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Thread: What OS for a media centre?

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    What OS for a media centre?

    Hi everyone,

    I'm setting up a media centre in my living room and need some advice on an OS.

    The machine I'm using is an old Shuttle, with a Athlon 64 3200+, 768mb RAM, an 8400GS and a 500gb hard drive. I know the RAM is a little low but I can put more in if needed.

    What would you use as the OS? Its going to be used mainly for streaming video to a 40" plasma.

    Thanks!

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    Jay
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    if its HD video you are going to struggle with that CPU. I use Vista as the Media Center is very good.
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Remember that all PC media centres are 'gash'.

    This is due to the 50/60 hz problems, ie you cant play 50hz content smoothy on a screen at 60hz refresh. You can partly get round this by increasing the refreshrate to 75hz but it's still sub optimal.

    Avoid anything PC is your serious about this and buy a proper media player.

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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Quote Originally Posted by abaxas View Post
    Remember that all PC media centres are 'gash'.

    This is due to the 50/60 hz problems, ie you cant play 50hz content smoothy on a screen at 60hz refresh. You can partly get round this by increasing the refreshrate to 75hz but it's still sub optimal.

    Avoid anything PC is your serious about this and buy a proper media player.
    Sorry man, I can't spend any more money right now! Just got a new flat, so the pc will have to do.

    Vista won't run on that amount of ram right? so I'll need some more?

    Is xp rubbish?

    Thanks.

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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Plasma is less affected by refresh rate
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium. The new Media Center app is great!

    You might want to upgrade the RAM on that system though. As for HD video, Windows 7 will offload the processing to the GeForce 8400 which is more than up to the task.

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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Mythbuntu?
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    I would have thought that there were some software-based video scalers available by now.....there have been hardware devices to rectify the judder for many years.
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Just a recomendation,

    A ps3 gets round all the 60/50hz problems. It might not record TV but I'm sure you can find other ways of getting that sorted.

    Just a note, I moved from a PC to a ps3 about 2 months ago. There can be no going back to any other system. The ps3 is better at playing mpeg4.

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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Quote Originally Posted by abaxas View Post
    Just a recomendation,

    A ps3 gets round all the 60/50hz problems. It might not record TV but I'm sure you can find other ways of getting that sorted.

    Just a note, I moved from a PC to a ps3 about 2 months ago. There can be no going back to any other system. The ps3 is better at playing mpeg4.
    A bit off topic, but you can get playTV to use the PS3 as a TIVO device
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bhazza View Post
    A bit off topic, but you can get playTV to use the PS3 as a TIVO device

    Ta, I'll look into that.

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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    @timtim86

    Win7 will work nicely for you, though an upgrade to 1gb ram will help. I am running it comfortably on on an Athlon XP 3000, 1.5gb ram (was 1gb until a month or 2 back) with a 512mb ATI 2600XT. I can play back Blu-ray on that spec without issue.

    Use something like Media Player Classic Home Cinema (which is free) along with Haali Media Splitter and any HD content will have the decoding offloaded to your graphics card. MPC-HC has inbuilt codecs for most of the common video formats so you shouldn't need much more.

    @ abaxas:

    Refresh rates are not an issue. If you have 60hz content, set the output of your graphics card to
    60hz. If you have 50hz content, set your refresh to 50hz.

    Problem solved.

    Some software, such as Media Portal will do a refresh rate detect & auto adjust also. Failing that, Powerstrip will give you huge amounts of control over your refresh rates (at the small cost of $30 US) such as setting profiles for 24hz, 50hz & 60hz that you can switch to with a simple key tap.

    As for the PS3 being better at playing mpeg4, how did you come to that conclusion? Better in what way? I have several HD-DVDs and Blu-rays encoded in AVC, as well as 1080i/p AVC files on my HTPC and they play without issue. Granted there is an amouint of setting up to do, but once done you are sorted.

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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    If you're even planning on getting a bluray drive remember than no open source OS can run bluerays directly from the disk due to the way that the content protection works.
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Quote Originally Posted by mycarsavw View Post
    Mythbuntu?
    +1

    There is decent nvidia drivers for ubuntu. The only problem you might have is tv tuner compatibility, if your intending to use a tuner?
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    +1 for Windows 7 here too. Any RAM upgrade wouldn't go amiss, but you should be ok for now....if you're not recording!
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    Re: What OS for a media centre?

    Windows7 and media portal.

    Looks the buisness.
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