[NicCo]

Hi,
I'm not sure but is there a compatibility between Intel 2955U, Kodi, Full SBS/TAB and Full HD TV ?
I don't know if Kodi supports Full SBS, if 2955U can output 2160@24p and if a Full HD TV (1080p) can accept Full SBS signal ?
Thank you !

[noggin]

The 2955U-based Chromebox certainly supports 4096x2160 and 3840x2160 output over HDMI (2D 4K/UHD) - though is limited to 23.976/24.00Hz at 4096 and adds 25.00/29.97 and 30.00Hz at 3840.

[NicCo]

Ok thanks, I have a Gigabyte with an Intel 2955U, not a Chromebox but the CPU is the same so it should be OK.
Is Kodi support Full SBS or TAB ?
Thanks.

[Freetvhound]

Thank you Poofy. I just ordered the Asus Chromebox based on your very informative post.

Thank you for taking the time to write this for everyone.

[aemdesign]

Do you guys think that an Asus Chromebox is a worth-it-replacement for an Acer Aspire RevoR3610 (dual core Intel Atom 330 @ 1.60GHz, 2 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard-drive)?
I must say I am quite satisfied with my little old Acer, it is running openelec Helix quite smoothly -but it sometimes lags with heavier skins (I'm using Amber to avoid lags) and won't play any HEVC video.

Just to clear my mind, will the Chromebox (Intel Celeron 2955U + 2 or 4 gb ram) play for example these mkv files:
1) Video: x265 - 1080p (1920px x 800px) - 6500 Kbps - 24 fps // Audio: Ac3 6ch 640 Kbps
2) Video: x265 - 1080p (1920px x 800px) - 5700 Kbps - 48 fps // Audio: Ac3 6ch 640 Kbps
3) Video: x264 - 1080p (1920px x 800px) - 5000 Kbps - 60 fps // Audio: Ac3 6ch 640 Kbps

[wrxtasy]

Wait for Intel Skylake microarchitecture to hit if you want full HEVC support in a NUC sized device otherwise you will just be wasting money with a stop gap measure and have to upgrade again, likely before the end of the year.

I personally bought a $35 ODROID-C1 with a Amlogic S805 SOC that does Hardware decode of H265 (HEVC) content. The MK808b Plus detailed in the first page of this thread also has the very capable Amlogic S805 SOC.

[aemdesign]

Wait for Intel Skylake microarchitecture to hit if you want full HEVC support in a NUC sized device otherwise you will just be wasting money with a stop gap measure and have to upgrade again, likely before the end of the year.

I personally bought a $35 ODROID-C1 with a Amlogic S805 SOC that does Hardware decode of H265 (HEVC) content. The MK808b Plus detailed in the first page of this thread also has the very capable Amlogic S805 SOC.

Thank you very much wrxtasy, that's exactly what I needed to know.
I will wait for Skylake then, in the end it's a matter of few months. In the meanwhile I will connect my laptop to the receiver via hdmi for HEVC support, or eventually buy an ODROID-C1 or similar solution for that.

[SABERZAID]

i just bought new box , it is minix neo x8-h plus , what do you think guys

it is the new 8-h plus

[RyLo2797]

Thanks for the great thread and first post. It helped me tremendously, but before I start buying hardware, I was wondering if you all could look over my HTPC/PVR plan and see if I've come to the right conclusions. Please feel free to poke holes and offer your own opinions. I've tried my best to research this subject, but it seems that there's a lot of older information on HTPC's and a lot less current information. This seems especially true for PVR solutions. I apologize if this isn't the right place for this, but since this is a thread about choosing the right hardware, it seems like a good fit. I'm sorry it's a little long-winded, I tried to keep it succinct. There's a TL;DR at the bottom if you need it.

My plan is to have a wife-friendly PVR and media center that works in two rooms: the living room and the bedroom. I also plan to buy the hardware in steps, so that it eases the expense a bit. So I'll start with a main HTPC frontend/backend combo, then buy the bedroom box further down the line, and then maybe upgrade to an NAS for storage and PVR backend, someday. The network will most likely be Powerline based, CAT6 probably won't be an option.

Step 1 - Main Box
Since we're cutting cable entirely, we're going to rely on streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV) and OTA ATSC Live TV and PVR. For us, reliable recording, series recording, time-shifting, and quick channel changes are important. This will be a PVR box first, and a Kodi box second. This box will always be on, so power consumption and noise are a concern. I'd like to keep it small and quiet. I'll use a separate box for streaming services.

