I guarantee you that cmdrmonkey had no idea DTS couldn't equal the sound quality of AAC unless it was over 4X the bit rate. It's actually kind of a dumb choice in formats for digital downloads.
My $200 HTPC is up and running. Tried a few 1080p mkv files with DTS audio and they play back flawlessly in XBMC. I have it working with my harmony remote so that I can control XBMC and Windows Media Center and have some basic control over windows. The PC is set up with the harmony remote so that it sleeps when not in use. Specs: AMD A6-3650 Quad Core APU 8GB Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3-1333 ASUS F1A75-M Pro R2.0 Rosewill Windows Media Center Remote (using IR receiver with harmony) Antec Neo 400W (already owned) Antec P180 (already owned) 320GB WD 7200RPM (already owned) It's also pretty fast for something so cheap. WEI: CPU: 7.2 Memory: 7.4 Graphics: 5.8 Gaming Graphics: 6.5 Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 I don't know if you want pictures or anything because the P180 is just sort of a generic looking grey box. I'm happy with it. It's way more versatile than any streaming box out there, and for just a bit more money. What I will say is that it was only a very cheap option for me because I already had a lot of hardware lying around from old computers. For someone building from scratch, it would be significantly more than $200.
Hmm, I might just have enough overstock to pull that off. Thanks! Does Windows Media Center integrate well with piracy? I am not that up-tight about interface, I wouldn't mind stock Windows.
Windows Media Center is okay, but XBMC is better. It has a fantastic 10 foot user interface and great codec support. I highly recommend it. It beats everything else out there for playing back pirated/ripped content. It also plays nice with the harmony remote. http://xbmc.org/ The newer versions are hardware accelerated, so you'll need a half-way decent GPU to run it well. It's the best thing I've found. It puts trying to use a game console, blu-ray player, or streaming box to shame. The interface and codec support are a trillion times better. I haven't found anything it can't play. In theory XBMC can run on a Raspberry Pi, but I've heard it's sluggish due to the weak hardware, and difficult to install in Linux.
I tried XBMC on my original Apple TV and I thought it was better than Boxee at the time. The interface is nothing out of the ordinary though.
The interface has changed quite a bit in recent versions. Boxee (which I don't think anyone even uses these days) and the original Apple TV means you probably used it 3 or 4 years ago I'm guessing? It's very different now. Also, I'm not even sure if the new version would work on an Apple TV if you wanted to try it. From what I recall, the original Apple TV was a Pentium M with a GMA900. XBMC 12 requires a pretty decent GPU to run.
No, I just looked at a YouTube video for the most recent version. I think it's actually simpler now, which isn't a bad thing. I don't think anyone has really nailed it for TV interface yet.
True, but I think the interface is better than most, and XBMC has great codec support. It's rare to find something that has both a good interface and good codec support. Take the WD Live for instance. Great codec support, atrocious interface. Or the PS3 has the XMB which is a very nice interface, but the PS3's codec support is sketchy at best, and I've even found divx/xvid avi files it can't play.
I could have left my laptop on and streamed or even put it on and streamed it from my wife's iPhone which is paired with it. The USB stick was the closest thing I had to hand and it meant using the least amount of power. Don't need to use my ps3 for these movies now as long as the TV plays the stuff I get.
Just a few Q's... Are you using the standalone linux 'OS' version of XMBC or the Windows exe version? If the windows exe version, can you startup right into it without seeing a desktop startup and then waiting for the program to pop up? How is scaling compared to PS3? I have and still get 720p files and find my PS3 scales them very nicely, much better than 360 and much much better than PC (laptop) plugged into my TV via HDMI. I've never done the laptop thing myself, it's always friends and they've never used VLC, so maybe (hopefully), that's part of the problem. I currently use PS3 Media server streaming to my PS3, and it's almost flawless. Sometimes the audio won't work on the default and I have to try a different encode mode, and sometimes with dual audio anime the audio gets more and more out of sync for one ep but not for another... The main reason to change is Cinavia DRM (!!!) and the fact that my PS3 controllers battery is dead and I don't want to pay for a new one when I don't play any games on the thing right now. Trinity is an awesome platform for HTPC's and there are finally some mini-itx boards out, although the one I've seen doesn't have wi-fi, that's ok since my cable router is on the TV rack.
