Xbmc as a wifi media receiver

hello,
i want to buy a media player connected to my main pc using wifi (to play mp3 and divx/xvid in my hifi and tv).
possible options (available in france where i live) are mainly pinnacle showcenter, ads tech medialink or medialounge dsm 320.

i just heard about xbmc and it seems to do better for less money.

my only questions are :
-what is the boot time of a xbox+xbmc ? is it comparable to a windows pc boot time ?
-what is the noise level of a xbox? i m not interested if it makes the same noise as a pc.

thanks a lot.
eric

(egauthier @ jan. 18 2005,10:20 Wrote:-what is the boot time of a xbox+xbmc ? is it comparable to a windows pc boot time?

it depends on a few things but generaly around 10 seconds, never more than 25 seconds with xbmc as dash (unless something is wrong), fastest is about 5 seconds.

(egauthier @ jan. 18 2005,10:20 Wrote:what is the noise level of a xbox? i m not interested if it makes the same noise as a pc.

new xboxes only has one (60mm) fan, unfortunatly microsoft bought the cheapest one which is relativly laud, but it is easy to replace. (xbmc has fan-speed control)


ps! i highly recommend that you read our complete faq (link) from beginning to end, i think you will find it worth the time, answers many 'most common questions'.

i was after the same peice of kit a while ago and after checking all the available hardware devices i went for xbmc. my reasons were
1. price
2. formats supported (rm,mov,xvid,divx,ac3,mp3,ogg,flac,etc..,no other peice of hardware supports as much)
3. upgradeablity ( xbmc is much easier to upgrade then flashing firmware and the amount of new features being developed is astounding)
4. gui (xbmc is very pretty thanks to some talented skinners and if you dont like it you can create your own skin with a little work)
5. customisation (if you dont like something you can change it, if you need something special then you can create it with python, there are some talented python coders here who are happy to help)
6. form factor (although the xbox is not the best looking peice of kit to have in your home hifi cabinet its not that ugly and with so many mods already been done im sure you can find something to make it look better)
7. games (its an xbox after all)
8. streaming media (if you want to play something else other then your own cd's or mp3's then you can stream 1 of 1000's of online radio stations.
9. python scripts (although this is fairly new there are great scripts which work seemlessly with xbmc, from apple trailers to yahoo launch music videos.
10. although xbmc does not work 100% of the time it is free and constantly being updated/fixed. it is more reliable then my digital tv receiver box though
11. this forum, the group of supporters and developers who tirelessly help newbies with any question and bugs they have.
.....

these are just some of the plus's i found after being converted to xbmc