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Best XBMC HTPC Hardware with HDMI / HD / 1080p + HDMI Audio
#46
ShortySco Wrote:My experience with Abit I-N73HD so far...... (With E8200 and 2x1GB)

Setting up was a breeze, all hardware seems to be supported nativley, yay!

Audio
Optical passthrough works, although at first only AC3 movies were coming through, but after looking at audio hardware settings i changed the default audio device to match the pass through one (iec956 or something)
Now i get mp3's and mp3 movies too, i'm still not getting UI sounds through optical, is this hard coded or is it just me being thick?
Playing the killa sample it looks ok, but pressing "i" on the keyboard it tells me it looses between 40 and 120 frames. Everything else plays fine.

Video
Everything just works as expected and looks perfect quality wise, except one problem.
All i can output so far is 720p or 1080i, at first i thought this was user error, but some searching leads me to think that maybe this board cant do 1080p by design, can anyone clarify? (My 720p projector accepts a 1080p input)


Network
Again, supported by default and just works, although if you plan to use LiveUSB Xbmc, check my post in that thread.

So other than the 1080p thing i'm fully happy with everything (ie. not so happyLaugh )

Shorty

How did you setup the remote?
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#47
Which remote? Took me minutes on my setup...
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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#48
LOL, yeah, which remote? I don't have one. Laugh

But FWIW i was planning to get a Gyration media center suite

It should be great as it's a WiiMote style mouse and media center remote in one working on 2.4ghz and IR, i've read it works great out of the xbox in XBMC as mouse/keyboard, some tinkering gets the buttons working too. And as an alternate option there's always LIRC, since it's IR too.

Shorty
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#49
Check my sig, ZipZoomFly sells them cheap cheap - as I've posted a few dozen times. It's pretty much PnP too - as I've posted many times.
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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#50
Big Grin 
I was new to the scene and I wanted something to upgrade from my stock original Xbox that has been my XBMC for years now, and she's finally showing her age. I just put together this lil rig and its running circles at everything I throw at it. Here is the specs. I might note that the thing you want to steer clear of the most... ONBOARD audio, they are horrible in any situation and suck cpu cycles! Anyways the other thing I wanted was LOW cost... And I came in under 250 bucks for the whole rig.

All items purchased at newegg. Here is a print of my invoice. You search the part #s

11-108-058 HTPC CASE IN-WIN|IW-BT566T.300BL RT 1 $59.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811108058

13-135-066R MB ECS GF7100PVT-M 775 7100/630I RT 1 $35.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...813135066R

80-125-001 DIGI REMOTE EDATA TECH DEC-200B R 1 $29.99
COM DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #106604 1 ($10.00) ($10.00)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6880125001

29-102-002R SDCARD CREATIVE|SB0570 AUDIGY SE RT 1 $25.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...829102002R

20-231-121 MEM 2G|GSK F2-6400CL5S-2GBPQ R 1 $42.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231121

19-116-039 CPU INTEL|C430 1.8G 775 512K R 1 $39.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819116039

I had to purchase 2 things from Creative's Website for this to be complete. 1) was the low profile bracket for the soundcard to work with this case.
http://us.creative.com/products/product....duct=16916

2) was the SPDIF adapter plug which made a great extention to the 3ft cable I already had so that was bonus.
http://us.creative.com/products/product....duct%20Img

Got the rig running Ubuntu 8.04 and latest XBMC and its running everything perfectly fine. Make sure you go into the bios and assign it 256MB ram to the video (stock is 128MB). Lastly the biggest thing I liked with this setup. Its ultra quiet, runs stock at 29degrees C, and LOW power consumption. If you go with a dualcore/bigger processor (which this setup is capable of) will generate more heat and suck more juice thats not needed imo!
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#51
Also I must mention the whole setup from build to running XBMC with remote took under 1hr complete installation fully patched and updated. Hell Ive seen XP installs take longer than that let alone downloading the million updates from MS!
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#52
This thread would really lend itself to table with configurations and results.
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#53
lingenfr_xbmc Wrote:This thread would really lend itself to table with configurations and results.

