[xbmcHerb]

Hey everybody,

I've had Revo 1600 running Live for a while. It seems to struggle with 1080, so I've just been watching 720p. With the latest Live release I am now able to watch TED videos. Sabnzbd & Sickbeard are running and everything is cool.

But now I have an itch to upgrade to a Zacate machine and I'm looking for someone to enable me
I have a spare 30GB SSD to put in it and selling the Revo would pay for a Zacate motherboard. So upgrading to a new machine would be no more than $100.

I know I'd gain smooth 1080 playback. What else would a XBMCLive based Zacate do for me?

What does a Windows 7 based XBMC have over the Live?


Thanks

[thaiboxer]

amd video drivers are a pain under linux, so if you go with zacate you should go with win 7.

[xbmcHerb]

Thanks Thaiboxer.

So bitstreaming and better supported video drivers seem to be Windows 7 advantage. Anything else?

How about overhead? Which machine is quicker or uses fewer resources?

[SpectreX]

Naturally Live uses less resources since it`s only a core OS of Ubuntu + XBMC on top of it, compared to a full Windows 7 or Ubuntu 10.10 install. Speed wise i haven`t noticed much of a diffrence between them on my Zacate platform, using 1GB of ram.

[xbmcHerb]

SpectreX,

Which do you prefer, Win7 or Live? I ask, because I don't have a copy of Win7.

I haven't tried Hulu Plus yet. Not too clear... Is it Win7 only?

[SpectreX]

For my Zacate platform, i use Win 7 atm. See here a small status of hardware acceleration under Linux/Live for Zacate : http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=770...stcount=22

This is why i prefer Win 7 atm, since it works out of the box.

The very good news is that the Open ELEC dev is getting a Zacate board this month, and will develop support for AMD/ATI in Open ELEC. If you don`t know what Open ELEC is, see here : http://www.openelec.tv/ .

It`s basically a built-from-scratch dedicated OS for XBMC, more lighweight than XBMC Live or Windows or Linux, and very stable : http://www.openelec.tv/home/what-is-openelec

When AMD support is finished, i`ll move my HTPC to OpenELEC .

Regarding Hulu, i have no ideea. I know Netflix requires Windows, and that`s about it.

Oh, yeah, and the other thing i use Windows 7 is because you can get Blu Ray disk playback using an external player like TMT3 or 5, with full menu support. XBMC by itself can`t playback Blu Ray disks (i repeat, disks, not rips from your HDD).

[xbmcHerb]

SpectreX,

Thanks so much for the info. Open ELEC looks very cool.

Did a quick search and it looks like it can run sabnzbd, so I assume I could install Sickbeard as well...

Which Zacate board and case are you using?

[SpectreX]

Don`t know about SB or Sabnzbd, i use a combination of legit material + pirated stuff from torrentz. You can ask about this in the Open ELEC thread in the General Help and Support part of the XBMC form, the develover checks that thread on very often to reply for any issues, questions

Regarding hardware :

I use the AsRock E350 M1 mini-ITX board with this cheapo` JNC case : http://www.jnc.com.tw/view.php?id=1&st1=60&st3=1206 . I took out the AsRock fan and put in a 80mm fan on top of it (the case has some airflow holes on the cover and that 80mm fan fitted perfectly).

Depending on your budget you can go up as to the Antec ISK 100, very small with a quiet fan + solid build quality, and maybe look at the passive Zacate models from Asus.

[teaguecl]

... i use a combination of legit material + pirated stuff from torrentz.

Might want to watch yourself there SpectreX, that's thin ice there
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=For...Guidelines