OpenELEC HTPC
#16
Ahh! That's more like it! Constructive criticism!

@room312
Thanks for your remarks. Interesting reading and a lot of valid points. This got me thinking: I never came across a machine that fully satisfied my media center needs...

The thing is I like to divide the machines into 3 categories: server, client and yea-nay client.

- The media server can be ugly as hell, I don't care! I'm gonna hide it anyway. Might as well be a NAS with proper backup system, fault tolerant, etc. What is really hard to achieve is a power efficient server to run 24/7/365 while maintaining robustness.

- The client should be silent (no fans, please!), small and power efficient. Small, diskless (boot from USB, Micro-SD, LAN, whatever). I'm thinking hockey-puck small... Davilla style? Laugh Looks isn't that important. I would probably put it behind the TV.

- The yea-nay client should be something like Asrock 330. I own 2 and they are the best I came across to my needs. Somewhat bricky but small enough to stand by the TV. Can work on it's own and serve as a - somewhat - limited server. Space for one HDD, power efficient and silent (almost).

Unfortunately, the perfect machine for any of this 3 categories is yet to be produced. IMO, at least.

h.udo
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#17
Custom built miniITX HTPC with Nvidia (Atom/ION or above, for working out of the box with OpenELEC), OpenELEC, and a 400-500rpm fan (which is just as good as passive since it`s inaudible even at 2am in the morning) and a good USB quality thumb drive for the OS. Problem solved for case number 2 (client)
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#18
That's my point!
Most users don't like to mess around with hardware. It's buy, install, watch.

Cheap or with a good price/quality ratio hardware divided in those 3 categories would be a dream. Clearly the OpenELEC HTPC falls on yea-nay category. It's good to the new users but they soon realize they can centralize the media source and have much smaller clients.
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#19
Quote:- The client should be silent (no fans, please!),

I guess the ATV2 would be a candidate... JB is a BTCH though. I fought apple and apple...
I am still considering it though.

I think I saw an ion box without fan in a thread somewhere??
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#20
I think the OpenELEC HTPC was supposed to be a complete solution, especially for people who just want to get started without fussing about. No having to install OpenELEC. No having to plug in a USB stick. No having to worry about extra storage.

They must include OpenELEC somehow, otherwise it's pretty much just like any other barebones system. Sure, they could sell OpenELEC-on-USB, but then it'll normally only be limited to 4GB due to persistence, and a "complete solution" should give you room to bring your media around without having to carry another USB drive/external HDD. Besides, now you and Pulse-Eight would have to worry about carrying two more devices.

The Apple TVs, particularly the 1st gen, actually come really close. The ATV1 has the right outputs. They both have an attractive look. The only thing missing is the optical drive. A complete solution would still have one, and although the one in the OpenELEC HTPC isn't Blu-ray, it's still a start.

The Shuttle XS35GT comes fanless. This proves that a properly passively-cooled design can work on an ION system. The Shuttle is attractive in its own right, but I don't know if it's ready for component cabinets.
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#21
@room312

4GB is a lot, if you only use the USB thumb driver to install add-ons (biggest add-ons are the skins and they shouldn't go beyond 75MB)

Of course OpenELEC is installed. After all, it's their official HTPC! The question is: installed where? HDD? USB? MIcroSD?

As for the rest, here are my thoughts:

Dream server: something with space for 6+ HDDs powered by no more than 75/90W. Silent, small (important if you would like to hide it), not at all like a power hungry NAS/system.

My current media server setup wastes 350+ Watts 24/7. It also doubles as the main media-center pc, hidden inside a cabinet in my living room. (hell! I wasted a lot of money in silent fans, silent ATX power supply and so on... Still isn't silent enough!)

Dream client: fanless, diskless, hockey-puck small. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L, if I decide to impress friends and not hide it behind the TV. Not a no-go factor. I'm old enough to know that sometimes is what you don't see that causes the best impression.

