Hi guys and girls.
Im in the process of building a "htpc" and a NAS (but thats going go use Emby for kodi for scraping in my language so i'll post about that on their forum) and i could really use some help of what i should buy in terms of HTPC since its going to be in the living room.
My filetypes are: AVI, MKV, Little bit of MP4 and ISO files. (ISO i can do without if its a retarded filetype for movies). Most of it are in 720p with a few 1080p here and there. None of them are native tho and the biggest files i have are 8GB. I have about 3 TB worth of content and its growing. I have 0 understanding of video codecs and sound etc other than i have quite alot of movies with "x264-DTS sound" attached to it.
I'm not too sure what to buy in terms of HTPC? I can do DYI if its the best solution. otherwise it looks like that either the ASrock beebox or the x8-h plus is more than enough for my needs? Its very important that its "easy" to setup and most important easy to use since my girlfriend will be using it alot aswell.
Hope you guys can help me out. If you need more information please do tell what info you need me to provide!
Hi,
I don't know your budget, but there are many expensive and cheap solutions. These are a few examples that, for the most part, don't need a lot of work.
Intel NUC ( relatively expensive).
Windows or straight OpenELEC.
Great (main HTPC) solution.
Wetek Play
Official sponsor, easy installation, little configuration
Has build-in tuner(s) if you would need a simple backend for live-tv to feed to Kodi.
Rapsberry Pi.
Might be the cheapest solution and has some shortcomings. Runs plain old OpenELEC, so that' s great if all ypu want to do is play some videos.
There are lots and lots more, some unsupported.
I really like the MX2, for example.
Great box, but has some shortcoming & unsupported ( tweaker-alert ;-) )
Hope that gets you started, have fun!
(2015-09-22, 20:42)Atreyu Wrote: [ -> ]Hi,
I don't know your budget, but there are many expensive and cheap solutions. These are a few examples that, for the most part, don't need a lot of work.
Intel NUC ( relatively expensive).
Windows or straight OpenELEC.
Great (main HTPC) solution.
Wetek Play
Official sponsor, easy installation, little configuration
Has build-in tuner(s) if you would need a simple backend for live-tv to feed to Kodi.
Rapsberry Pi.
Might be the cheapest solution and has some shortcomings. Runs plain old OpenELEC, so that' s great if all ypu want to do is play some videos.
There are lots and lots more, some unsupported.
I really like the MX2, for example.
Great box, but has some shortcoming & unsupported ( tweaker-alert ;-) )
Hope that gets you started, have fun!
Hi and thanks for your response!
Well my max budget at the moment is $450 but i would be happy if i could spend about $300
is the 2 i mentioned not good for my needs? the Wetek play seems nice but i dont need the tuners
HTPCs are a thing of the past. These days you should be able to get a very good box for $200 or less, if all you need is a media player.
Chromebox/Pi2 seem to be the most popular devices, with Wetek, Zotac zbox BI320 and HP Mini Stream, not too far behind. All these devices have threads out there.
Nvidia Shield and Google Player are others as well.
Spend $200 on a set-top-box/Mini PC and the rest on a NAS. Just my $0.02...
I have a Fire TV Box and while it was really popular some time back, it has not been lately. Still love mine though!
Also check this sticky thread on top of first page:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=94268
It is VERY easy to over-buy on hardware for Kodi. Your requirements are not exceptional in any way, and going by your thread title, something like a cheap Chromebox will more than meet your needs. It does require a few steps to turn into standalone appliance with OpenElec, and you need to add IR for remote control (Ie. FLIRC), but after that... It just works. And works very well indeed.
HTPC's with loud fans are a waste of money unless you are playing games that require powerful Graphics.
Intel NUC's are complete overkill are well just for Kodi use.
If its Kodi use only as has been said, get a Chromebox or one of its derivatives.
Going forward the 4K HEVC decode capable ASRock Beebox is the next step along from the that, its also has the benefit of having a built in IR receiver. Combine that with a MCE compatible IR remote and that will work out of the box.
Run OpenELEC on both and your good to go.
The Wetek 4K Core available next month might be worth a look as well if you want a well sorted Android device with HD Netflix. Wetek devices can be purchased without TV tuners.
We use a Zotac zbox BI320 and cant be more happy with it
Low profile, sits under the tv and you don't notice it
Running windows on it, you have an operating system that everyone in the house knows how to use
Just buy a celeron nuc, or a chromebox (but seeing all the, excuse the expression, noob issue/questions in the chromebox thread, you're probably better off with a nuc)
Don't go into the hevc trap that is seemingly all the rage nowadays. The braswell/most android boxes don't support 4k@60fps (for the GUI) and 8bit hevc is useless. Buy a nuc now , enjoy it, and then buy another box when kaby lake boxes are out in a couple of years since they will support 10bit hevc hw decoding.
So i can see that its getting between these 3 choices: Asus chromebox (which one since theres multiple ones and alot of them are in the same price range?
), ASrock beebox N3150/N3000 and the Zotac zbox BI320. All of them pretty much costs the same so is there any significant difference between them i should take into account? Is there really any of those options above theres better than the rest of them?
Its really nice seeing the quick responses from you guys
really feels like you are honest about your recommendations.
If your looking at the Zotac zbox BI320, it comes in two types.
The bare bones version has no hard drive, memory or operating system and only the option of a single hard drive from whats been said on the internet
The Zotac ZBOX BI320 PLUS, comes with 2gb memory, 64 gig ssd and windows 8.1 bing. The 2gig of memory is a single stick, so you have a second slot in the box to add more. plus room for a hard drive
When I ordered ours, at the same time I added another 8 gig of ram and a 750gig hard drive for media storage
Plus there is no wireless connection, so if you intend to run it wireless on your network, you would need a usb wireless adaptor
(2015-09-23, 16:19)LeeSpain Wrote: [ -> ]If your looking at the Zotac zbox BI320, it comes in two types.