Well... go for it! :p You could even ask for Wiki access to put it there. Do know though that what's "best" has been a little bit of a moving target. The code has slowly improved and thus so has performance. Early on multi-cores didn't matter, now we can do multi-core decoding and it rocks. Still some debate I think on just how much the vid card helps and I think there's only been one person that has done any back to back testing and I'm not sure the results were conclusive. I have my opinion on what's "best" (hint: I'd do it differently than I did!) and others likely have differing opinions too.
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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#54
BLKMGK Wrote:hint: I'd do it differently than I did!

As someone deciding on hardware for a HTPC right now, what would you do differently?

I'm thinking I'll wait for the G45 based motherboards to start appearing on the market (e.g. http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/mo...erview.htm), although I'm not quite sure if doing this is a waste of time or not. On paper they look to have enough power and features to be a nice hi def setup, and driver support for Linux is usually pretty good from Intel. If the IGP doesn't work out, the board should be just as good with a discrete card from nvidia or ati.
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#55
IrishTR:

Is this setup able to play KillaSample without hickup or any audio stuttering?
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#56
Exclamation 
olympia Wrote:IrishTR:

Is this setup able to play KillaSample without hickup or any audio stuttering?

It does stutter, but Im not so sure that, the KillaSample is a great measuring tool imo. Its encoding job is horrible at best. I mean its pure raw format and at about 100MB for approximately 5-10secs of video is terrible.

Granted I am an avid fan of divx/xvid due to their wide array of compression and still fairly HQ video/audio output. That plus the fact a complete movie will come down well below 1GB. And my NAS device houses approximately 2TB of data every bit counts, as I keep all my favorite shows, movies, music, etc on there.

Whats funny is my Linux box which as you saw the specs nothing to extremely brag about in a spec war. But does the job I am expecting it to. Now here is the kicker. My gaming rig that has dual SLI, quad core CPU and 4GB ram although running windows and VLC Player to run that KillaSample.... CHOKED completely, and Ive had no problems in the past on that playing mkvs in the 10-20GBs of ripped BluRay movies. So imo something isnt right with that sample that my better machine choked and the wimpy xbmc machine could at least play and somewhat stutter through it.

I dunno not here to offend just offering up what Ive experienced, so please dont take my remarks personal towards that clip. But Ive been ripping/encoding/downloading plenty of videos long before XBMC or linux came my way.
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#57
ltmon Wrote:As someone deciding on hardware for a HTPC right now, what would you do differently?

I'm thinking I'll wait for the G45 based motherboards to start appearing on the market (e.g. http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/mo...erview.htm), although I'm not quite sure if doing this is a waste of time or not. On paper they look to have enough power and features to be a nice hi def setup, and driver support for Linux is usually pretty good from Intel. If the IGP doesn't work out, the board should be just as good with a discrete card from nvidia or ati.

Others may have different thoughts, but Intel mobos tend to restrict overclocking. This may have gotten better, but my Intel mobo will only allow me to overclock my 2.6 Ghz processor to 2.7.
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#58
jkrellner Wrote:Others may have different thoughts, but Intel mobos tend to restrict overclocking. This may have gotten better, but my Intel mobo will only allow me to overclock my 2.6 Ghz processor to 2.7.

Overclocking is probably not a concern, given that this will be a dedicated HTPC, and living under my TV.

In any case, I was more talking about the G45 chipset, which Abit, Asus, MSI etc. etc. will all be releasing motherboards based upon.

They are all delayed due to problems with the graphics processor (X4500). My suppliers are currently listing the Intel version as the first to be released, and likely to appear early September.
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#59
I wouldn't do Intel and I wouldn't go crazy trying to get onboard Intel graphics working. I'd buy a Shuttle XPC, one of the ones with room for a good video card - mounts it on opposite of normal side, slap an E8400 in it, and a passive cooled 8500 or 8600GT video card. That CPU will clock to 3.8Ghz or better if needed. It won't need to go past 3Ghz I think. I play the bird scene fine on my machine with a lesser CPU. As for playing it in Windows - does it use both cores? Am betting not... My E8400 Vista box isn't much better at playing it. <shrug>
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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#60
I have an old E6600 and a Nvidia GeForce 7100 card and I have absolutely no problems decoding 1080p at all. CPU is not loaded much
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Best XBMC HTPC Hardware with HDMI / HD / 1080p + HDMI Audio3