[thechemist]

I know this is my first post but I have been lurking for some time and have been learning a lot.

I essentially want to cancel my parents cable service (Comcast rapes after 12 months) and use a small low powered box for them to stream movies/tv shows/music. I only have a couple basic requirements for the box set up. They currently have a 720p Panasonic however, my dad will be upgrading to a 1080p LED tv so 1080p output is a must. I want the box to boot up xvmc automatically so they do not get lost. Wi-fi is also a must as our modem is no where near the living room and they will not be accessing movies/music from a hard drive/server. That being said, the box has to stream 1080p movies with little to no hiccups. My dad is a movie buff and lives on Netflix. I want the menus to be snappy with very little to no lag and for them to use the TV's remote or another universal remote. The box should be self updating as they are not really xbmc developmentally inclined. The platform can be OSX, Android or Linux as long as it's stable. I was looking into getting a Midnight MX2 dual core off craigslist as there are a few floating around. If there is something better, performance wise, i would be glad to take that.

They do have this panasonic media center. If i am about to JB it or install XBMC on it then the above can be forgotten.
http://www.world-import.com/Panasonic-SC...system.htm

I was thinking a building a Raspberry Pi with a usb Wi-fi port and building a case out of legos or something.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[jammyb]

NUC and homeplugs. You wanna be problem free then don't even attempt WiFi. You'll be buffering till the cows come home.

[thechemist]

well the modem is not on the same level of my house so wi-fi is the only option

which NUC do you recommend for my goal?

[gfb107]

Not what we would choose for ourselves, but for non-technical relatives that just want it to work, are primarily interested in Netflix, and live in the USA, I find the Roku 3 hard to beat. Even has a nice PLEX client.

[jammyb]

well the modem is not on the same level of my house so wi-fi is the only option

which NUC do you recommend for my goal?

So what if the modem is on another floor?. Home plugs work on separate circuits. Have a read up on home plugs mate. WiFi is crap for video streaming. And you want to do 1080p! Ha!

[thechemist]

So what if the modem is on another floor?. Home plugs work on separate circuits. Have a read up on home plugs mate. WiFi is crap for video streaming. And you want to do 1080p! Ha!

I have never heard about home plugs till now. I will read about them and probably pick up some. There are a few NUC, which one is the simplest but fit for my needs

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which type of home plugs should I get? Is there a limit of number of home plugs in can run in a house?

[ballzo]

Just something to keep in mind regarding saving your folks money is canceling cable service with Comcast. If your folks are using any other services like internet or phone. In my experience Comcast will charge you so much more for those other services that it will make hard for you to dump the TV service. Comcast is the devil!

[thechemist]

Just something to keep in mind regarding saving your folks money is canceling cable service with Comcast. If your folks are using any other services like internet or phone. In my experience Comcast will charge you so much more for those other services that it will make hard for you to dump the TV service. Comcast is the devil!

That's good to know. Right now we have the triple play. If we could downgrade to the double play. I hope to save them a couple dollars. Something is better than nothing

[satcabler67]

I use the mx2 with the wall plugs for Ethernet connection works great still some buffering on some movies but overall I am very happy with my choice. tried the wifi but gave up on that the first day . I'm 68 so I know what it is like to want the least troublesome setup

[ballzo]

Just something to keep in mind regarding saving your folks money is canceling cable service with Comcast. If your folks are using any other services like internet or phone. In my experience Comcast will charge you so much more for those other services that it will make hard for you to dump the TV service. Comcast is the devil!

That's good to know. Right now we have the triple play. If we could downgrade to the double play. I hope to save them a couple dollars. Something is better than nothing

That might be OK. I had just TV and Internet and wanted to get rid of TV service. To cancel TV, it was going to cost me more for internet service with reduced speed than what I already had. In the end I had to just take the cheapest TV package I could get so I could get good Internet data speed too. I rarely watch the comcast TV anymore since I got my XBMC up and running.

Another thing to do to save some money for your folks if you have not already is to buy your own modem and stop paying the comcast rental fee. I'm doing this and going to install one for my mom too soon. They have good routers at costco right now for $75.00. Easy to install. Just call comcast, give them the mac address of the router you plan to install and plug it in. Pretty easy.

