New to XBMC, looking for guidance
#1
Hello,

I'm somewhat new to the world of XBMC, the amount of information and options are pretty overwhelming. ATV, HTPCs, these are things I didn't know existed until last week. I'm just looking for a push in the right direction. Right now I'm looking to see what direction I would need to go in hardware-wise for what I want to accomplish with XBMC. I'm going to be moving into my first house in a few weeks so I'm pretty much starting from scratch and I'm open to all suggestions.

Basically what I want to do is run XBMC on my TV in my living room, and keep my computer in my bedroom, and access all my media without running a wire between the 2 and be able to control it with my iPhone. I'd like to keep the least amount of 'clutter' in the living room, my PC is always running. I'm more concerned with using it for movies & music that I will have stored, not so much for streaming off the internet, though that would be a plus. Mostly standard DVDs, I'm not too concerned with HD or BluRay at the moment, but I want the upgrade potential.

What I currently have is a PC with a wireless router...that's about it...I'm in the market for a new TV so I would like to know if a Smart TV with built in Wi-fi would be useful in cutting out any hardware I may need, or if it makes more sense to go with a cheaper basic TV and use additional hardware.

Very open to suggestions how how to do this...feel free to use small words and explain it like I'm a 4 year old
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#2
I would suggest an ATV1 box with upgraded broadcom CrystalHD card hooked up to Non Smart TV.
I would also suggest some form of hard wired connection even if it is a powerline solution I have had much better experience with powerline over wifi.
I hear if you run crystalbuntu with hardwired you can do most 1080p as well so you could eventually watch blue ray rips.
most internet streams are pretty low bandwidth intensive so they should all work like hulu, freecable, podcats...
plus the ATV1 is probably the cheapest solution to get going so for under $100 you would have a device hooked up to your TV that can run XBMC is silent and can handle 90% of the video out there.
יונתן בן-חיים
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#3
Have a look at the hardware forums, there is a lot of messages close to your needs... Having a PC cooking 24/7 pretty well = server, you might as well make it your media server. The front end could be anything from a lowly Apple TV (1 or 2) or handbuilt; to something a bit more turn key, http://www.xtreamer.net/ultra2/
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#4
(2012-06-08, 23:06)nokdim Wrote: I would suggest an ATV1 box with upgraded broadcom CrystalHD card hooked up to Non Smart TV.
I would also suggest some form of hard wired connection even if it is a powerline solution I have had much better experience with powerline over wifi.
I hear if you run crystalbuntu with hardwired you can do most 1080p as well so you could eventually watch blue ray rips.
most internet streams are pretty low bandwidth intensive so they should all work like hulu, freecable, podcats...
plus the ATV1 is probably the cheapest solution to get going so for under $100 you would have a device hooked up to your TV that can run XBMC is silent and can handle 90% of the video out there.
I wouldn't recommend an ATV 1. ATV 1 support is going to be dropped from the next release.
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#5
(2012-06-10, 04:54)crash123 Wrote: I wouldn't recommend an ATV 1. ATV 1 support is going to be dropped from the next release.

Incorrect. Mac OS X 10.4 support is dropped in the next release, but if you load linux on the ATV1 (which one should be doing anyways in order to enable full 1080 output and better performance) then it will work perfectly for the next version (v12, Frodo).
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#6
I am relatively new also. I'll tell you what I did. I built another computer to be my media server, nothing fancy just a quad core, with 8megs ram and 6TB of storage running Windows 7. I got that working and installed XBMC and hooked it directly to my tv to test it out. I ended up loving this solution so much but hated having a PC in the living room ( as did the wife) . So I bought and apple tv 2 and jailbroke it to install XBMC and setup a MySQL database on my server after moving it to another room. I LOVE this setup, I stream wireless from router to the ATV2 with zero problems.

This solution for me worked great there was a few bugs to work out. Mainly with the MySQL database as I wasn't really familiar with this to start. That being said I would never go back to any other way very minimal upkeep and if i add something to the server I scan once and it is available to everybody. Nice and slick.
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#7
(2012-06-10, 20:37)Ned Scott Wrote:
(2012-06-10, 04:54)crash123 Wrote: I wouldn't recommend an ATV 1. ATV 1 support is going to be dropped from the next release.

Incorrect. Mac OS X 10.4 support is dropped in the next release, but if you load linux on the ATV1 (which one should be doing anyways in order to enable full 1080 output and better performance) then it will work perfectly for the next version (v12, Frodo).


True the future of ATV1 on Linux looks bright. Crystalbuntu will be ported on 12.04 by SAM and even now on 8.04 there are features that the ATV can handle are really big. (ambilight, samba, transmission, fireflymediaserver, works with logitech harmony, tvheadend with PVR (ok no HD atm, because the CrystalHD is not supported by backend)......)
All the existing tutorials on existing crystalbuntu forum will be ported to v 12.04 and even more is coming. So if you ask me ATV1 is better option as ATV2 or. 3 and can be build for the same or even lower price. So to be honest on a matter of price/performance i think there are no other devices that can beat ATV1.

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#8
I am also relatively new to XBMC and I went for a Zotac ZBox. This is mounted on the back of my TV using the VESA mounts (and an adapter plate because the ZBox VESA mounts are only wide enough for a Desktop Monitor rather than a 37 inch TV). This gives a nice clean look (it just looks like I've got a TV). Obviously if your TV is wall mounted then the VESA mount option is more problematic but you may still be able to rig something up.

I'm running XBMC on Windows 7 Ultimate 32-Bit on the ZBox and also on my main desktop but I've also just set up XBMCBuntu on an old desktop machine which is in one of our spare bedrooms. All 3 XBMC installations share media via a MySQL database.
Zotac ZBOX HD-ND22
XBMCBuntu
Frodo / Confluence
2 x 3TB HDD
flirc
Harmony 885
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