I'm running the windows .exe version; and while it is possible to have windows boot directly into XBMC, I'm not currently doing that as I have other uses for this PC (chrome, skype, etc). I have XBMC pinned to the taskbar, and I can open it by having the Harmony remote send the command "windows key + 1" to the HTPC, and close it with "alt+f4." It works just as well IMO, and doesn't reduce the PC to just being an appliance that runs XBMC. It scales perfectly, but you have to keep in mind that the AMD APUs come with very respectable, almost discrete level integrated GPUs. That's really their main selling point. They're about as close to perfect as you're going to get for an HTPC chip. Decent-ish CPU + good GPU on one chip with no need for a big, noisy, power guzzling video card that's just going to take up space in what's probably already a cramped HTPC case. I agree that the PS3 combined with PS3 Media Server was a pretty decent way to stream media prior to Sony implementing the Cinavia DRM. Now it's practically useless. I'd say roughly half of all newer movies I try to play have the Cinavia watermark. It's basically a gamble as to whether the audio will cut out after 20 minutes, and it's just not worth dealing with. And the pirate community has yet to find a way to strip the watermark out of files. The best way to play back cinavia protected files is to just use something that's not infected with the cinavia DRM, like an HTPC. And I don't trust companies like Apple and Western Digital to not cave into Sony and implement Cinavia themselves in their streaming boxes, which is why I went with an HTPC. The companies that make Blu-ray players have all caved, and the newer players are all infected with it. As far as actually playing back files, I have yet to find anything XBMC couldn't play back perfectly. No weird error messages or out of sync audio like I frequently encountered on the PS3. It plays everything you throw at it. MiniITX is an awesome way to go as it's absolutely tiny. Space wasn't that big of a concern in my case, so I went with MicroATX, and threw the whole thing into a Silverstone Grandia GD04 case. I like the GD04 because it hides the optical drive. You end up with a PC that looks very much like an A/V receiver instead of a PC. Someone looking at it casually probably wouldn't even think it was a PC. It blends in perfectly. An HTPC isn't going to be the right solution for everyone, but in my case it fits all of my needs perfectly. It's more expensive than the other options out there, but I also don't feel like I'm compromising in any way.
That all sounds better than I expected. My friend said to get the standalone linux based version, but it would be nice to have other uses for the thing. I'm also unsure how well the GPU part of the APU would perform outside of windows or even if all the features would work. My main problem justifying the thing is not having enough re-usable parts. I will be building a new mATX PC shortly and most of the stuff in my current build will go unused. Problem is the PSU is useless for anything I want to build, its a 180mm long 1000w Corsair HX. So it won't fit, is overkill and it's not even 80+ bronze (officially, anyway). I'm left with maybe a WD green 1TB drive from 2008 as about the only part I can use in a HTPC. ITX also means paying the same or even sometimes more for less. You're paying for the small size. So I will have to decide if I really need that, I'm thinking it will be way better in the long run, and I need a new PSU anyway so a SFF with small PSU built in may be the go. Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure if I'll be able to build a HTPC as soon as I'd like, but it's definitely on the cards eventually.
@cmdrmonkey Have you still managed to stay cable tv free? I'm thinking of making the plunge to internet/streaming only and dropping my cable service. I don't watch enough tv to justify it , but I like the comfort of leaving the tv on 24/7. How have you made out?
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to stay cable free. Two things happened: -We moved from the city to a house in the suburbs where the antenna reception is very poor. You would need a roof mounted antenna to get decent reception here, and I'm too lazy to climb on the roof and install an antenna. -My wife likes terrible reality shows like those Real Housewives shows on Bravo. She also felt weird when her family would come to visit and we didn't have cable. She wanted cable back. If it were up to me, we would still be cable free. The shows I watch, like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad are popular and easy to find on torrent sites. But it's not just up to me.