[thechemist]

I use the mx2 with the wall plugs for Ethernet connection works great still some buffering on some movies but overall I am very happy with my choice. tried the wifi but gave up on that the first day . I'm 68 so I know what it is like to want the least troublesome setup

If you like the mx2 at 68, I think my folks would appreciate the simplicity of the mx2's plug and play. I will try to find a cheap one floating around with some home plugs.

thanks every one

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That might be OK. I had just TV and Internet and wanted to get rid of TV service. To cancel TV, it was going to cost me more for internet service with reduced speed than what I already had. In the end I had to just take the cheapest TV package I could get so I could get good Internet data speed too. I rarely watch the comcast TV anymore since I got my XBMC up and running.

Another thing to do to save some money for your folks if you have not already is to buy your own modem and stop paying the comcast rental fee. I'm doing this and going to install one for my mom too soon. They have good routers at costco right now for $75.00. Easy to install. Just call comcast, give them the mac address of the router you plan to install and plug it in. Pretty easy.

I'll keep this in mind and see if they can downgrade the whole tv service for the faster internet. We have the triple play since a LAN is need for ADT and I think we paid a one time fee for the all in one box. Granted the wi-fi is terrible on it so I put it in bridge mode and ran our cheap but effective wireless linksys router

[method115]

Just something to keep in mind regarding saving your folks money is canceling cable service with Comcast. If your folks are using any other services like internet or phone. In my experience Comcast will charge you so much more for those other services that it will make hard for you to dump the TV service. Comcast is the devil!

That's good to know. Right now we have the triple play. If we could downgrade to the double play. I hope to save them a couple dollars. Something is better than nothing

That might be OK. I had just TV and Internet and wanted to get rid of TV service. To cancel TV, it was going to cost me more for internet service with reduced speed than what I already had. In the end I had to just take the cheapest TV package I could get so I could get good Internet data speed too. I rarely watch the comcast TV anymore since I got my XBMC up and running.

Another thing to do to save some money for your folks if you have not already is to buy your own modem and stop paying the comcast rental fee. I'm doing this and going to install one for my mom too soon. They have good routers at costco right now for $75.00. Easy to install. Just call comcast, give them the mac address of the router you plan to install and plug it in. Pretty easy.

Yea I'm stuck with Uverse for a while but I never watch TV and downgraded it to the lowest level. I just can't handle commericlas anymore to irritating.

[nc88keyz]

Not to get too off topic,


But over a year ago, i set up the following for my dad.

We tryed appletv classics running xbmc first: Epic fail. Kept crashing, and losing hard drives. , had crystal hd etc. I used to be able to pick these up off craigslist for around 40 usd or so.

We decided to sell them off as is on ebay. With proceeds ,

we then we jumped when the arctic boxes MC0001 i think, were 99 at amazon.

We bought 4, two for me and two for him.

We did the entire skin setup using Hybrid, I find it a very nice, uncomplicated skin.

Set every single thing up and made shortcuts. Mirrored the SD Card, and called one upstairs and one downstairs XBMC clients.

Using Putty, Openelec, Asus Router administration, Teamviewer, and MS RDP, web admin. and harmony remotes (880) which he already had.

He was up and running openelec in no time. I can also update his denon reciever. He can watch SBS 3D movies and everything. If it ever breaks

I can fix of course via android client, or pc via remote. Just about everything except RDP the xbmc client itself. One of these days I wouldnt mind trying to get VNC working with openelc. I have heard its possible.


But can do firmware updates, reboots, library updates. He is running mysql library whole home syncing as well. Across three clients. If there is every a scan issue or something, I can remote in and use the windows version to fix a library issue with ease.

It was a very fun project and brought us enjoyment. I got to talk him through building the artic xbmc client from opening the box, to installing the memory and thermal pads as it is a fanless unit.

Recently it got DTS-HD passthrough, and that was an unexpected update that is enjoyable of course thanks to AMD.


Anyways, dont hesitate. XBMC is the best media manager on the face of the earth, and there is no reason to not share with your family.

Other things not discussed in this forum happen too remotely to grown his collection.

Recently his trendnet switch died last week. No suprise mine did too a few years ago. THey are cheap and last a few years.

Switched to a dlink and have been sailing smooth since.



Another side note: if you dont want to use homeplug / (powerline adapters)

and they are with directv. U can piggy back off the directv rg6 lines with deca converters which split off the ip address from the coax back to ethernet. It works well and give you 100mbps. vs. gigabit but he does not buffer at all.

Read up more on the internet about that. You can even use a switch off the deca to connect bluray, receiver, smart tv, and xbmc. My dad is doing just that downstairs without complications.


Good Luck with everything.