Acer Revo R3700 - card reader speed?
#1
Hi

Noob here...

I have been wanting to replace my Sky box for a while now and made the decision before Christmas to purchase a Boxee Box for £205.

As it was delayed due to the weather conditions I started to do more research on HTPC and have decided to cancel the Boxee Box and order an Acer Revo R3700 which is due Thurs.

I have been advised to run XBMC on this but I do not feel capable/comfortable replacing windows with XBMC.

I think I will first try to run XBMC live on a plugin device.

There are numerous threads on XBMC live on CD, SD and USB FD but something is confusing me.

How do I ensure I choose the best possible option for the fastest boot time? This all seems dependant on the speed of the Acer's card reader if going the SD route...but I am unable to find out up to what speed it can read the card.

Can anyone help me with finding this information out as google, for a change, has not managed to assist me? I do not want to spend silly money on a Sandisk Extreme III card (or similar) if the Acer cannot read 30MB per sec.

Next question is, if the Acer can read X MB per sec, would it be quicker with a USB FD? Any suggestions on a decent FD?

Many thanks for any help.
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#2
I don't have any answers for your hardware specific questions, but you do realize you can run XBMC from within Windows, right, just like any other program?
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#3
Thanks

No I didn't know you could run it through windows. I had wrongly assumed it's one or the other.

There must be a drawback of using XBMC as a program? I suppose it's the boot time as you would have to wait for windows and then mess about loading XBMC where as if it was a SD or FD, it would start straight from boot...

Thanks for the headsup on XBMC being used as a program, it is food for thought. Hope someone can advise on the best options for XBMC live, SD/FD on the Acer Revo.
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#4
no, you are wrong there: XBMC is just a problem, wether it runs under windows or under linux.

You can tweak linux to not load a desktop and instead start xbmc directly, but the Operating System must load no mater what you do.

My choice would be to install XBMC onto the hard drive, which will be faster than SD or FD. If you want even a faster booting and a nicer experience, get a cheap 32gb SSD.
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#5
Just install XBMC in Windows, and add it to the startup list. It will add a few extra seconds to boot as it starts the program. That's it. Not sure why you expect it to be some large ordeal.
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#6
meso100 Wrote:Thanks

No I didn't know you could run it through windows. I had wrongly assumed it's one or the other.

There must be a drawback of using XBMC as a program? I suppose it's the boot time as you would have to wait for windows and then mess about loading XBMC where as if it was a SD or FD, it would start straight from boot...

Thanks for the headsup on XBMC being used as a program, it is food for thought. Hope someone can advise on the best options for XBMC live, SD/FD on the Acer Revo.

I would start by running XBMC Live off a USB key. Use it for a bit and see how you like it. If you decide that you want to stick with XBMC Live you can install it to the hard disk. That will give you the fastest boot speed of all.

But unless you have a boot speed fetish I would just use Windows and put XBMC in the startup folder.

If you're really worried about startup time you can suspend the PC instead of shutting it down when you've finished watching, and just resume it the next time you want to watch. That gives you a startup time of a few seconds!

JR
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#7
YodaEXE Wrote:Just install XBMC in Windows, and add it to the startup list. It will add a few extra seconds to boot as it starts the program. That's it. Not sure why you expect it to be some large ordeal.

I don't mean to be making a large ordeal out of what you consider to be something simple but this is the unknown for me and want to do the right thing from the start (as I have a habbit of cocking things up!)

Jhsrennie - I think you and YodaEXE may have the best option there by adding XBMC to the startup menu...can't believe I didn't think of that myself!

The entire quandry for me was to ascertain the Acer's card reader speed as I had convinced myself to use an SDHC. The startup menu is the cheapest option I suppose so will do that before blowing my cash.

Thanks both of you for your advice, I appreciate it.
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Acer Revo R3700 - card reader speed?0