[aiken]

Like many newbs here, I'm a little overwhelmed by all of the choices involved in setting up a system to run XMBC/Linux. I know it's super-early, but I'd love to get going with it and maybe even use my meager coding skills to help out.

Can someone(s) help spec out a living-room appropriate system which would be reasonable to run 1080p, be as quiet as possbile (fanless, ideally), and as small as possible (uATX?)

To get things started, I've created this Newegg wish list. But I really don't know what I'm doing here. How much CPU will the thing need? Is the onboard sound good enough? I'd love thoughts and will happily make revisions and keep it shared so other people can use it.

Cheers
-b

[gfairbanks]

Here's what I just built. Big advantages are that it's very quiet and very low power (around 35W idle).

From what I read it's not quite so simple as just asking for a system that will do 1080p. The big problem is bitrate and encoding. The second problem is that the nVidia linux drivers don't use their special purpose hardware like they do in windows. So while my motherboard has the 7050 graphics chip with x264 decoding, the driver doesn't know how to use it. Maybe if we're lucky nVidia will improve the drivers.

My system:

• ABIT AN-M2HD mATX Motherboard @ $102
  
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core CPU BE-2350 (45W) @ $99
  
• Corsair 1GB DDR2-533 Memory @ $44
  
• Microsoft IR Remote Control and Receiver @ $31
  
• Reused: case, power supply, DVD, hard drive -- roughly $150
  

Getting SPDIF digital output working was easy. Getting the Xorg.conf output working for my plasma monitor was ok. Both MythTV and XBMC linux work fine in 720p.

One thing to note is how cheap this system is, overall. If you're picky about the case then you'll need to spend more. The remote comes with good LIRC support and an USB receiver.

I have some blog postings about it and have good intentions of making a more comprehensive post soon :-)

I hope this helps.

[k-pax]

gfairbanks

Hello, I have almost the same setup as you (same mobo,cpu)
Xbmc linux is the reason i buyed it.

Do you get surround (DD/DTS) from SPDIF in Ubuntu and xbmc linux?
I do get SPDIF sound in xbmc but its only 2 channel, the only way Im able to get surround through SPDIF is from Mplayer.

If you do get surround passthroug in xbmc linux, is it something special I need to do to get this working?


Off topic:
In your blog you mention that you got problem booting ubuntu from your IDE drive, I have experienced simular problems with my SATA HDD drive. After install it just freezes up after a couple of seconds into boot. I pressed the reset button, and after a couple of times it booted up. But after a fresh install a couple of days ago, i wasnt able to get i booting, so I changed the RAID settings i bios from SATA to AHCI, woila it booted just fine. But now my windows OSes didnt boot. So I builded a new kernel (2.6.22.6) with the nvidia driver buildt-in and now its working just fine in sata mode.

[herg]

By default, XBMC does not do passthrough, it downmixes to stereo instead. I hacked together a patch, but it is not complete enough for addition to the main code yet.

If you're interested, read this thread.

[k-pax]

herg
Thank you, I will try your patch.

[knatsch]

I just bought the mainboard-cpu combo stated above for testing. I installed kubuntu 7.04, the nvidia drivers and xbmc. Everything works fine exept for x264 720p material (the reason I bought those stuff). I get dropped frames in many movies. CPU is mostly between 45% and 65%.
At what % are you running HD stuff? Is it running for you smoothly?

[knatsch]

@herg: Sorry noob question: How to apply your patch? SPDIF is already working with mp3s or stereo Xvids..

[herg]

@herg: Sorry noob question: How to apply your patch? SPDIF is already working with mp3s or stereo Xvids..

From XBMC source directory:

Code:

patch -p0 < ac3pass.diff

[knatsch]

Oh thx so easy
But unfortunately videos are crashing immediately when using digital output. Analog is still working.
Here the steps I did:
1) svn up
2) applied your patch
3) compiled again

[k-pax]

Herg
I applied your patch, and now surround from spdif is working just fine.

Knatsch
I can verify your findings regards frame dropping with x264 720p. Its watchable if i turn off V-sync in settings, but then my framerates changes constantly.

[knatsch]

Thanks for the V-Sync tip

Have you done anything special to get the SPDIF patch working? I wonder why it is not working for me since we both have the same hardware..

[FlappySocks]

• ABIT AN-M2HD mATX Motherboard @ $102
  
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core CPU BE-2350 (45W) @ $99
  
• Corsair 1GB DDR2-533 Memory @ $44
  
• Microsoft IR Remote Control and Receiver @ $31
  
• Reused: case, power supply, DVD, hard drive -- roughly $150
  

Any updates as to how well this works with XMBC? 1080p?

[knatsch]

Any updates as to how well this works with XBMC? 1080p?

I've overclocked it about 10% to get smooth playback of 720p x264 content. So don't buy this hardware if you want to playback 1080p.

[FlappySocks]

So don't buy this hardware if you want to playback 1080p.

Thats a bummer. Think I will hold off for now, until progress is made with Video acceleration. ATI drivers are now open source, so Nvidia is not necessarily the default choice now.

[FlappySocks]

This might be a better motherboard.
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI
I'm sure now that the ATI drivers are open, someone will get video acceleration working fairly soon.