[MediaPi]

LMAO what a funny thread. the only sane person is maddog808 giving sound advice. Personally if money was not an issue I would buy a Pi, I'm selling one on Ebay message me, good value $1000000.01 I'll throw in a free case

[email protected]

[leepenny]

I hope that includes the software...............or is that extra

[MediaPi]

wow wow I said good value!! stuff like software is not cheap. I made it myself CUSTOM BUILD. I call it XBMC you might have heard of it. well I spent 10 years building it so Its only fair I charge right.

its magical though. only $1000000.01 extra. what a bargain. If you have any question go to popcornmix

message me

[email protected]

[DocG]

The perfect HTPC is the one that does everything you need for less money, less power, less heat and less noise.

Well, if money is no issues, more like less power, less heat, less noise, and much less footprint.

Personally, I'd get me one of them small boxes (integrated graphics is fine) with the best specs I could possibly find. I could never go back to anything that's even the size of Mini-ITX. So, in summary, small (the smaller the better), (at least virtually) quiet, and as powerful as can be while fulfilling the first two criteria.

[jjd-uk]

IMHO the ASRock Vision line is probably the best off the shelf pre-built mini-pc's where cost is not an issue, see http://www.asrock.com/nettop/index.asp

[Topken]

Could go with a i5 brix or the brix that was made for gaming with the intel iris pro igp. Aka these boxes http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Barebone-...words=brix

Would give you a small footprint along with having space for both a mSATA card and a 2.5" HDD/SSD for storage space.

There is even this http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-...id=5096#ov

Seems to be going for $800 on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

[nevillebartos]

I tested rpi with a few different file types, BD ISOs it definitely could not handle, mostly everything else seemed ok though including larger MKV files. My testing was not extensive, I mainly just wanted to see if ISO would play.

I've not seen a BD ISO that I can't play on the Pi. It may require some tweaking to NFS settings and overclock, but it should be achievable.
If you have a sample file that fails to keep up, then I'd be happy to investigate.

Well my reasons for buying rpis are totally unrelated to xbmc so I didn't take it that far to do any major tweaking or anything, just tried a couple of 'lite' skins which went well and ran a few of files past it. From what I saw, which was massive stuttering, it appeared as though BD ISO stood no chance (as expected)

From what you've said though I've become interested in looking into it further, and even more interested in how the new B+ and the hummingboards might perform. This should really go into a more appropriate thread though..

Moving along..what do you guys think of these?

http://www.streacom.com/products/fc5-ws-...s-chassis/

[bluechris]

Dont spend a dime now or buy a nuc celleron to pass some months till the end of the year where solutions with 4k 60p output will appear and grab also then a 4k 60p tv. This will make you last for movie side 4-5 years.

[MediaPi]

BlueChris I remeber folks talking about the new Pivos coming out in a few months, more than 10 months later and still not released. are you having a laugh with 4k? do you not remeber the shift from sd to hd? and how long it took? even 4k tvs wont be cheap enough right now.

your also forgetting the cost for 4k content that wont be cheap as well. There wont be enough demand intially. I would have a guess 5 years before 4k content starts to come around maybe even longer. People dont refresh their tvs like they do mobiles. so we thinktechnology will improve and be adapted real quick. thats not the case.

Bottom line 1080p is the future for another half a decade. by then faster cheaper tech will come. Stop this day dreaming about future proof. most experienced coders im sure are running on 4+ years old tech.

get the best today. 4k is not relevant in the slightest for another half a decade. that is my two cents