Ouya, Apple TV, Xios...so many options! Could someone help me out?
#1
Hi, I've recently been faced with the issue of being a videophile and moving to a two-story house. The issue is that my computer is in my room upstairs, about 75 ft (by cable) from the tv and I would like to be able to easily watch anime, television, and play games downstairs on my Sharp AQUOS smart tv. One solution I considered was using softxpand pro duo in order to create two "workstations" of Windows. To reach downstairs, one of the workstations would be connected via hdmi->cat 6 ethernet->hdmi.

However, I've recently realized that a better solution would be to have a dedicated xbmc box right next to the tv, and set it up with file/library network access so that I could keep all my media centralized and streamline the user video experience. As for video games, I will most likely use the hdmi-ethernet solution listed above, but skip the softxpand aspect. My imagined setup is a 360 controller downstairs (wireless apparently reaches upstairs), with an eventghost button linked to switching the output to just the downstairs smart tv. The analog stick would be used to navigate and x would be used for left click. Once in a game, the default gamepad settings would load up.

As a result, I need some sort of small box to run only xbmc with a few requirements:
Locate and play 1080p video from upstairs desktop (which also has xbmc and is connected via ethernet. Also, please don't mention media server streaming. I've had too many issues with 1080p anime to count)
As a sub-requisite, play anime well(I've had issues with xbmc and audio/subtitle timing, so please let me know if there are any solutions)
Anything else is a luxury.

It seems like there are tons of devices that can smoothly run xbmc or xbmc live and potentially play anime well. I've heard of at least Apple TV, Ouya, Xios, PulseBox, Zotoc, Raspberry Pi. Unfortunately, I'm not sure which is the best at the moment, so I could really use some advice or direction. Lastly, I'd like to keep the device as small as possible, so I probably wouldn't want to build it myself.

Oh, and if you think of any other setups for my home media, please let me know.
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#2
Do you watch 10bit anime? If so you won't get any hardware acceleration and will need some x86 (in the widest sense) based solution, ie a quite powerful processor.

If not, then my favourite is a ION2 box, or maybe one of the all in ones with a built in nVidia GT610 on board.
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#3
Are there any other types of media that won't get hardware acceleration?

Also, are there really no devices that will for 10 bit anime besides a homemade htpc?

Lastly, what about all of the other alternatives? Sorry to ask, but what disadvantages lead you away from them?
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#4
You'd have to ask someone with more interest in anime than me to find out for sure what will and won't play 10 bit. There are plenty of threads about it on here.

What leads me away from android and arm etc boxes? Just not powerful enough to run everything smoothly, and see for example this thread:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=170616
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#5
I haven't found all the links yet, but there's some hardware posts that outline everything you'd need to have a smooth animu experience. I shall add them to this page as I find them: Anime (wiki).
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Ouya, Apple TV, Xios...so many options! Could someone help me out?0