of ram on a 1ghz processor @ $130 before shipping? My Ouya was cheaper than that, has a very comparable internal chipset, and isn't so great at running XBMC.

[Dezz]

Or perhaps even these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008OHRFE0/ref=...1_ST1_dp_1

I really like the form factor on the zotac and the large number of ports. With 4gb of ram at about $30 and a 32gb class 10 SD card for about $20, I'd be looking at just over $200 for this guy. Not bad! However I would be interested in seeing a review or two from someone actually using this guy. It seems for every person who says one of these devices runs 1080p video just fine, someone else states they are having a bad time of it.

From what I've read about the Zotac ID61, Openelec + XBMC should be no trouble at all for 1080p.

With a combination of another OS and 3D, it might be a different story.

I could let you know how it goes when mine arrives in a week or so.

The price made it too tempting.

[exoscoriae]

Looking forward to hearing your results.

[Dezz]

I finally received the ID61 (added 4GB Ram + 64GB SSD) and loaded OE on it.

Around 9 seconds from cold boot to being in XBMC.
The provided remote works out of the box, including for switching the Zotac Nano on and off.

Navigating around the XBMC menu (Confluence) is incredibly responsive and quick.

Picture quality, even at 1080p (2D) is smooth without any stuttering.

The only slight complaint I have is the average picture quality when I added a TV tuner.
Upscaling is not all that good and provides a sort of foggy picture with no sharpness when compared to a HiMedia box I have.
I'm sure this is due the VAAPI drivers requiring further development and is probably a completely different story using Windows.

Overall, I'm very happy with this little box and think it would be much better than a Celeron NUC for XBMC (especially at the $153 I got it for).

[exoscoriae]

$153? Where did you order from?

[Dezz]

It was on sale at Amazon for $153 and free shipping (within the US) at the time I posted the link in the last page.
There was only 4 left at that price when I bought mine.

With the exchange rate (AU to US) and shipping to Australia (they're not available over here) through an onforwarding company, it worked out to about AU$220.

Still very well worth it for what it is and how it performs.

It's now $187 at Amazon.

If you hunt around you might still find cheaper somewhere else.

[aesalazar]

FWIW, I am running an i3 NUC with Aeon Nox (a very heavy skin) and XBMC is butter smooth. I can do perfectly smooth playback of uncompressed 40+ GB bluray isos I have ripped to my NAS including DTS HD MA and Dolby Digital HD both bitstream and down-mixes. With Aeon, I have a few extra custom tabs on the main screen (like "Kids Movies" and "Kids TV Shows") on top of the standard ones. ALL tabs have widgets enabled as well as slideshows running as backgrounds.

Ya, its a pricy box but I wanted there to be no doubt that I had enough umph and high WAF. If you want to save money you can probably skip the ssd and go off a stick for the OS.

[solamnic]

...If you want to save money you can probably skip the ssd and go off a stick for the OS.

Its like having an m3 BMW with damaged tires...