Question Media Centre

[Dreamor]

I'm after a little help with obtaining the hardware for a media centre, checking through a few sites (scan/ebuyer/Overclockers) I can see a few but for the price I am after...

The only requirement I have is, it must be small(ish), relatively silent (quiet hum?) and cheap (<£300)

I'm happy to setup software/OS and such once I get it, but if its bundled in that would help, since I am putting this together for my parents. Yes I could build it myself buying parts, but for the saving its not worth the effort of saving £30

EDIT - One I was looking at was...
Asrock Nvidia ION 330 1.60GHz Dual Core DDR2 System - Black [] Small Form Factors

Cheers in advance! :worthy:

 

[dysfunction]

How about one of these?
They are really very small!

Play.com (UK) : Acer Aspire Revo R3610 / Intel Atom Dual Core 330 1.6GHz / 4GB / 500GB / Windows 7 Home Premium / Nettop Desktop PC (92.NVFYZ.U2N) : Computing - Free Delivery

You can get it cheaper than Play are offering it for...

 

[Bob007]

I'd have to agree on the Revo. I did one for a customer a few weeks back. A 3600 one. Got the Linux one and installed XP pro on it. Uped the ram to 4 gig and Added XBMC as the main media player. Only draw back is no dvd bay but an external bay handles that nicely.

Stunning piece of kit for the price. Quiet as a dead mouse but doesn't smell as bad. Fast to for its size.

 

[Cyradix]

I build one myself last month....

Used an Asus AT3N7A-I , installed it in a HTPC case, added a dvd/blu-ray drive and installed linux+xmbc

Works great!!
Only downside is no blu-ray support in linux.....
Going to try Windows 7 + XBMC next
XBMC is mainly coded for linux and so only has hardware acceleration support in the linux version.
A fan is developing a Windows version that supports DXVA that seems to work too (but haven't tried it yet)
The only way to have DVXA support in windows (in XBMC that is) so far is to call an external player (like mpc-hc)

 

[Cyradix]

BTW : if you want to read up on XBMC on the Asrock rock try : XBMC Community Forum

 

[soze]

I have a Revo with upgraded RAM running Win 7 with XBMC installed and I am very impressed.

 

[Dreamor]

All great info, cheers guys.

 

[inactionman]

Got the Asrock 330 myself, works really well with Ubuntu and XBMC. I'd wait for the next release of XBMC to install it though, which should be out shortly as it's in beta.

The only problem I'm having is getting a decent remote.

 

[Cyradix]

I use diNovo Mini to control my mediacenter. Really usefull if you also want to do a little web surfing etc....

 

[DaGaffer]

I use diNovo Mini to control my mediacenter. Really usefull if you also want to do a little web surfing etc....

Me too. Brilliant little keyboard. I use my old Shuttle as a mediacentre tucked away in a cupboard in the bedroom and didn't want a clunky kb/mouse cluttering the place up. The dinovo is perfect.

 

[old.user4556]

I don't want to hijack this thread, so may start my own, but I'll start by asking:

- does anyone know if this Atom CPU is meaty enough for transcoding? Movies aren't so important but WMA Lossless to PCM that the PS3 can accept is paramount.
- does anyone know if this will happily run under load in a enclosed small-ish space (say, a large cupboard) without any heat issues?

I'm currently running an old PC in a cupboard (Athlon 3200+, 1 GB ram) and it drinks electricity and pumps out loads of heat - it's better as a heater than a media PC, and this Atom setup could be just the ticket for a quiet, low power, low heat setup.

 

[inactionman]

No, for transcoding you have either get an atom with a chipset like ION, that can do it on the GPU, or wait for the new atom replacements with on-die GPU to come out next year.

An Ion based nettop should do everything else you ask for, as it's basically a netbook with no screen and battery.

Edit: sorry meant video transcoding, it should be able to do audio.

 

[old.user4556]

I'm not following - so you need a GPU for it to be able to do basic transcoding such as WMA or FLAC to 16 bit PCM ? The Atom CPU can't do it alone?

 

[inactionman]

No sorry, used to people meaning video transcoding. It should have ample grunt to do audio transcoding, particularly the dual core atoms.

 

[old.user4556]

Excellent thanks, that's all I wanted to know .

I don't care much for video (at the moment), but I can always fire up my main PC and run TVeristy or PS3 media server on that machine if I really need meaty processing power to transcode.

I'm in the market for low power, low heat, music serving and 'always on' - Atom looks like it'll do the trick .

 

[Yaka]

ive gotan ion based atom running with xbmc in case similar to the as rock case,its not noisey nor does it have any heat issues, ive ran it with out the fan for a while now.