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My current situation:
I have been ripping all my media for the PS3. And I don't mind ripping it again if need be.
So, the media is all H.264 lvl 4.0 (nr=100:bframes=0:me=umh) in the MP4 container with 5.1 channel AAC and burned in subtitles where necessary.
Even though that supposedly played native on the PS3 I was running into issues where it had to be transcoded sometimes. So my file server went from a dual core e5500 (this is an untangle box now somewhere) to a quad core q9550 which could transcode on the fly. With the PS3 dead and depending on what's suggested here, I've been looking for an excuse to go with something more power friendly as a file/media server. If it matters I do also have an i7-920 system and a i7-2600k system laying around that I don't use. I upgrade alot, if you can't tell, constantly transferring stuff down to family and such.
So, any suggestions for any scenario? I have not used xbmc before and am open to ideas.
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2014-08-20, 06:04
(This post was last modified: 2014-08-20, 06:09 by Soul_Est.)
Things have gotten much better in terms of hardware. I believe even a Celeron based system would do well for what you'd be playing on it. If you intend to game, you'll need to add dedicated graphics of course.
As for the file server, you could just upgrade straight to either i7 although, I'd recommend to transcode once with the i7 and store on the file server after. You could even swap the E5500 back in and underclock/undervolt it to lower overall power consumption.
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2014-08-22, 18:00
(This post was last modified: 2014-08-22, 18:05 by DrowningApe.)
Why transcode anything? XBMC will play everything you already have just fine.
The reason there are so many threads about nucs and chromeboxes on the hardware forum is that they are excellent XBMC boxes that are relatively inexpensive. If you need to future proof for 4k HEVC, then buy an i7, otherwise that's massive overkill.
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2014-08-22, 23:35
(This post was last modified: 2014-08-22, 23:36 by Flak.)
N2930 vs 2955U? Still trying to decide if I want to try a chromebox or a ci320 or if I can talk my wife and her weird single item purchase limit into a i3-4010 NUC. But just in case I can't, n2930 or 2955u "better" for XBMC/OpenElec+ XBMC/XBMCubuntu? Would the N2820 NUC even be a worthwhile consideration?
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nickr
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N2820 NUC will play all your media.
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If you want to go hardcore server for transcoding and all other over power tasks go xeon +ecc memory, that said running XBMC clients with celeron and a server with sepheron (or other low top cpu) would do the same basic task since XBMC doesn't need transcoding. Second option giving you lots more bang for the buck..
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I would vote 2955u for its prowess in software playback of formats unsupported by hardware acceleration. I also just think software playback looks better, so the 2955 is a better option. It's also much better at doing software playback of 1080i live TV material if you with to use xbmc as your front-end.
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noggin
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2014-08-25, 02:00
(This post was last modified: 2014-08-25, 02:03 by noggin.)
The 2955U has a better GPU than the N2820. (The N2820 has a previous generation and cut-down GPU) The 2955U has more execution units, so can do better quality scaling. The 2955U can also de-interlace 1080i using a good quality YADIF 2x deinterlace in software which the N2820 cannot - it only has the processing power to do a software Bob.
The Intel drivers are now tantalisingly close to supporting hardware de-interlacing at higher quality than just Bob. The Haswell 2955U is able to do the higher quality Motion Compensated de-interlacing, whilst it is likely that the Baytrail will be limited to Motion Adaptive (and currently has broken drivers).
The N2820 will be fine if you just want to watch 1080p content, the 2955U may be a better bet if you want to watch lower resolution stuff with a higher quality upscale, or want to watch Live HDTV. If you want to run Windows then the 2955U supports Protected Audio Path so you can bitstream HD Audio to your amp, whereas the N2820 doesn't, so will only bitstream HD Audio in Linux and not in Windows.
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I ended up getting the 2820 to play around with for a bit. I am having an issue with add-ons. I've tried XBMC in openelec, xbmcbuntu and with xbmc as a regular install in ubuntu and mint and manjaro. I have not tried it in windows as that wasn't the plan for this device. In any case, add-ons seem to download (extremely slowly) but never install. They get to 99%, the download disappears so I'm assuming it's installed. But they never appear anywhere, unless I'm missing a step (various skins, youtube, weather, etc)?
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nickr
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Sounds like you have a network issue with the mirrors/servers, or else you have installed the alpha of v.14 and there aren't really many addons available for it?
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