[jmoulder]

I am looking for advice on either a net top or an HTPC build. This will purely be an XBMC machine for my media center(s). I have about a 10TB NAS (unRaid) on a wired GB network. I have wireless N as well, but why bother when I have wired available.

I will mainly be using the XBMC to play movies and music. I want 1080p support (including Blueray). I would prefer a Linux setup to avoid the windows licensing cost. I would also prefer something that isn't a real pain to assemble and support. Netflix streaming capabilities would be nice to have as well. I would also prefer the fan noise not to be too bad. Silent would be great, but I can live with quiet. I ran old xbox's with xbmc, and the noise level was a bit distracting.

I want to stay relatively low cost since I need to get 4 of these up and running.

On one of the units I will need to be able to control it via a Crestron controller. Unfortunately I have an older Crestron that does not have the ethernet capabilities. So I will need to control through IR. So I need a box that comes with IR built in, or a recommendation on adding IR support.

I know there are like a million posts on HW recs, but all of them tend to be for specific needs. So I figured I'd post my specific needs, and see what everyone thinks.

[eskro]

Hi jmoulder, even tho im a Windows user,
i dont recall seeing Netflix work natively under Linux,,
at least not yet,,,
Workaround is to have Linux run Windows in a virtual machine....
you can read more on this Here...

Also, when u said,
"I want 1080p support (including Blueray)"
does that mean you wanna play Bluray Discs!?
Because XBMC can't natively play BD-Discs....
you can read more on this Here...

And which XBMC skin you'll run!?
Some heavier skins like AEON MQ2 might need a certain degree of CPU power....
thats something to keep in mind,,,

Also,
will your movies have Dolby True-HD or DTS-HD Audio tracks!?
And if so,
do you need to Bitstream those tracks to your compatible Audio/Video Receiver
so it can do the decoding!?

Then,
Cheapest way to add IR support is to use a USB Dongle,,,,
People have been saying great things about Flirc.TV's USB Dongle,,,,

~hope this helps~

[jmoulder]

In terms of Blu-Ray... no need for the disk player. Just the video playback quality.

I have no definitive opinion on a skin. Just whatever will give me the necessary capabilities. I'm not that into experimenting with different skins. I just tend to use whatever is most prevalent, and easiest to find support on.

Netflix is optional. If I can find a build that is cheaper with windows. I can go the windows route.

Sound: I will be pushing the through a Marantz unit in the main media room. The rest will use low end sound bars, essentially running through the TV's.

[eskro]

cheapest build for you --> http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=727463&postcount=1

cheapest nettop for you --> http://ow.ly/1uG3Tu

[outatouch0]

Also, when u said,
"I want 1080p support (including Blueray)"
does that mean you wanna play Bluray Discs!?
Because XBMC can't natively play BD-Discs....
you can read more on this Here...

Esk do you actually use this method? I ask because of the statement below from this article you give the link to.

"I've noticed it get a little choppy for a minute if you pause it or mess with XBMC at all, but it's a small price to pay to consolidate another one of your devices into your HTPC."

I wonder if this is system dependent, ie ram, cpu power, ssd vs. hdd, etc?

[eskro]

No i dont play bd-discs currently,,,
i wanted to buy a bluray drive but i decided to stop my shopping spreed

that method is known to work under Linux and Windows...
i cant confirm it works on all BD-Discs either,,,
my bet is that more movies would work on windows because
you still need a 3rd party protection remover like AnyDVD HD...

TMT5 & powerDVD are the ones to use for bluray disc playback,,,

[outatouch0]

No i dont play bd-discs currently,,,
i wanted to buy a bluray drive but i decided to stop my shopping spreed

that method is known to work under Linux and Windows...
i cant confirm it works on all BD-Discs either,,,
my bet is that more movies would work on windows because
you still need a 3rd party protection remover like AnyDVD HD...

TMT5 & powerDVD are the ones to use for bluray disc playback,,,

Thanks for the reply. I think I am just going to leave it alone for now. Other fish to fry getting my setup that way I want it. If I ever happen to play a BR-DVD I will just use the PowerDVD that came with the drive (w/o XBMMC).
I only bought the drive because I only want to put this together once. I don't want to pull the thing out from under my AVR etc any more than I have to.

[seand]

Netflix currently uses Microsoft Silverlight for streaming as opposed Flash or HTML5-compliant technology. And (gasp) shockingly Microsoft does not make a version of Silverlight for Linux, though they do make it for the MacOS.

Netflix however recently announced that they plan to support streaming to the new Google Chromebooks using HTML5 streaming technology. Since ChromeOS is basically a version of Linux it definitely opens the door for HTML5 streaming on other Linux OS's. However even though I've recently noticed the Chrome books recently announced for sale on Amazon, I have yet to see any news of Netflix following through. Though they have certainly been in the news (cough, cough) a lot lately for certain pricing adjustments.

If its something you would want why not partition your drives for a dual boot?

I'm pretty sure you can leave a partition for Windows and still set up GRUB to boot a Linux OS on another partition now.

[jmoulder]

The whole point for me in going the linux route was to avoid windows licensing fees. So a dual boot takes me down that path anyway.

Though there is always an argument to be had for the quick bootup time of a linux os.

[poofyhairguy]

That is why I say the perfect companion device to a Linux XBMC box is a Netflix streaming Blu Ray player. What one is not so good at, the other excels at.

I recommend Samsung players....

[jmoulder]

I have the build up and running. I went the Windows route with the ASRock custom build you recommended. I opted for a SSD and 4GB of RAM. Hardware setup was pretty easy. The biggest trick was figuring out how to sandwhich the fan into the box. I found someone's build picture in the forums, and that helped a bit.

After that the biggest headache by far was the windows install... and updates... and updates... and updates... I also got hung for a few minutes on the fact that the LAN drivers weren't loaded. Since I didn't have an optical drive on my build I had to go move these from the ASRock installation disk to a USB drive. No biggee, just an extra few minutes. If I would have thought of this in advance I would have had the drivers ready to go on the USB drive I used to install Windows.

The Flirc dongle is working as well. A much easier method than reprogramming my Creastron remote, since I could leverage my existing commands and map them in Flirc.

I will be buying one these dongles for every unit I setup. Especially the ones that are sharing a display with my Directv tuners. Looks like it will be a snap to get the Directv remote to control XBMC. The only hiccup I had with the Flirc, was that it didn't want to behave at first. I had to load the previous release, then load the newest build over it. Then everything went easy.

I have a Blu-ray drive on order. Once I get that in and running, I can give you some feedback on how that playback works. Though mostly I burn them down to my UnRaid box and stream them. It's just worth the money for me to get one more component out of my over crowded media cabinet. One less thing to add heat build up.

Skin wise... I switched over to the Project Mayhem 3D. My wife is familiar with the old Mayem menus, and I was getting blow back on her having to figure out a new pattern of menus. If she ain't happy...

Thanks for all the info. I wish I would have put one of these together a while back.