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Hardware for Linux and XBMC - Printable Version

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- Calmiche - 2007-11-08

Shuttle cases are good. I have a friend that swears by them.

However, I just found something that expanded choices for me. I didn't know that DVI - HDMI cables are popular and cheap, meaning that I don't have to have a HDMI connection on my videocard or motherboard. Just a DVI connection.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7129403&type=product&id=1110262781843&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=7129403

$32.99

And I bet i could find it cheaper with a bit of looking.


- Okt00 - 2007-11-08

Calmiche Wrote:http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7129403&type=product&id=1110262781843&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=7129403

$32.99

And I bet i could find it cheaper with a bit of looking.


Um... much.
http://www.ehdmi.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10419&cs_id=1041902&p_id=2029&seq=1&format=2&style=


- Nick8888 - 2007-11-08

Yes I like the Shuttle SG33G5M but I'm thinking I might wait and see what the next model features before I buy. Unless of course its going to be a while.


- hrak - 2007-11-08

The only thing i hate about the Shuttle SG33G5M is the gold finish on the front. Makes it look so campy.

I'm hoping for a Mac Mini update to Santa Rosa/faster c2d/Intel GMA 3100.


- mace - 2007-11-08

Since i like my boxes as silent as possible I do recommend mcubedConfused HFX series even if they are expensive


- Nick8888 - 2007-11-09

I really like the OrigenAE cases, specifically the S16V but itll definately blow the budget.


- User 29008 - 2007-11-09

Hey folks,

I am also looking into building a HTPC with XBMC for Linux in the near future as a HD replacement for my beloved XBOX *sigh* hehe.
Anyways, my choice will probably be the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H. The board did pretty good in all of the reviews I read. Plus it is uATX, which is what I want and has at least the option to use the onboard ATI graphics, which is supposed to be, if the driver supports it, absolutely capable of playing back HD up to 1080p.
Anyways, if this will not work for now, then I'll probably get a ATI Radeon HD 2600 Series Card, passively cooled, which is said to be very good regarding Video playback and HW accelleration, but again .... question is how soon the ATI Vid driver will support this.
My main goal is to build an near-silent HTPC. I will probably go with the Antec Black Fusion as a case, which hast 2 12cm fans at the side of the case. I will replace those with high quality fans from Scythe maybe, which are really silent. Besides that I don't plan to use any fans in the case.
As CPU I will get an AMD BE-2400 X2. Should be way enough regarding performance ... seriously, I doubt you are gonna need anything near the Core2 Quad class to playback HD content. To complete my setup, I will probably go for a silent S-ATA HDD, which doesn't have to be big in any way, since most of my data will be delivered via LAN from my server in the basement anyways.

boba


- gateway69 - 2007-11-10

I can tell you guys right now with amd 939 chip sets, running amd 64 x2 4800 you wont be able to play decent 720p stuff or 1080p,

We have 2 shuttle boxes one with amd 64 x2 3800 and other with the 4800+ and as of *RIGHT* now its a no go, so if your planning on wanting to really watch decent quality 720p stuff with out alot of dropped frames you need to jump up in cpu, now alot of this could change as optimizations come online with the decoder (im not sure how optimized it is right now).

This is just a fyi.


- Nick8888 - 2007-11-10

Thanks gateway, Ive got no idea in terms or a cpu. Do you have any examples of ones you would consider if buying again? Or are there none and we should wait?


- Jezz_X - 2007-11-10

The current guideline is Nvidia GPU card and best of anything else you can afford other than that you will get no help from team for a long time on what to buy

That being said I have a shuttlebox that has a core 2 duo 6550 2 gig of ram and a nvidia 7100gs pci-e card in it and it plays 720p and 1080p fine but its probably over kill really Smile


- watzen - 2007-11-10

Jezz_X Wrote:The current guideline is Nvidia GPU card and best of anything else you can afford other than that you will get no help from team for a long time on what to buy

That being said I have a shuttlebox that has a core 2 duo 6550 2 gig of ram and a nvidia 7100gs pci-e card in it and it plays 720p and 1080p fine but its probably over kill really Smile

Is that 1080p mkv x264 rips or 1080p h264 blueray backup?
and since the graphics card aint helping with video decoding, is the processor overclocked?
Any framedrops?

/mvh


- User 29008 - 2007-11-10

gateway69 Wrote:I can tell you guys right now with amd 939 chip sets, running amd 64 x2 4800 you wont be able to play decent 720p stuff or 1080p,

We have 2 shuttle boxes one with amd 64 x2 3800 and other with the 4800+ and as of *RIGHT* now its a no go, so if your planning on wanting to really watch decent quality 720p stuff with out alot of dropped frames you need to jump up in cpu, now alot of this could change as optimizations come online with the decoder (im not sure how optimized it is right now).

This is just a fyi.

I really don't know what you guys are doing, but I tend to find reports like these more realistic, than not being able to playback 720p at least with a 4800+:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=151682&postcount=6

Check out that whole thread, there are a couple of people reporting even very good 1080p playback.

I'd suggest, you make sure, that you are not having any other Linux/XBMC issues, which seriuosly hit your performance with video playback.

boba


- Jezz_X - 2007-11-10

watzen Wrote:Is that 1080p mkv x264 rips or 1080p h264 blueray backup?
and since the graphics card aint helping with video decoding, is the processor overclocked?
Any framedrops?

/mvh

The graphics card does heaps because its all rendered in opengl thats why I said nvidia is best because it supports opengl 2.0 and has shader model support
and it was a 1080p quicktime trailer


- Freddo - 2007-11-11

the gpu's still only rendering though, under windows you can get it to do offload on other stages, infact with ATi i believe the whole video chain is on the gpu with the 2600/2400 series cards.


- mrkrad - 2007-11-11

it may be in the chain but if the drivers and software(dvdplayer/mplayer) doesn't use it; it won't help.

an e2160 @ 2.4ghz or e4300 @ 2.4ghz will soft decode our favorite x264 mkv format "releases".

What you will find in linux and windows is that the players currently freak out with mkv wrapper and x264 and end up soft-decoding them.

a plain old 1.6ghz core 2 solo (aka celeron 420) will play a real blu-ray/hd-dvd using cyberlink powerdvd with a cheap 8400 nvidia or 8600GT nvidia card but will not play a x264 mkv .

The question is will dvd player and the drivers available ever be able to use the hardware acceleration for our most favorite MKV format?