From what I understand, WMC is still hard to beat as a PVR. I'm open to trying out different backends (even Linux based backends) but I want a box that can run Windows 7 so that I can fall back to WMC if I need to. I'll probably just map WMC and Kodi to remote buttons so that I can easily switch back and forth. Unfortunately that rules out the Chromebox (at least for the main box). I created a spreadsheet comparing costs of all the different boxes, and it seems like an NUC with i3 and a small SSD is my best bet. I don't have faith that a Celeron or Pentium processor can handle the overhead of Windows and being both a backend and a frontend. My plan is to attach a USB 3.0 external HDD dock and use that as a networked shared drive. I'm hoping to choose a HDD that can later be used in an NAS array, so I'm not entirely sure what to buy, but the current plan is a Western Digital Green 3TB. Obviously a Chromebox would be much cheaper, so if there's a backend that can rival WMC that can be run on that, I'd love to hear about it.

As for a tuner, I'm kind of at a loss. I was planning on an HD Homerun Extend, but that's a pretty steep price for a network tuner that will only be used on two devices. And really, I could get by with only one on the main box. In the bedroom, we could just watch TV over antennae or recorded content streamed through Kodi and schedule all recordings on the main box. If you have any other recommendations, I'd be open to them.

Step 2 - OpenELEC Bedroom Box
This would be pretty standard. Either a Chromebox or Raspberry Pi 2 that would play the media from the 3 TB HDD in the living room via Powerline adapters or WiFi. I'd use MCE Buddy so that I can play our recorded OTA shows through Kodi in the bedroom.

Step 3 - NAS
I'd most likely go with a Synology 2 drive array. It doesn't seem worth the expense to use a RAID configuration, so they'd both be data drives and I can upgrade them when I need to. I shoot and edit video, so one of these would be great for sharing videos to any screen in the house, but it's far from a necessity. I doubt the misses will ever okay this step, but a man can dream.

TL;DR
My plan is to use an Intel NUC with i3 and an external 3 TB HDD as shared storage in my living room. Windows 7 and WMC will be both frontend and backend for PVR, Kodi will be used for ripped movies and as a general media center. An HD Homerun Extend will be used to pick up ATSC OTA signals, but I'm open to other tuners. An OpenELEC box will be bought later for the bedroom, where we can watch recorded shows and anything else on the HDD in the living room. Someday I'll transfer the living room HDD into a Synology NAS and use it without any kind of RAID configuration. Please critique and share your opinions about this plan/setup.

Thanks in advance.

[nickr]

Isn't the hdhr connect cheaper?

You should seriously consider mythtv.

[robo989]

OP is still wildly out of date.

[robo989]

Wait for Intel Skylake microarchitecture to hit if you want full HEVC support in a NUC sized device otherwise you will just be wasting money with a stop gap measure and have to upgrade again, likely before the end of the year.

I personally bought a $35 ODROID-C1 with a Amlogic S805 SOC that does Hardware decode of H265 (HEVC) content. The MK808b Plus detailed in the first page of this thread also has the very capable Amlogic S805 SOC.

Broadwell NUCs offer "good enough" HEVC acceleration.

[RyLo2797]

Isn't the hdhr connect cheaper?

You should seriously consider mythtv.

Good catch on the connect, I missed the part where it can still send HD over ethernet.

As for MythTV, can you recommend a low power box to work as the backend? The only PC I have is a video editing machine that consumes quite a bit of power, so I like to keep it off when I'm not using it. Would it be possible to install a Linux distro (like Mint) on a Chromebox, install the Myth backend and Kodi, or would that need more power to handle both backend and frontend? Would an NUC i3 have enough power to handle that?

I don't have a lot of experience with Linux, but I consider myself fairly tech-savvy, so I think I could set that up.

OP is still wildly out of date.

Could you expand on that? In what ways is it out of date?

[katsup]

I have MythTV running with Kodibuntu on the Chromebox and it is fine. The recordings go to my NAS, but the full setup is still a work in progress. Live TV is working fine.

2 months is out of date according to robo989.

[nickr]

I favour my mythtv backend in the same server that has all my other media. I use a tower with a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz cpu with 4G ram. It is stuffed full of hard drives and sits in a cupboard. I much favour separate frontends. Backend is extremely stable. Frontends are updated frequently and although kodi is pretty stable, I can play with new versions without fearing that the 6pm news won't be recorded.