[rbrohman]

Hi,

Much like a poster in another thread I've been following here lately, I'm looking to give my parents an HTPC for Christmas. I love my XBMC Ubuntu build but I'd like to go with an XBMC Live build for my parents with the hope of eliminating all the ongoing maintenance.

My parents usage will be very basic. Locally stored movies and TV series only. No Youtube, Hulu, etc. Where it gets interesting is that all the TV's in my parents house are old. "Composite inputs only" old. So while I don't have to worry about most of the common concerns of the day (1080p, hdmi audio, etc), I have been struggling to put all the pieces together; finding SD TV-out video options isn't as easy as it used to be.

Required:
- S-Video output (i'll buy a separate svideo to composite adapter)
- internal HDD (preferably 3.5")
- Solid performance in XBMC live menus (transparency skin)
- Solid performance for SD video
- max cost of $250

Within these constraints, I would ideally like to go with a Mini-ITX form factor. Failing that, a Micro-ATX would fit ok too.

On all my previous XBMC builds I've stuck with nVidia chipsets, as I've read numerous times that hardware decoding works better than on ATI cards. But all of these past builds have either been salvaging really old hardware (a P4 2.0ghz I got from work) or were driving 720 or 1080p resolutions. Would an ATI based card be ok if I'm sticking with standard def video and buying a new mobo/cpu?

Newegg's Shellshocker today looks like a really nice starting point http://www.newegg.ca/Special/ShellShocke..._-11232010 but I'd need a PCI (not PCI-E) GPU with svideo output, which are tough to find. The few that I managed to find on newegg were from brands unknown to me, or with only 128mb. Any suggestions?

Alternatively, I could start from scratch with a mini-itx mobo that has a pci-e slot so I can add a pcie based gpu. But I'm a bit lost here too. Most of the mini-itx's with a pci-e slot also have onboard graphics (typically ion) and so put them out of my price range (and it'd be a shame to pay for onboard graphics and not be able to use it). Any suggestions?


I'd also welcome any "out of the box" input on tackling this project.

Thanks a bunch

[Tcalp]

Well you could always to with a Used Apple TV 40GB (they can be had used for ~$60-70). Put in a 500-1000GB Hard Drive, and use a raw linux/atv build or xbmc live. (.. the aTV has a composite out function which can be enabled using the 'green' component)

[poofyhairguy]

Anytime we aren't talking about a HDTV, then the best option is the old Xbox. There is still a pretty active community elsewhere developing for it:

http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/

[darkscout]

"Brands unknown" to you? They all look like NVidia or ATI to me. Nvidia and ATI really don't make their own boards, just the chips. PNY, Sparkle, etc are the ones that make the chipsets.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.asp...6814139174

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList...2328:14104

[mcborzu]

Yea if you're talking below 720 material I'd vote for XBOX.

[ZombieRobot]

Apple TV all the way (imo) but old xbox is also a good idea i used to run xbmc off a old laptop with svideo back when i was insane i think that svideo is a waste of time because you cant even read the text i went down this route with my dad in the end i shouted him a cheep tv with hdmi and got him a atv 40gb for $80 New Zealand (like $40 US lol) and lucky i had a spare hdd lying around loaded him up couple hundred movies he's happy as larry all in all it cost me about $295

[rbrohman]

"Brands unknown" to you? They all look like NVidia or ATI to me. Nvidia and ATI really don't make their own boards, just the chips. PNY, Sparkle, etc are the ones that make the chipsets.

I had not heard of Sparkle, Jaton or Elitegroup before. EVGA, PNY and HIS I had.

That Jaton would appear to be perfect, and has a bunch of favourable reviews. I had actually been struggling with search on Newegg. A standard keyword search for svideo produced far fewer results than you provided. I had previously overlooked the "Power search" function. Thanks!

[rbrohman]

Anytime we aren't talking about a HDTV, then the best option is the old Xbox. There is still a pretty active community elsewhere developing for it:

http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/

Yea if you're talking below 720 material I'd vote for XBOX.

Apple TV all the way (imo) but old xbox is also a good idea i used to run xbmc off a old laptop with svideo back when i was insane i think that svideo is a waste of time because you cant even read the text i went down this route with my dad in the end i shouted him a cheep tv with hdmi and got him a atv 40gb for $80 New Zealand (like $40 US lol) and lucky i had a spare hdd lying around loaded him up couple hundred movies he's happy as larry all in all it cost me about $295

I was stuck in my mindset of full blown HTPC. These suggestions are exactly what I needed. Thank you!

I'm going to poke through the forums to get an idea of successes\failures for both options and take it from there.

Appreciate the help.

[Geeba]

Xbox! absolutely no doubt about it! - it was designed to be plugged into a TV!.. smoother than the ATV (last time I tried it and minus Crystal card of course)

Arnova, Exobuzz, XBS, Dan, BB etc. are still doing fantastic work over at xbmc4xbox.org

I tried for ages (a long time ago) to get laptops and PC's connected to TV with no VGA/HD input and it sux! massively. That led me to at the time to Xbox/XBMP

For 250$ you could get 2 terabyte of internal storage easy.... my last Xbox was free! someone at work was binning it! - I've had others off ebay for £3! bang for buck its a no brainer.

Transparancy runs on it as does PMIII-HD, Confluence, Redux and SLik.

[rbrohman]

At first thought, I was going to go Apple TV since the form factor is definitely cleaner than an xbox. But after scouring through numerous threads, it looks like the end results with the xbox are much, much better.

Thanks for the input guys. Now to find an xbox on kijiji.