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emal011 · 2016-03-24, 01:05

Hi folks,

I'm trying to "upgrade" my living room home theater to something more quite. After a couple of days I was using an old Amd-Pc, it was really good, just with the time it turn in something loud and watching a movie with the sound of the hard drive spinning and the CPU fan it was not a pleasure any more.

Now I'm searching for a device capable of stream my library without problem, everything is storage in my nas system, so I don't need a powerful PC just to watch a movie, what I want is a silent device capable of reproduce all my library without problem.

What is better nowdays? A rasperry-pi? An android device? A hdmi-stick?

The Internet shows me a lot of options, but what do you think guys?

**nooryani84** · (This post was last modified: 2016-03-24, 02:13 by nooryani84.)

What quality are you watching movies in? What is your budget? A good place to start would be the first stickies on this page: http://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=112

**DarrenHill** · 2016-03-24, 06:41

Thread moved to hardware.

As noted above have a read of some of the threads in this section, which are designed for that very question.

emal011 · 2016-03-24, 10:02

(2016-03-24, 02:11)nooryani84 Wrote: What quality are you watching movies in? What is your budget? A good place to start would be the first stickies on this page: http://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=112

Well between 720 and 1080. Most of the time good compressed files, the bigger one is fast 5Gb. What I search is a device with Ethernet and very important digital audio output. My old one has a creative recon 5.1 and was very good with Dolby sound.

My budget is approx. 200€

**nooryani84** · 2016-03-24, 11:05

https://shield.nvidia.com/store/android-tv

The Nvidia Shield TV is a highly rated device that might meet your needs. Have a look Smile

emal011 · 2016-03-24, 12:35

(2016-03-24, 11:05)nooryani84 Wrote: https://shield.nvidia.com/store/android-tv

The Nvidia Shield TV is a highly rated device that might meet your needs. Have a look

Yeah, that was one of my favorites, but audio output is via hdmi.

**nooryani84** · 2016-03-24, 17:10

You could always add a USB to optical device.

Qtrmeg · 2016-03-24, 21:23

(2016-03-24, 01:05)emal011 Wrote: Hi folks,

I'm trying to "upgrade" my living room home theater to something more quite. After a couple of days I was using an old Amd-Pc, it was really good, just with the time it turn in something loud and watching a movie with the sound of the hard drive spinning and the CPU fan it was not a pleasure any more.

Now I'm searching for a device capable of stream my library without problem, everything is storage in my nas system, so I don't need a powerful PC just to watch a movie, what I want is a silent device capable of reproduce all my library without problem.

What is better nowdays? A rasperry-pi? An android device? A hdmi-stick?

The Internet shows me a lot of options, but what do you think guys?

If you are happy with what you were using why not just make it quiet? I doubt the noise you hear is caused by the hard drive because if you hear noises from a hard drive they don't last very long, but if it is there are plenty of used hard drives available for little or no cost.

I'd bet the noise is caused because the inside of the old computer is dirty. So dirty the fans are rubbing against the built up dirt. Here is a picture of the CPU fan on one of my computers that is 2 years old, (there is also a picture in that folder of the motherboard when it was new). >>>

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Qtrmeg/m...n.jpg.html

That fan is not making noise yet but it will. I'm showing you this because your computer has to be older than 2 years old, and I think you can make what you have quieter just by opening up the case and cleaning it. I work on older computers all the time and the first thing I do is open them up and clean them, and re-seat the components.

If you are happy with the performance of the computer you have now you might be able to solve your noise problem in an afternoon. When you open the computer up you will see where the noise is coming from. Fans cost very little if you can't fix them.

nickr · 2016-03-24, 23:22

Chromebox

**nooryani84** · 2016-03-25, 00:22

(2016-03-24, 23:22)nickr Wrote: Chromebox

Will a chromebox play back 4K? I thought you'd get more for bang for your buck in terms of pure media playback with a Shield... I may be wrong

Matt Devo · 2016-03-25, 00:28

(2016-03-25, 00:22)nooryani84 Wrote: Will a chromebox play back 4K? I thought you'd get more for bang for your buck in terms of pure media playback with a Shield... I may be wrong

4K h264? No problem at all. 4K HEVC? Not happening. The Shield TV has better specs on paper, since it supports 4Kp60 output, and 4K HEVC 10-bit decoding. It also supports the Android/ATV ecosystem, so there's value there if that's something of interest. But as a pure Kodi appliance, the Chromebox running OpenELEC is hard to beat for 1080p playback, esp if you can snag a refurb for $100 (which you can right now thru Acer's ebay store).

nickr · 2016-03-25, 00:30

Yes it play back some 4k, its dealt with in the wiki. However I didn't see 4k in the op's requirements.

**nooryani84** · (This post was last modified: 2016-03-25, 01:50 by nooryani84.)

(2016-03-25, 00:28)Matt Devo Wrote:
(2016-03-25, 00:22)nooryani84 Wrote: Will a chromebox play back 4K? I thought you'd get more for bang for your buck in terms of pure media playback with a Shield... I may be wrong

4K h264? No problem at all. 4K HEVC? Not happening. The Shield TV has better specs on paper, since it supports 4Kp60 output, and 4K HEVC 10-bit decoding. It also supports the Android/ATV ecosystem, so there's value there if that's something of interest. But as a pure Kodi appliance, the Chromebox running OpenELEC is hard to beat for 1080p playback, esp if you can snag a refurb for $100 (which you can right now thru Acer's ebay store).

Yea, Chromeboxes to me are very more affordable NUCs which are awesome mini-PCs. I would definitely recommend either if you want to stick with the unrivaled compatibility you get with x86. The Shield is more of a competitor to the Apple TV imo, since it's supposedly also quite decent for gaming.

(2016-03-25, 00:30)nickr Wrote: Yes it play back some 4k, its dealt with in the wiki. However I didn't see 4k in the op's requirements.

Haha, you're right! My bad Wink

I don't use 4K myself, but have seen quite a few people setting that as one of their requirements lately Smile

emal011 · 2016-03-25, 16:49

Actually I don't need 4k resolution.. As I said, the nvidia shield was one of my favourite ones, but no digital output (spidf).

After searching for the top one, I found the wetek core, pretty much with a lot of system, for the price nothing can go wrong... XD

Hrvoje · (This post was last modified: 2016-03-28, 12:18 by Hrvoje.)

I needed something similar and bought yesterday TV Box, based on Android:
http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_334004.html

Specs seems quite good - 4K, good hw, and several I/O ports for 40$, but I will know more when it arrives.