Yea-nay client: I pretty much think that the Asrock 330 rocks. OpenELEC HTPC falls on this category, I think. Excellent to the beginner user, like I wrote before. BTW, the Asrock 330 is rated at 65W on full power!!!

h.udo
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#22
The main issues with your dream server is the fact that no matter how silent your fans are, the HDDs are still noisy. I have a 400rpm fan in my current Zacate HTPC and the only thing i can hear is the HDD, even if it`s a 2.5 5400rpm model, the most silent of the bunch (and slowest, ofc). 6+ HDDs even 5400rpm models will make considerable noise, unless you put them in something like the Scythe Silencer which would increase the size of the NAS unit/Server and the cost. And a tipical HDD consumes 15W of power, so for 6 HDDs you end up with 90W from the HDDs alone.

The only way you could do it with current technology is with SSD tech, but a 2TB SSD goes for around 1200$ if i recall correctly...yikes!.

As for the AsRock, you will never get to 65W with an Atom&ION/Zacate/Intel Core i3 2100T under typical XBMC use, these sistems go to a max of 20W under 1080 playback.

And the ATV2 has many limitations that makes it useless for me as a dream client, no 1080p output, no ISO support, no HD audio bitstreaming (gnif is working hard & fast to finish up the AE branch), no 3D BD support and no BD drive (using another standalone BD player kinda defeats the purpose of the all-in-one machine that the HTPC was/is) needs to be jailbroken to install XBMC on it, heavier skins don`t work so well on it.
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#23
All valid points, I know...
I'll just keep on dreaming for now!

h.udo
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#24
SpectreX Wrote:... 6+ HDDs even 5400rpm models will make considerable noise ...

How much noise would you deem to be "considerable"?

I'm going to be building a machine in the next month or so which is going to live in my room, so naturally noise is a fairly big concern. I'm presuming the HDDs will spin down during the night if no-one is watching anything, but will the noise of them seeking be noticeable from, say, 20 feet away?
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#25
Anything above 20dB is audible in quiet rooms. Some of my friends consider an even lower value (15dB or so).

The noisiest hardware I have in my living/cinema room is a Dreambox 800HD that, due to its shitty inner design concept, produces around 22dB with a low rpm, slim design, silent 50mm fan. Actually, it isn't t the fan that produces the noise. I tested the fan out of the Dreambox and it's inaudible. But as soon as you get it inside the Dreambox, the noise starts because there is no room for the air to circulate appropriately between the heatsink and the top cover. That is what creates the noise. The air being pressured at the top perforated cover

Goes without saying that noise levels like that aren't audible 20 feet away. I actually don't mind background noise levels like that. But above that, even watching a movie, gets in my ears. I tend to pay close attention to strange and continuous sound frequencies produced by hardware, TVs, HDDs spinning and so on.

This subject deserves a wiki on its own. The human ear is prepared to listen some frequencies better than others. Our brain actually separates sounds that don't matter from those who don't. For instance, very high pitch sounds are more important than very low frequency sounds. That's why sirens can be heard miles away.
While your brain separates low frequencies from being 'consciously' present and appear to not exist, they actually are there. Your brain just chooses to ignore them.
This effect is, however, damaging to us: just try working 8 hours near a computer with fans producing very low continuous frequencies... you're going to end up with an headache.

h.udo
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#26
I don't know how many options you want/can offer for a client, but here's I few I can think of that I would like:
- Either a small SSD or a no HDD and boot off an SD card option (I don't plan on storing anything on the client except for the OS)
- A BD/DVD drive (I know BD support is minimal ATM, but still something I want for when it does happen)
As for the look, I really prefer flat surfaces (rounded edges are ok, but the little sloped corner looks weird to me). It's not a huge point against the machine, just something I'd rather not have Blush

On the topic of servers, have you checked out WD Caviar Green drives (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=120)? I wouldn't use it as a main OS drive, but for storing things it should work well and help save power (I got nothing for sound though). I also think it would be cool to have an "XBMC" server, even if it not much more than a wiki entry with suggested distros and what you want to run on them.
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#27
Agreed with Hudo, between 15db and 21db are the sweet spot depending on your hearing and background noise in your room. If you want to learn more about this subject, i suggest you go to SPCR.com , they have tons of articles and a forum in which you can ask about silencing your server when you build it.

