Newbie questions regarding my setup - please help.
#1
Hi,

Aim/Goal:
Fast HTPC with XBMC
Low Power
SILENT (has to be silent or quite as possible)

Parts
case: Lian Li PC-Q08B (case) + additional sound proofing and replacement fans
Motherboard: Asus E35M1-I DELUXE (Hudson chipset with onboard 6310 GPU / Wifi/ passive cooled)
RAM: 4GB G.Skill DDR3 ECO Series PC3-10666 1.35v
PSU: Seasonsonic X460 (fanless psu and fully modular)
HDD: Samsung 2TB
OS HDD: Crucial 64gb SSD
Remote: Themaltake Media lab with remote (will go into 5.25" bay) (already have this will remove from my main PC - based on Imon software)
http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1156&ID=1485

OS = Windows 7 x64 bit

at the moment i use a media player (HDI Dune) with my Qnap NAS so i will ask questions based on some features of the HDI and also some others question.

1) Does XBMC support a GOTO function? i.e. on my media player i can press GOTO and then select which part of the movie i would like to skip to.

2) does it support resume play? i.e on the media player if i watch something half way and switch of the player it remembers the position of the movie and will start back exactly where i left when i press play.

3) Can i backup my settings on XBMC? in case i need to replicate them elsewhere.

4) Will my remote a Imon based work with XBMC? at the moment it can work with WMP, Itune etc..

5) Does XBMC play full M2ts and ISO files? I have many full BDrips

6) Does it support multiple audio tracks? if so is it easy to switch between them?

7) will my setup above be sufficient? its just for playing HD movies

Thanks
a5ian300zx
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#2
I'm not sure you will be able to attain silence with six drives (and the cooling they will require).
The rest of your setup looks to have noise reduction in mind.. why not put the NAS part of your system elsewhere?
My apologies if my assumptions are made in error, I have been out of the hardware game for a few years.
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#3
1) Yes. You can key in a time to jump to using the numbers on the remote e.g. 1234 to jump to 12:23. I'm not sure what, if any, support it has for chapters in video files.

2) Yes, when you press Play you'll be prompted to resume where you left off or to start from the beginning.

3) Yes, all settings are stored in the profile directory: see http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Profile_Directory for details. You just need to back up this directory.

7) the main requirement is that the video card supports hardware acceleration. If your card is a Radeon 6310 this should be fine.

However I'd go along with Jayhovah. Build your PC as a NAS with minimal GPU and put it in the cupboard under the stairs. Use an Apple TV2 as the player, and that will be absolutely silent.

JR
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#4
we support all major chapter formats (mkv, ogg, dvds, bd's).

5) dharma only supports bd-folders, eden-pre/git master also supports bd iso's.
6) yes, as long as they are embedded. you can easily change using the osd, or map to any button of your choosing.
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#5
Hi,

thanks for all you feedback, very much appreciated. I already have one dedicated NAS drive.

i know i wont get it completely silent due to the hard drives but I will reduce the noise by using Samsung FE4 low rpm 5400rpm drives and having sound proofing on the hard drive side of the case.

6) dharma only supports bd-folders, eden-pre/git master also supports bd iso's

Q) are there different version of XBMC? where would i get hold of den-pre/git master?

Q) can XMBC do HD audio? i already own a hd amplifier which can receive HD bitstreams from HDMI

My overall setup idea for the moment will be,

HDI Dune -> accesses data from Qnap using NFS raid5 and also the new nas i will build using NFS for windows.

XBMC -> access the data from internet Raid5 and also if possible from the QNap using NFS.

at some point i want to setup remote WOL and also remote shutdown.

sorry just making sure i have everything ready when i come to install it.

a5ian300zx
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#6
a5ian300zx Wrote: Q) are there different version of XBMC? where would i get hold of den-pre/git master?

The release version, v10.1, is available from xbmc.org. If you're feeling brave and want to use a nightly build you can get Windows and OSX builds from http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/

JR
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#7
Thanks for the feedback.

just two questions remaining.

1) Will my remote a Imon (see below) based work with XBMC?
http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1156&ID=1485

2) Can XMBC handle HD audio?

a5ian300zx
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#8
I'm sure I've seen people reporting success with getting Imon remotes to work, though I've never used one myself. Search the forums for more info.

