[AllanDE]

Hi guys,

I was thinking of switching from Boxee Box to XBMC and had a couple questions
before transitioning over.

My situation:
I am an avid movie fan and have been collecting movies for a while now.
My collection consists of around 400 movies, mostly in 1080p and MKV.
As previously mentioned I currently own a Boxee Box, but have gotten
very frustrated by its limitations and shortcomings.
I really miss the ability to customize the design/layout of the GUI to my
hearts content and there have been issues with bugs, lack of Flash support,
and other annoying stuff. I won't lie, it does have some nice features,
but I believe I can find an even better solution with XBMC.
We are talking about a collection of around 8 - 12 TB on 4 x 3 TB (3.5") harddrives.

My home theater setup:
Projector: Epson THW 3200
Sound: Canton Chronos 507 (front), 505 (center), 502 (rear) and Canton AS 85.2 SC (subwoofer)
Receiver: Denon AVR 1612
Media Center: D-Link Boxee Box.
Connection: Boxee Box => HDMI (INPUT) => Receiver => HDMI (OUTPUT) => Projector

What I would like my HTPC to do:
The ideal scenario for me would be to have an HTPC, which would also act
as a NAS. I would want to just copy over the 1080p rips from my Bluray collection
onto the server and XBMC would automatically update my collection and
download the metadata from IMDB etc.
I would prefer a Windows-based system, since I don't feel quite at home under Linux.
Scalability is also important to me, since my collection is not getting any smaller
and I would like to add more harddrives eventually.

My HTPC:
-shouldn't cost a fortune, (around ~200 - 300 EURO)
-have a small footprint both physically and consumption wise (Watt)
-have enough performance to handle my movie database
-shouldn't be super complicated to set up
-be compatible with a remote for XBMC

I have looked around in forums and read about the HP ProLiant MicroServer,
specifically the HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L.
It has AMD Turion II Neo N40L, 2x 1.50GHz • RAM: 4GB • 4 x 3.5 bay slots
and very little power consumption.




Could you guys please share your thoughts and ideas with me.
I have looked at the AEON skin on XBMC and I really like it, though I would love
to add more "views" or import them possibly from other skins?

Thanks for your time!
Allan

[PatK]

Sounds like you're a pretty experienced user and know what you want. XBMC is fully customizable with a bit of time and patience. A few things in your set up brings flags... HDCP handshaking can be an issue especially with a receiver between, you might want to look closer at that functionality. Some users have issues with native resolution on projectors (I'll presume the boxee was good in that respect, so you should be good to go). I'm not so sure you need a NAS when motherboards with up to 12 Sata ports are available, you could still easily connect the boxee as a networked device. Auto updating of rips and downloads can be handled relatively easily and swapping skins on the fly adds a nice dimension. Scalability.. drives keep getting bigger. I know nothing about costs... money is no object, I haven't had any of those objects in a while

Frequent the hardware forum, there's a lot of good tips and hints and a message like this might get a better vetting.

Welcome to the forums...

[outatouch0]

Welcome to XBMC,
Great question. You will find the answer to that and more in the Hardware Discussion section here
It is listed all the way at the bottom of the list of forums so it's easy to miss.
Take a look at the stickies, there are guides for building HTPC's as well as NAS servers.

Perhaps a mod might move your thread there for you? You will get plenty of assistance there.

[AllanDE]

Thanks for your kind replies! I didn't see the hardware section, so I would be grateful if someone could move this thread.