[srv1973]

Hi all,

Now that hardware accelerated video decoding on linux is a reality, it should be able to run XBMC on a low-cost platform. So, what's available for that nowadays?

My wish-list for such a media device is:
- Small, fits in with home theatre system (eg. appleTV or slightly bigger)
- Low power
- DVD drive (upgradable to BR?)
- Remote-control (IR, Harmony)
- Decent size built-in harddrive
- low-noise
- 100MB/s Ethernet + Wireless
- HDMI output
- Optical SP/DIF output, 5.1 etc etc
- Power supply built in
- USB ports, front and back
- Plays 1080p MKV files
- $300-$400
- Optional: front display... (so I can switch the TV off for CDs)

Seems like the Neuros Link is getting pretty close, except for the remote control and front display (no, I don't want to use a wireless keyboard, I need to be able to control it with my universal remote!). With the Ion platform on the horizon, I can imagine that there are many other boxes planned/in development.

Rgds

[mythmaster]

There's the MSI Wind --> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6856167032 but it has Intel graphics on-board and I don't know where they are with hw accel...

[Naazir]

Best looking, fitting case I've found for a home theater "front end" pc:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811163081

I just bought one a few weeks ago after over a year's worth of looking and waiting for something as near to perfect as I could find. Here's what I built mine up with:

Motherboard - ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI
RAM - Patriot 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
HDD - OCZ SSD OCZSSD2-1SLD30G 2.5" 30GB SATA II
CPU - AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz
Heatsink/fan - Silverstone NT07-AM2 80mm
DVD Burner - Sony tray-less AD-7630A
(total cost came to about $550. I'm aware this is over your budget
but you can still get some great ideas from this post and perhaps
try a different case if need be)

I went this route for very specific reasons and in the end I believe I have come up with a very nice front end. The case was the BIGGEST piece for me. Once I found this attractive, slim-line case I knew I had to build this sucker!

It comes with a built-in 120w power supply so obviously this would only ever be a front end HTPC. Because of this, the tight space it provides and the fact that I wanted this in my living room it needed to be energy efficient, heat efficient and quiet.

The next important part I needed was a CPU to function well with such limited power. This particular AMD chip utilizes only 45w but at the same time is a dual-core power house at 2.5GHz. Plenty for streaming movies up to the big screen.

The next important part was heat dissipation off the CPU. This is a real small / tight case so not a lot of room for fancy equipment. For this situation, it turns out Silverstone, the makers of this case, also put out their own heatsink/fan options for various CPUs and it works great! Nice and quiet too. In fact it's the only noise I hear from the entire HTPC (if I lean in close) and it IS a quiet fan!

That's my segway into the next important piece: the hard drive. In keeping with low power consumption, heat and noise I decided on a 30GB SSD drive. It only needs to hold an OS and HTPC front end application (MythTV, XBMC, etc...) so 30GB was more than enough. This thing was an incredible addition to my HTPC as there's NO heat, NO noise and negligible power consumption. Since this PC is only streaming (from other sources) this hard drive only needs to boot for the most part so it's very inactive.

Well, those are the more important features I wanted to mention here. This case is pretty awesome for a font end HTPC. It looks great and holds all you need to stream audio, video or anything else to your tv. It was the most expensive piece in my build but I expect that price ($189.99 at Amazon / $209 at Newegg when I got it) to drop relatively quickly.

[mythmaster]

There's the MSI Wind --> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6856167032 but it has Intel graphics on-board and I don't know where they are with hw accel...

I see the new Wind has nvidia 9400M + blu-ray. Pretty cool! --> http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/04/msi-s...o-hands-o/

[Naazir]

Ouch! Celeron processor??

[Antioch]

No OUCH about celeron, in fact it's a plus. Install XBMC-VDPAU on that sucker and the 9400 will do all your decoding, leaving the celeron at 10% usage and very cool. Using less power than your 4850e setup

[motd2k]

it wont - celeron is 65nm and 65W... 4850e is 45/45

[fekker]

Cool setup. The MSI Wind with nvidia 9400M

Looks like this one is using the 27watt celeron mobile cpu, 2ghz 1mb cache single core cpu.

I'd love to see the power draw measured from the wall on that setup.

[Antioch]

I don't know what celeron they are using, but you can get 35W Celerons.

[cejstrup]

I have a 35W celeron in my setup.I've clocked it down from 1.8GHz to 1.5GHz and at the same time lowered the supply voltage a lot.
No problems playing all 1080p content. Killa sample maxes the CPU out at 27% or so.Regular 1080p is around 15%.
I'd like to clock it even lower but somehow it doesn't want to might be due to some limitations in minimum FSB allowed.

[Naazir]

No problems playing all 1080p content.

What about 1080i though?

[cejstrup]

No idea since I've never had any 1080i material to play. Can't see how that should be a problem though.

[slicemaster]

Personally I wouldn’t waste my time with Celeron. I know people have been saying ION is coming for some time but I simply have to reemphasize that it will be here soon. I would take a dual core atom based ion platform over an Intel Celeron any day. The power consumption will be less and the overall package size will reflect that (less power=less heat=smaller packaging=smaller footprint). So for me at least, ION seems to be the best fit for my needs. MSI and Jetway however have come out with some nice SFF designs that look promising (the both have optical drives), especially if they come out with ION variant of their product line-up later this year. !!RANT ALLERT!! However, if there is one thing I wish the bloody manufactures would include in these SFF net-tops it would be an Windows Vista MCE compatible IR receiver with the ability to turn on and off the PC (the would be a turn key solution for both windows and Linux users), I don’t care if the include the remote or if they only offer this type of hardware as an option rather than the standard but !damn it! It should be available.

Slice

[BLKMGK]

ION would be a terrific package - but right now it's vapor. If I am buying today I will be looking at a low powered Celeron. ION has been "on it's way" for awhile now, until it's here it's still vapor. <shrug> Heck I just saw one netbook manufacturer put out a new model with an ATI video chipset. Huh?!

[cejstrup]

BLKMGK: get the Celeron L-420 it's more than enough.

My 430 is now down to 1.46 MHz and seems like I've hit a lower limit to the underclocking. Supply voltage is down from 1.2875 to 0.89. That's a 30% reduction without any issues. Very nice