Hi there, I've been playing around with XBMC on my Windows XP PC for about a week now and like what I've seen very much so far. I'm trying to get XBMC from my office room into my living room. Apparently, this won't work with my existing hardware, so I'm looking for suggestions.
Until now, I've tried my old notebook (Sony Vaio with 256 MB RAM) -- XBMC crashes on program start. And my bondy blue iMac with an CPU upgrade to run Mac OS X -- says the archive is corrupted, even though I tried it a couple of times. I suppose it won't work on my Playstation 2 either.
What I'd like to do is have my main PC work like it already does -- it has about 5 TB of harddisk capacity, tons of nice videos on it and works just fine. But I'd like to have the possibility to watch my videos in my living room, too. I have a regular definition TV there (PAL + NTSC) but will probably switch to a beamer or a big HD flat screen at some point.
Until now, my assumtion was to simply get a XBox 360, as the X in XBMC stands for XBox, but apparently this platform is not supported. What about PS3, Apple TV, the Acer Revo, a Mac Mini or something else? Which one would you prefer and why? I'd like to access my video library through either ethernet or wi-fi and essentially duplicate what I can see on my main PC, ideally without having the XBMC interface running on my main PC.
Thanks!
XBMC isn't developed for the Xbox anymore. The PS3 was 'hacked' just a few days ago, so it's going to take a fair while before the first apps will be able to run on it.
Personally, I'd go for a HTPC. This can be an nVidia ION based platform, but I prefer normal mATX boards, based on an ATI chip with IGP (785G, for example). Thsi gives you more room to expand your setup with stuff like TV cards. You can buy one of these for rougly 200 euro's.
If you know how to work with Linux, choose Linux. XBMC works great on it and some neat stuff is Linux exclusive (VDPAU, for example). Otherwise, I'd go with Windows 7. You'll miss out on some stuff, but it's easier to install.
Hi Martin, thanks for the suggestion. I'm working with the Linux command line on a daily basis, but it's mainly php and html programming. I'm not too fit with actually administrating a Linux system. Any particular hardware you could suggest? Something that doesn't require to much tweaking on my part?
Nvidia ION platform with linux is probably the best "XBMC" way to go for cheap. And when the PVR stuff gets added you can just find a linux compatible usb tv tuner to plug into it if you want that feature.
If you don't mind spending a few dollars then of course themore powerfull the pc the better the gui should be. but since the ION's can decode video in GPU then can playback 1080p stuff fine
rkiesler Wrote:Hi Martin, thanks for the suggestion. I'm working with the Linux command line on a daily basis, but it's mainly php and html programming. I'm not too fit with actually administrating a Linux system. Any particular hardware you could suggest? Something that doesn't require to much tweaking on my part?
The Acer Aspire Revo is very very popular in these part when coupled with the Linux version of XBMC it will play HD flawlessly. No tweaking required, theres even a livecd avaliable that has been customized for ION based systems.
I use a Linux system and the hardware i got is an Intel Atom 330. Some remarks:
If you go for an Atom based system take the ION (VDPAU decoding for 720p movies is necessary). As for the Intel solutions (D945GCLF2), they are nice if you need S-Video out but you need to install the latest SVN video drivers to get that working. Or you make a VGA-to-SCART lead but that gives some other troubles (high contrast menu's don't work on interlaced displays).
Asrock(?) made a nice atom set-top box, see phoronix for a review.
ION is nice, but keep in mind that you can not use Windows on it without quite a fight. XBMC on Linux can use VDPAU without too much problems. You can use DXVA on Windows, but it's tricky. And there is no way an Atom on itself is going to decode 1080p or deïnterlace a TV signal (provided you got one of those in XBMC)
Well... It would of course be nice to have S-Video out. The alternative to that for me would be buying a VGA to TV converter which apparently costs another USD 250. Almost as much as the Revo itself...
see for example
http://www.converters.tv/products/vga_to_pal/232.html
I have no problems getting drivers out of Subversion, also it will be a couple of months until I buy this. I'm just checking options here and will look into the other systems you've all mentioned.
Also I'm working on this at the moment:
http://www.nexusuk.org/projects/vga2scart/
It's an conversion from VGA to SCART and you've to output 50hz interlaced from your videocard. It's quite tricky to solder and I still have some twitter to solve.
I'll try to post an howto with pro's and cons next week or so. Maybe Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 already ships with the required video drivers for S-Video, but no 720p at this moment (maybe with ffmpeg-mt)