[Johnnygo]

Hello,
I'm planning to build 3 new XBMC openelec machines, to power the tv's in the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. The main use will be watching live television using DVB-C and DVB-S2. Mostly 1080i Mpeg4 streams from tvheadend.

At the moment i'm using a Zotac ZBOX ID41 in the livingroom. And that works perfect. Now I can buy the same boxes, but I can also get the newer Intel NUC Celeron 847 for about the same price. Whitch one would be better?

Or will it be better / cheaper to custom build these machines?

[Ned Scott]

NUC, or buy/build miniITX Celeron systems, depending on how small and sexy you want it to be.

[cwide]

The NUC is essentially $185-195 per unit: $165 + $20 (2 gb ram) + $10 (USB flash drive for Openelec).

Or you can build a much uglier Celeron system like Ned mentions for slightly cheaper: $67 (ECS Celeron 847 board/Amazon) + $20 (2 GB ram) + $10 USB flash drive + $64 - Antec Case

Total: $161

I don't think the savings are worth it for just a XBMC streaming client. Only way I would recommend the DIY build is if you want more standard PC features (normal SSD, optical drive, more ports, etc..).

[Johnnygo]

Ok, so the Celeron 847 with integrated graphics will perform as good, or better (specially deinterlacing 1080i) then the atom with ion2 using openelec?

[gfjardim]

Ok, so the Celeron 847 with integrated graphics will perform as good, or better (specially deinterlacing 1080i) then the atom with ion2 using openelec?

Deinterlace suck with Celeron's IGP.

[Johnnygo]

If proper deinterlation is a no-go, than the Celeron nuc is not the right option for me.
When I check the zotac boxes, I see the ID41 with dualcore 1,8ghz atom and ION2, but also a more expensive ID42 withe the celeron 847 dualcore 1,1ghz and a GT610. Will the ID42 be better than the ID41??

[twelvebore]

If proper deinterlation is a no-go, than the Celeron nuc is not the right option for me.

If you're that fussy about deinterlacing then you probably need to embrace the fact that you're going to have to be unfussy about spending money. There is no free lunch.

Buy a proper CPU and do it in software.

[Dougie Fresh]

The ID42 is a Celeron 847 with GT610 GPU. The Intel GPU is not used (what people are saying sucks for de-interlacing). No idea how the GT610 GPU is for de-interlacing but it's the next generation of the GPU that's in the ION2 so it should be as good if not better. My Chinese friends like to sell GT610 with Atom or Celeron as ION3.

[Johnnygo]

Thanks for your answers. I have ordered a ID42 to see how it performs.
But I have a problem with it. The ID41 boots from a SD card. I can't get that to work on the ID42. The ID42 soesn't recognise the SD card at all. So I can't even install openelec on it. The card is working perfectly in the ID41.
Is this normal behavior (and do I need a driver to get the cardreader to work), or do I have to turn it on somewhere, or is the reader broken?
What do you think?