The bare bones version has no hard drive, memory or operating system and only the option of a single hard drive from whats been said on the internet
The Zotac ZBOX BI320 PLUS, comes with 2gb memory, 64 gig ssd and windows 8.1 bing. The 2gig of memory is a single stick, so you have a second slot in the box to add more. plus room for a hard drive
When I ordered ours, at the same time I added another 8 gig of ram and a 750gig hard drive for media storage
Plus there is no wireless connection, so if you intend to run it wireless on your network, you would need a usb wireless adaptor
I'm not planning on having content on the device itself but on a NAS. I will be going wireless so thanks for the heads up about the adaptor!
One plus for the ChromeBox is that it comes with a SSD and RAM, as well as a wifi/BT card, so the only thing you need to add is a remote (and possibly an IR receiver). And while it requires a little bit of hacking to initially set up, 99% of the issues encountered are documented (with mitigation) on the wiki. All you need is the base Celeron/2GB/16GB model.
Anyone tried one of these Quantum Byte fanless boxes?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SCBWF52/ref=...B00IT1WJZQ
At $170, it's pretty cheap and even includes a copy of Windows (just sayin') It uses a quad core Atom CPU and comes with 2GB DDR3 and 32GB of "storage". It also has blue tooth 4.0 and 802.11 a/b/g/n with an external antenna.
That said, I bought a NUC5PPYH quad core Pentium for $170, but of course I had to add RAM and storage (I put in a 1TB HD). I really like it, though it's not the cheapest guy on the block. It's certainly got a decent level of performance once you get the bleeding edge hardware working. OE works well on it running from an SDHC card, but I installed Mythbuntu and Kodi Isengard 15.1 to make a completely self-contained DVR/Media Center box. I have everything working but the built in IR, but I put that off until the end. That's today's project actually. I'm still struggling a bit with Pulseaudio trying to get full HDMI pass through working, but I do have PCM surround sound going okay. Honestly, I'm not a fan of pulseaudio so far. pavucontrol isn't wanting to admit that the hardware is capable of 7.1 surround and not just 5.1
I'm using a Hauppauge 950Q USB tuner stick and it's working okay. A whole MythTV back-end and Kodi front-end in one 4.5" square by 2" deep PC. I'm impressed.
Once I get it all lined out, I plan to put together a HOWTO to describe what you have to do to get it all working with Mythbuntu and Kodi. OpenELEC by itself is a piece of cake, but the box is overkill for that. If you just want a front-end, the RPi2 running OE makes a good one. The Amazon Fire TV Stick isn't too bad either, but it's a little fussy.
My goal is to put together a self-contained demo box that I can haul around and wow potential cable-cutter customers. I'm almost there. My main problem now is that I live over 20 miles from the local TV transmitter farm and puny antennas don't cut it.
The NUC has built in dual-band wifi, BT 4.0 and a consumer IR receiver (it might be a transmitter too, but I'm not sure on that). It also has room for an internal SSD or 2.5" laptop style HD. I believe it's SATA-III (6Gb/s) as well. It also has an external SDHC UHS socket. The quad-core Pentium runs at a stated max of 2.4GHz, but /proc/cpuinfo reports it running at 2.5GHz at peak. FInally, it has HDMI and a 15 pin DSUB VGA connector and TOSLINK optical audio output. It also has 4 USB 3.0 ports and one is designated as a "charging port", so I assume that it can deliver at least 1A of current. All in all, it's a decent collection of specs for the money IMO. I would like to see two memory sockets instead of one and another internal SATA port might be nice.
Good choice, it's overrall the cheapest box that "just works" and has enough horsepower for whatever you might throw at it.
Feel free to add the writeup to the wiki. I'm sure lots of people will appreciate that.
In terms of bang-for-the-buck, I think the NUC is the best one that I've seen that fits into the "hockey puck" style computers. If you want to go with something larger, ASRock mini-itx boards are nice. I like the NUC because of its size and having IR, BT and dual-band WiFi all built in. Just add some RAM and the storage medium of choice (SD, SSD or HD) and it's good to go. All those USB 3.0 ports are nice too. It has an internal header for USB 2, but nobody seems to make a cable that you can hook up to it. If it had display port or HDMI 2 and an M.2 slot it would be perfect, but then Intel would be hard pressed to sell their next model. As it stands, it's still an excellent choice for a self-contained media center especially with h.265 capabilities, just no 4K @ 60fps, oh well you can't expect to have everything for $170.
Thanks, I've never added to a wiki before, I might need some guidance on that. First, I have to get 7.1 passthrough and the IR port working. It's been a really long time (>10years) since I last battled with LIRC, so I'm sure that I'm in for a real learning experience again. It's been that long since I last played with MythTV as well. I have to say it's gotten a lot more stable (once you get it working), but it's still pretty temperamental about getting things the way it likes, especially with MythWeb. I tried several different distros (regular Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint), but I had a bunch of trouble with each one trying to get everything working, so I went back to Mythbuntu since it brings the lightest weight desktop and a working MythTV to the table. The trick is not breaking things while doing outside the box kernel and package upgrades to get the Braswell hardware all working. VAAPI acceleration was a real chore to figure out until I found the right ppa, then it just worked more or less. Hopefully pulseaudio will upgrade as well since Mythbuntu only comes with version 4. They are up to 7 now, and it's only about a month old. Hopefully, I won't have to go that far to get 7.1 support and pass through working with the HDMI port.
EDIT: BTW, it does appear that the IR is capable of transmission as well as receive. That's pretty neat IMO. The hardware also has near-field capabilities. I have no idea about how that works yet. That will be way down the list of my priorities I'm afraid.