[Azaman]

Looking for a small form factor htpc quintessentially for xbmc.

Have found these two, but would be most grateful if you could offer opinions and advice on the two.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180 specs are here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-IdeaCentr...299&sr=8-5

Or, the Acer Revo RL70 specs are here: http://www.ebuyer.com/319554-acer-revo-r...-sj4ec-001

The os they ship with are not important as would look to be replacing with whatever is best suggested on here to put on them. The only hesitation I have is around the RL70 and openelec as apparently there are performance issues with the AMD bits?

[Azaman]

Anyone able to kindly advise - I'd really like to get one of these sometime soon

[SSDD]

I don't have any experience with either of the devices, but the consensus around here is that people prefer the RL70.

Agree, working fine for me under Windows 7. Did add 2GB RAM as the total 4GB does help. Have had my RL70 for a couple weeks and it's a pretty capable HTPC for around $300. Tried the Lenovo Q180 earlier this year and found it lacking performance-wise, although it had great form factor. The RL70 form factor is home theater friendly as well.

The RL70 does HD audio perfectly via XBMC's nightly build. I'm home theater saavy, but newbie-ish to HTPC's. With the RL70, all I had to do was install XBMC nightly, check the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD capable boxes under audio settings, add my SMB shares, then play. I only have a few videos giving me trouble. One is a HD DVD rip of the Eagles concert to MKV. The audio plays fine, but there is no picture. The same file plays perfectly on my Popcorn Hour A-300 and Mede8er MED450X2 media players. It's 1080p/30 VC-1 video I believe.

Performance wise it will play almost everything you need. However I said almost as you can forget about playing a full 3D Bluray rip on this machine!!
The cpu will max out (100% cpu utilization) even with hardware acceleration enabled in PowerDVD11/TMT5. It just cant handle it which is a shame. I think it all falls down to the E450 chipset as the integrated HD6320 GPU should be capable of full stereoscopic 3D playback.

Has anyone else tried Blu-ray 3D ISO's? I was hoping the RL70 would be able to play them.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...light=q180

Necrobump!

I have an Acer Revo RL70 (E450 based) running Win7 with 4GB RAM and SSD and I concur with the OP.

It can take any content except 3D Blu Ray.

In my case I'm streaming the content from a WHS2011 machine, but I don't believe the stutter is network related.

I put one of the MiniPCIe slots on the Revo to good use with an Intel 82574L based NIC, the server has an Intel i350-T2 NIC using LACP and the switch is a rather capable D-Link DGS-1210-10P.

In summary, I don't believe the E450 is suitable for this application. I'm moving to an A6 or A8 based HTPC and flogging the Revo... Shame really, it's a very capable and quiet little thing...

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=131903

[DavidT99]

Looking for a small form factor htpc quintessentially for xbmc.

Have found these two, but would be most grateful if you could offer opinions and advice on the two.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180 specs are here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-IdeaCentr...299&sr=8-5

Or, the Acer Revo RL70 specs are here: http://www.ebuyer.com/319554-acer-revo-r...-sj4ec-001

The os they ship with are not important as would look to be replacing with whatever is best suggested on here to put on them. The only hesitation I have is around the RL70 and openelec as apparently there are performance issues with the AMD bits?

Have a look at these threads, they may help you to make a decision.........

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-ente...-q180.html

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=132320

David

[Azaman]

Thanks both.

I'm slightly leaning toward the Revo for it's general consenus feeling on here... The IdeaCentre still looks great, but those referenced threads there seem to favor the Revo rather well.

If I went for a Revo, what OS would you suggest be best to use? I recently read that the latest Beta 5 of OpenElec's Fusion builds now have the drivers incorporated for the AMD bits...