I don't think XBMC can handle HD audio at the moment. If you use XBMC to process the audio it will be converted to 16 bit. You can pass through some types of audio for your amp to decode, but I don't think this includes HD.

JR
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#9
Hi,

thanks for the feedback.

few more quick question

1) does XMBC support Tv turner cards?

2) also can i setup XMBC to launch at startup in Windows 7?

a5ian300zx
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#10
#2 is a yes.
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#11
Hi,

Thanks

any guides or how to?

a5ian300zx
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#12
Several different ways. Search these forums. The easiest way is to just drag the xbmc shortcut to the startup folder.
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#13
There are various options for automatically starting XBMC, but I'd go along with mrfatboy and suggest you just copy the XBMC shortcut to the Start menu Startup folder.

You may find XBMC starts then quickly minimises. If this happens it's due to the other apps that run at Windows startup competing with XBMC for the display. The fix is to modify the properties of the XBMC icon after you've copied it to the Startup folder. If you right click the icon and choose Properties a dialog will open, and in the Target field you'll see something like:

"C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe"

If you change this to:

"C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe" -d 10

i.e. append -d 10 this will cause XBMC to wait for 10 seconds before starting. That should give a chance for the other apps to start and settle down. You may need to increase the dely, or indeed you may find you can bring it down to 5 seconds.

JR
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#14
Don't the motherboard only support:-

5 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports
1 xExternal SATA 6Gb/s

Yet you want 6, 2 tb drives? and 1 SSD

Is this Areca 1220 8 port Raid controller what that's for? I just checked the price on them and wow.

Im thinking of building a very similar build but the case is driving me crazy trying to find a one 8" high with 5 bays plus a dvd drive
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#15
jhsrennie Wrote:There are various options for automatically starting XBMC, but I'd go along with mrfatboy and suggest you just copy the XBMC shortcut to the Start menu Startup folder.

You may find XBMC starts then quickly minimises. If this happens it's due to the other apps that run at Windows startup competing with XBMC for the display. The fix is to modify the properties of the XBMC icon after you've copied it to the Startup folder. If you right click the icon and choose Properties a dialog will open, and in the Target field you'll see something like:

"C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe"

If you change this to:

"C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe" -d 10

i.e. append -d 10 this will cause XBMC to wait for 10 seconds before starting. That should give a chance for the other apps to start and settle down. You may need to increase the dely, or indeed you may find you can bring it down to 5 seconds.

JR

thanks for this will test it out.

q) do i need to install any addtional codecs for XBMC to run properly for .ISO, MKv etc..?

Anth040 Wrote:Don't the motherboard only support:-

5 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s ports
1 xExternal SATA 6Gb/s

Yet you want 6, 2 tb drives? and 1 SSD

Is this Areca 1220 8 port Raid controller what that's for? I just checked the price on them and wow.

Im thinking of building a very similar build but the case is driving me crazy trying to find a one 8" high with 5 bays plus a dvd drive

Hi,

sorry for the late response, the mother board does have 5 drives support, but the raid function is basic especially if you would like to use it as a nas drive.

6x2tb samsung is connected to the Areca 1220 radi card in Raid 5 array (NAS/Storage function)

1x SSD (sata 6.0 gb/s) drive is OS drive which is connected to the sata 6.0 gb/s ports for maximum performance and as boot drive.

I could have connected it to the areca and have the setup as raid 5 and JBOD but the areca is only sata 3.0 GB/s.

there are other raid cards you can get like "highpoint" another benefit of the raid card it it offloads all the raid function to the raid chipset/memory on the card making more resources free on your system CPU and memory increasing overall performance and resources.

i.e. with my raid card i can do raid migration, expansion etc..

Do you need a DVD drive? you can always uses a usb drive. i have a bluray media player too and since owning it over a year i have used the drive twice. most my collection has been encoded and transferred to the NAS drive.

PS: My system is nearly finished and just need to setup/configure NFS software for Windows, but this htpc is very quite sometimes i check to see if its on Smile

a5ian300zx
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