[sweetalmond]

Hello,

I am in the process of converting all my BluRay movies to digital copies. The results is 1080p mp4 files (between 4GB to 16GB each).

I would like to play them on my TV.

As this is HD content, I would like to know what would be your recommendation for a small silent standalone XBMC.

I found an article on lifehacker.com, yet it is from October 2009. Wanted to know if there is anything better than Acer AspireRevo yet will in the price range of $200-$300. I was thinking Apple TV as it small, has a remote and I can use it with iTunes if I need, yet I am not sure about its ability to steam HD files.

Would love to hear some recommendations...

Thanks...

P.S. - here is the lifehacker post I was referring to:

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-si...-the-cheap

[justdoit]

i have the aspirerevo 1600 which I got a few weeks ago. I have Xbmc Live installed on it and works great in streaming 1080p files over the network. For $200 or less, its great value to run xbmc.

although theres been some new ion-based nettop that were announced/released recently so you want might to look into that as well.

[aaronb]

What do you mean by "better than a Revo"? Is there something you're looking for that the Revo won't do? It plays back 1080p just fine.

[akelley]

What else do you want to do or could see wanting to do with this other than XBMC (you mention iTunes)? The Atom 230 or 330 processors work fine in streaming full HD content. I use the Zotac implementation (as opposed to Acer) and the only con I have seen so far is that the more intensive skins like Aeon are not as snappy (though there are some tweaks you can do to help with this). I have mine running Windows 7, but if you wanted a true XBMC only "appliance", use XBMC Live. But if you want more like gaming, you'll probably want faster CPU and you'll most likely need to stick with Windows.

[NotShorty]

You'll max out the Revo's hard drive real quick with Bluray rips. The hardware in my signature was roughly the same price. Less compact, but more upgradeable/futureproof.

NS

[justdoit]

i think most who purchase one of these nettops will typically use it stream from a fileserver therefore not really utilizing much space itself on the device.

in any case, if i didn't purchase the aspire revo 1600 already .. i would wait for this one from Lenovo (should be released in June)

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/11/lenov...ttop-to-c/

[marnixk]

The Lenovo seems a nice small thingy, but it doesn't has a digital audio out port, so you will have to get your digital audio from the hdmi signal

[sweetalmond]

Thanks all for your responses.
I did more research and I decided to go with the aspire revo 1600 as i see it is a very popular choice.
It works perfectly for me.
Only issue is with AEON 65 skin, but I posted the issue on a thread.