Cheap HTPC Rig

Printable View

09-07-2009, 06:30 PM
handscombmp

Cheap HTPC Rig

Need to build a small HTPC rig for my parents (& little bro) which is going to sit in the living room.

I'm planning to make it run XBMC (the OS version)and all the files are going to be stored on a freenas server elsewhere in the house.
It's going to be used for watching blu ray rips (legally i hasten to add) so i know it will need a decent cpu as XBMC doesn't use gpu for decoding video files.
Plus it will also need a SPDIF output of Dolby/DTS.

I'm planning on installing a small HDD (80GB) as everything will be stored on the freenas server. I'll put a DVD drive in as although it's not really need at £15 a pop it may come in useful if they've rented one just for the night.

It doesn't need a TV tuner but will need a remote (although i may try and get them a Harmony One)

This has really stumped me as i would go for a Atom but it doesn't have the raw power needed for decoding HD video at 1080p so i guess i'm going have to leave most of it up to you guys. :(

EDIT: Forgot to add the price their aiming for is £250 but they are willing to go up to £300
09-07-2009, 07:29 PM
crazyfool

Re: Cheap HTPC Rig

I was under the impression that xbmc can use nvidia gpus for video deconding using vdpau
09-07-2009, 08:49 PM
format

Re: Cheap HTPC Rig

Asrock ION BD 330.

£250, small, quiet, very low power usage, looks good, plays everything you chuck at it too.

I\'m getting one for the same purposes.
09-07-2009, 10:18 PM
handscombmp

Re: Cheap HTPC Rig

Quote:

Originally Posted by format

Asrock ION BD 330.

£250, small, quiet, very low power usage, looks good, plays everything you chuck at it too.

I'm getting one for the same purposes.

That seems very very tempting as it's small and will seem to do everything i want.

My only problem is when it come's back to playing blu ray files.

It's about hardware acceleration using the ion gpu as i've read that only linux supports vdpau for xbmc and i don't know if the xbmc is linux. I assume it is though.
09-07-2009, 11:16 PM
MadduckUK

Re: Cheap HTPC Rig

Quote:

Originally Posted by handscombmp

That seems very very tempting as it's small and will seem to do everything i want.

My only problem is when it come's back to playing blu ray files.

It's about hardware acceleration using the ion gpu as i've read that only linux supports vdpau for xbmc and i don't know if the xbmc is linux. I assume it is though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC

Quote:

XBMC for Linux

XBMC for Linux is currently primarily developed for Ubuntu Linux and XBMC's developers own XBMC Live (Live CD Linux distribution). Third-party packages for most other Linux distributions are however available, and it is also possible to compile XBMC Media Center from scratch for any Linux distribution. This is currently the only version to support GPU hardware accelerated video decoding. Development version of XBMC for Linux is available at Launchpad as PPA (Personal Package Archive) for the standard Ubuntu Desktop 8.04, 8.10, and 9.04 versions.
10-07-2009, 03:54 PM
jim

Re: Cheap HTPC Rig

I did some tests recently with affinity settings on my Q9550, and found that with two cores dedicated to video playback (at stock 2.83 GHz) I could play high-bitrate blu-ray rips with no GPU acceleration without any problems.

Bearing in mind that I was using VLC (a bit of a resource hog), I've decided to ensure I've got at least a 2.83 GHz dual-core when I build my HTPC in a couple of months time. I'll probably go for 3 GHz just to be sure, and obviously if it later turns out that it isn't quite sufficient it won't be difficult to overclock just a little to help out.