Kodi Community Forum

I wasn't sure where to post this as I a have a few nooby questions that cover a few areas (hardware, OS, and plugins) so here goes;

I have decided to go for an Acer Revo R3700, they are within budget and have all the connectors I need (HDMI & Optical).

I can't make my mind up whether to go for a Revo with no OS (and use XBMC Live) or choose one with Win 7. The difference is £80 which could go towards my much needed NAS (initially I will be playing media from a USB HDD).

I will want to;

Use my Logitech Harmony One as the main control (using the keyboard and mouse as little as possible). I take it I just need to order an IR receiver?

Play Blu Ray Rips in .iso format. Movie only rip (no need for menus), 1080p, original bitrate.

Play sopcast football streams, I know I can use the application within Windows but from searching these boards there doesn't seem to be a working plugin for XBMC.

Play FLAC music files.

I have never used Linux before but I wouldn't mind using it if it mean't the unit will do all the above (and save me some money).

Which would you recommend for me? and will the R3700 handle all of the above? or could I get something cheaper?

Any help is appreciated.

cheaper is a hard thing recommend....because even though something is cheaper today doesn't mean tomorrow something else wont be on sale

you need to decide which version route you want to take.....live is usually recommended as a more "appliance" feel because it boots right into xbmc....although the windows version can do the same thing if you set it up that way

if the things you need requires windows then you you know you have to go that route and you need something strong enough to run windows 7 and have a proper gpu

i have an old refrub revo 1600 and run live.....this has been my first experience using linux on any level but most things you could want have instructions somewhere on these forums

for some trickier stuff i was able to install firefox to run some stuff from a browser

not that i helped much but just recommend where to start....decide which version you want to run and that could dictate what hardware you go with.....or go with the 3700 and have the option to go either

The Revo should have no problem with any of that. I've got no answer on the sopcast football streams (no experience). FLAC should be fine either way. I'm relatively certain you'll need an IR receiver, though it'd be handy to check the 3700 documentation to make sure it doesn't already have one.

The one tricky bit is going to be the bluray ISOs. Up until very recently, XBMC didn't support them at all. Now, you can see here that initial support was added by Spiff, but I personally don't have any ISOs to test to make sure they work. So at the very least, you should probably keep an eye on that.

Hi thanks for the advice. Perhaps I should mention I am talking about blu ray rips that have decryption removed and only include the main movie (so no menus) all in one iso file. I was under the impression that XBMC could play these.... I am off to do some more searching about what the state of play is.