And yup, the grill on some cases can produce noise when air hits them, like Hudos Dreambox. My Lian Li case (workstation, not HTPC) has a fan grill that looks like this which minimizes this turbulence.

Ah, and one last thing. I don`t have a server, but i`ve had 4 HDDs in 2 external HDD encosures in my living room, tucked away in the same compartment of my furniture the HTPC + AV receiver reside in. While watching a movie at 4 meters away i could not hear them. At 2 am in the night with everything in the house off i could hear a slight noise at 4 meters away.

Once i moved them in my bedroom, on the desk, sitting in open air, i can hear them even during the day, even with the main pc or laptop on
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#28
I'm only asking about the noise since my current media storage solution (1TB USB external HDD) can be quite noisy when it's operating.

Granted, the amount of noise produced depends on the surface it sits on, but I'd hope that a few internal HDDs in a tower case would be far quieter (probably going to mount them using elastic/hair bobbles as well, since that's supposed to help combat case vibration). I think a constant hum of a fan would be just about bearable, but pseudo-random noises from a HDD would drive me nuts since I'd end up listening out for it >.<
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#29
room312 Wrote:Unless I missed a thread somewhere, I would think this would get more attention. Maybe because it isn't embedded. Maybe it might get more attention if/when it gets released. I also thought it would get more attention because XBMC is backing the remote, so they might also back this HTPC.


I first looked at the price. $375 + $45 DVD + $38 Remote (They've discounted the remote $22 if you buy it together). I thought this was a little high at first for something that's crossing over the line into "XBMC Appliance", but alas, it isn't. It's still billed as an HTPC and a similarly spec'ed mini-PC would come out to about the same price.

Whatever premium you think you might be paying, you can maybe think you're also buying into their dedicated support. Pulse-Eight is now pressured to be responsible for coming up with resolutions for everything that might go wrong with it. They picked out all the hardware and software. With every other mini-PC manufacturer (Acer Revo, for example), we can't go to them with our XBMC issues and expect them to fix it in a timely manner, especially when they have to worry about Windows XP/Vista/7, everything else that might not work with it, and people being responsible for providing their own hardware. With the OpenELEC HTPC, Pulse-Eight knows exactly what hardware and software they have to support, which should allow them to provide better customer service.

As an aside, I have a Zotac ZBOX. I remember back then when they designed these with XBMC in mind. So Zotac's support for XBMC is apparent, even in their forum, but they still have to worry about other OSs and hardware. Their complete mini-PCs with HDD/RAM doesn't have XBMC as they know their customers aren't necessarily using them as XBMC boxes.

As far as the design, I personally don't care for it as I have all my equipment hidden. But if I had to comment on it, it's not bad. I like the sleek glossy black finish. It reminds me of Western Digital's Elements hard drive line. There's no picture of the bottom, but it looks screwless. Since this wasn't meant to be a modder's box, there shouldn't be any need to open it up. Let's hope Pulse-Eight really gives us no reason to have to open it up.

That angled corner looks inspired by the Acer Revo. I always felt it was unattractive, but it's only a minor point. My ZBOX pales in comparison. Some mini-PCs really look designed for the component cabinet. Some don't. This OpenELEC HTPC comes close but isn't quite there. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe throw in some minimal branding. Parts of it look retro and other parts scream "modern", especially what seems to be a slot-loading optical drive. I'm actually surprised they were able to fit an optical drive in there. I'm guessing/hoping there won't be a slot there if you opt out of the optical drive. Or I suppose they'll just keep it open as an air vent..?

