[klumsy_tumbler]

Okay, I know that there are a lot of set-up guides around, but there seems to be SO MUCH information around and XBMC seems to be customiezable in numerous ways, it's a little hard for me to pick a direction to start my HTPC set-up.

As a bit of background info, I am moderately technically competent (as in, I can understand things if I read them and do my own research), I just don't have a lot of knowledge about the hardware aspects of the whole ordeal. I want to get my parents an HTPC for Christmas, as they are huge movie buffs and big into the whole multi-media thing (surround sound set-up, big-screen TV, etc).

-So, what I was thinking was getting a barebones PC like this Foxconn (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX40952 )
-Booting XBMC Live from USB or SD
-Putting 4 GB DDR3 RAM in
-Not having an ob-board HDD but instead keeping the whole library on an external hard drive (the reason for this being that since I would be the one in charge of the media library (parents are not very computer-savvy, even if they think differently), I would like something that I can just plug into my laptop, transfer the files, then plug back in to the HTPC and have them automagically show up in the interface)

The laptop I am using is on Win7, if that makes any difference for anything.

Is there anything that I am missing or have overlooked, or do I have the steps right? I would really appreciate any XBMC-wisdom that you may be able to impart on me

Also, the reason that I'm looking at the barebones is that it seems like the most cost-effective for me (as a university student, I don't really have the funds to drop more than ~$400 on this thing...), but I am open to suggestions.

Thank you!

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Tried the link I provided and it didn't work, but here's the title:

FOXCONN
nT-A3550 Nano PC Barebones System w/ AMD E350, Radeon HD 6310, DVI-I, HDMI (No O/S)

[artrafael]

Welcome to the XBMC forums.

I have no experience with that particular system, but a perusal of the general specs indicates it should be capable of handling what you need. Assuming your parents' home theatre system is fairly recent, it should be able to use the HDMI and S/PDIF output from the PC. It is certainly feasible to boot and run XBMC from a USB thumbdrive using a lightweight package such as XBMCbuntu or OpenELEC.

Do your parents have broadband Internet access (the Foxconn supports both wired and WiFi)? While not absolutely required, it will give them a much richer XBMC experience. For example, after you transfer movie files from your laptop to the external hard drive and reattach it to the nettop, you can have XBMC add them to the library along with information it automatically obtains from external sites. Your parents will be amazed when they scroll through the video library and see the DVD cover, fanart from the movie displayed as the backdrop, and a synopsis of the movie. With some skins, while scrolling through the movie library, they can even watch the movie's trailer (from YouTube) to decide whether or not they want to watch the movie itself.

(BTW, I fixed your link above. It was picking up your right parenthesis as part of the URL, so I just added a space to separate them.)

[klumsy_tumbler]

@artrafael Thanks for fixing the link, I didn't catch the parenthesis thing!

Yes, my parents do have broadband internet, it's just slow as balls... so I can have XBMC (on the nettop) go and scrape all of the media data automatically, or does that have to be done manually?

A couple more questions:

which would you recommend, OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu?

Do you have any recommendations for external drives? I personally use a 2TB WD Elite for my laptop backup, but it has it's own software thing going on (even the Xbox doesn't recognize it), so I'm thinking WD is out...

Thanks again for your response!

[artrafael]

Yes, my parents do have broadband internet, it's just slow as balls...

If they're not going to be watching streaming videos, it doesn't have to be a super-fast connection (so maybe nix watching YouTube movie trailers). It just needs a connection when scraping for information and artwork. Other side benefits to network connectivity is that they can see weather and news ticker information on the main menu.

so I can have XBMC (on the nettop) go and scrape all of the media data automatically, or does that have to be done manually?

You can set it up either way. However, since you'll be the one adding new movies to the drive periodically, there's no point in having XBMC check for new stuff every time your parents launch XBMC. You can manually initiate a library scan after you update the contents on the drive when you visit them.

Just to be clear: You don't have to go through a lot of manual steps to obtain this information everytime you add movies. Once you setup the scraper settings, the information for any new movies is obtained automatically whenever a library update is run. What I'm referring to above is whether or not an update job is run everytime XBMC starts or only when you initiate an update job manually via the GUI.

which would you recommend, OpenELEC or XBMCbuntu?

Play around with both on the Foxconn system itself to see which runs better and which you prefer. OpenELEC is more lightweight, boots faster and hides the operating system from the end-user (less likely for them to screw up the system), thus giving a more appliance-like feel. On the other hand, XBMCbuntu gives you the ability to boot into a desktop environment so you can more easily maintain, tweak and troubleshoot problems on the system. Balance your parents' need for usability with your need for maintainability (you know they will call you when it breaks).

Do you have any recommendations for external drives? I personally use a 2TB WD Elite for my laptop backup, but it has it's own software thing going on (even the Xbox doesn't recognize it), so I'm thinking WD is out...

You can probably format the drive to get rid of their backup software and use it just for data storage. Since you'll be using the drive on both Windows7 and Linux, it probably should be formatted to NTFS. I don't have any specific recommendations. I just bought a notebook drive and popped it into an external USB case. However, you can sometimes get a better price with prebuilt external drives like your WD unit.