Speaking of cooling, it's unfortunate that they had to include fans in this. It's not surprising though as it's still packing real PC hardware. What I don't see is sufficient venting. I don't see any on the top. I see three long horizontal slits on the rear. One must be for the SD card reader? The other 2 must be for venting. Perhaps there will be vents on the bottom, which isn't the best design. The surface it's sitting on will obviously block that air flow.

I like the design of the rear I/O panel. It has the same feel as the rear of the Apple TV 2. I do have certain criticisms though. From the looks of it, there's going to be some sort of power brick. I always disliked those things as they're inconvenient to replace. If they really wanted this to be more of an appliance, I'd rather pay a little more to have the device be a little larger and accommodate a standard power interface where the power cords are a dime-a-dozen at any thrift store.

I'm a little surprised as to the ports the decided to include. I'd throw out the Firewire, Mini-DisplayPort, microphone, and maybe speaker. I'd replace these with DVI and/or component video/RCA audio, as these A/V outputs would have been more commonly used. At least one of the USB ports should be in the front. Maybe one USB port should have the remote RF receiver built-in. They should have made it internal WiFi if they wanted to include WiFi at all. I never found WiFi reliable for 1080p streaming.


I think Pulse-Eight is definitely on the right track here. We already have a plethora of this form factor. The case just needs some minor tweaks and we need appropriate outputs if we want to get this into as many living rooms as possible. This has the makings for the first real XBMC box (well, 2nd if we're including the box that start it all - Xbox). There actually are other manufacturers selling XBMC HTPCs, but they don't come in this form factor. Correct me if I'm wrong. If we can't get an appropriate mini-PC, we might have to wait for embedded after all.

Hi,

Thanks for all the comments, basically just to set the record straight, I found a manufacturer of this existing hardware, its not built for us, but the hardware is generic enough that it means it should work on pretty much any linux flavor you like.

If you wan't to put anything but the OpenELEC distro that Pulse-Eight supplies then the only support you will get is with the hardware (but I will try to help where I can by hosting any compatible drivers etc)

I will post some interior shots of the case, (the one's I have are from the manufacturer), the HDD is a standard 2.5", the target audience is new users, offering them an entire solution, whereby they can store content on the device along side the actual 'appliance/installation' seems to me to be a win, considering the cost and complexity of having to get users to shell out for an additional item before they can use it.

Yes it will be an external power brick, they are relatively cheap, also housing the power outside reduces the cooling requirements and as such the size and cost, your comment about the power cable I think is muted, because you can get replacements for less than $10 at a radio shack.

It's not perfect, but I haven't found anything else that really can compete in terms of features and functionality that come in at the same price point, unless you roll your own, and for that, i've put up a case that isnt that much bigger but will take standard components.

M
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#30
room312 Wrote:I think the OpenELEC HTPC was supposed to be a complete solution, especially for people who just want to get started without fussing about. No having to install OpenELEC. No having to plug in a USB stick. No having to worry about extra storage.

They must include OpenELEC somehow, otherwise it's pretty much just like any other barebones system. Sure, they could sell OpenELEC-on-USB, but then it'll normally only be limited to 4GB due to persistence, and a "complete solution" should give you room to bring your media around without having to carry another USB drive/external HDD. Besides, now you and Pulse-Eight would have to worry about carrying two more devices.

The Apple TVs, particularly the 1st gen, actually come really close. The ATV1 has the right outputs. They both have an attractive look. The only thing missing is the optical drive. A complete solution would still have one, and although the one in the OpenELEC HTPC isn't Blu-ray, it's still a start.

The Shuttle XS35GT comes fanless. This proves that a properly passively-cooled design can work on an ION system. The Shuttle is attractive in its own right, but I don't know if it's ready for component cabinets.

Blu-Ray is just far too expensive to include in a small unit at this time, especially given the volumes needed to be ordered to make it cost effective for me.

My suggestions, open up the box, and swap it out (its just a laptop drive inside) or use an external usb blu-ray drive.
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