Thinking about getting a new TV, speakers, the lot and so a media centre is on the cards. Last time I looked those acer revos running xbmc were pretty well regarded but they’re a touch pricey so wondering if there was anything else around at the moment? Probably not apple tv as I don’t have itunes and feel you get locked in to apple products?

if it helps, you can quite easily jailbreak apple tv so it will run XBMC, making it a very useful and powerful music and video streamer.

I Use this

Takes a core 2 duo. Near silent. Runs on a 2.5″ laptop drive.

I have it running Win 7 with Media Portal (forked from Myth TV & XBMC)

Runs it fine with the ability to us it as a PC too.
Everything is served from my main PC – soon to be NAS

Connections 5.1 Audio, HDMI, DVI, USB 2 & 3. Has a separate power supply to keep it quieter.

Nice piece of kit. Cost about $700 Oz so should be under £300 if you shop around.

I picked up an HP s3130 slimline PC for about £90 on eBay earlier this year. Added a £20 Radeon 5450 graphics card for HD decoding and HDMI out, and a £40 SSD drive. It’s running Windows 7 and XBMC (as well as being a Squeezebox Server) and works very nicely.

Comes with a Core 2 Duo (or AMD equivalent), 2GB RAM, DVD rewriter and a 250GB hard disk.

Looks like this:

Lots of the new generation of TVs are so-called “smart TVs”.

If what you want is streaming common media formats over the network, and using streaming services like iPlayer or Netflix, you might find your next TV can do all that without needing a separate box.

I’m just re-designing my home media solution and it will mostly be based around Jailbroken apple TV’s with the XBMC software on and a Synology disk station DS212J at the centre to hold all the media.

Reasonably cheap compared to most solutions out there and can be made to work with anything with a HDMI port/speakers.

Similar to above, DS212J but with a raspberry pi doing the playing.

Similar to above, DS212J but with a raspberry pi doing the playing.

What are you using on the Pi? I’m just playing around with one and was thinking of setting it up for this sort of work.

What are you using on the Pi?

http://xbian.org/

Its all setup for you, no fiddling needed. I’m using NFS on the synology to speed up transfer (needs insecure_locks fix), its a lot faster than windows shares, and some old 200Mbs homeplus. Plays huge 1080p files fine.

i am also very interested in getting a pi to do the bit between my NAS and my AV setup. interesting…

home media solution

That’s soooooo STW 🙂 😉

I’ve got XBMC running on an inherited PC with an HDMI out (via an AV receiver)

XBMC is so slick, wish I’d discovered it sooner.

Plex media server on Hackintosh and a Roku LT here. Does what I need it too, though the official channel support is a bit lacking (no C4OD).

I wish I had a clue what the hell you lot are talking about! I have a “smart” tv and plan on getting an av amp with ipod (bluetooth) connectivity. What would a “media” centre provide in addition? I feel that I’m missing out here…

The media centre just makes it so much easier to navigate compared to using a windows/mac PC. It’s designed with a GUI that is simpler looking and normally converges all of your media into one place instead of running multiple apps to get to stuff.

You could probably run XBMC on that PC you have and see what we mean.

Media centre software running on top of normal pc means best of both. Have a look at media portal.

by the way, i ended up getting a raspberry pi. it arrived yesterday, aiming to get it up and running raspbmc tonight. 🙂

it’s very good, (further) by the way!

Interested in this also, had heard that raspbmc was a bit laggy, which was understandable. What are the limitations of a smart TV connected to a dnla NAS server like a Synology (other than it can’t record)?

haven’t had much issue with the raspbmc so far – overclocked to 900 and controlled with android phone as remote. only issue is it crashes when trying to view my pictures from NAS storage on it. not quite sure why, other than the fact there’s a hgue amount of data there. not an issue really as i don’t need it to do that.

video playback of large, HD files has been flawless so far, as has iplayer, music and… ahem… sports streaming viewing. liking it so far, specially for the price.

I just use one of these on the network
Drags every thing and anything off the NAS and any other shares on other PCs etc.

My apple tv has had xmbc added just wish the content on the drive could appear on the list. Just have no clue how to make it work.

I have a Pi running RaspBMC. Works brilliantly with live TV and catchup TV plugins as well as streaming straight from my NAS.

It’s XMBC too so you can easily control it from a smart phone.

I wish I had a clue what the hell you lot are talking about!

erp… me too..!!

I have a pre-widescreen telly with a sky box and a dvd player (I have to switch the scart lead around if I wanna watch a dvd though) 😳

PS3 and TVersity for me. Copes with everything I throw at it with the added bonus of bluray and gaming.

been considering this kind of thing lately, and i was swaying towards the pi/XBMC/NAS box route anyway; this thread has confirmed that i reckon!
where’s the best place to get a pi from? farrell?

CPC was fast delivery. Make sure you buy an appropriate SDHC card and PSU too, you’ll need to install the media centre software of your choice on it from your home computer.

cool, ta!

(edited to remove my stupid questions!)

I was going to ask for more details but then had a thought – If I bake you a cake, will you come and sort it all out for me?

Bought one of these recently havn’t really been able to give it a blast but looks good:

Mini Google Android HDMI pen

On a side note selling my current Media PC as just not using it since my XBOX360 now does iPlayer, 4od, Netflix, i3 processor, dual HD Freeview card and blueray player give me an email if interested. Stephen[at]Hodgemail.co.uk

I’ve just got an xbox 360 doing all the grunt work, TVersity if streaming from NAS and does lovfilm etc, tivo box on the same TV so.

Just wish it didnt sound like a helicopter taking off!

xherb – i got mine from farrell. they said it would take 3 weeks and it took a little less. no complaints, and cheaper than the alternative option, presumably because it takes a bit longer.

nbt, i’ll do it for a cake. 🙂

possibly stupid question alert- will it need to be cabled into my router or can i get some kind of wifi adapter for the Pi?

i am sure you’d be able to get a wireless usb adaptor running on it, but i believe the power output from the usb sockets is relatively low so might need amplification via a powered usb hub.

i have mine hardwired into my router as my media setup including NAS, Pi and squeezebox are all where the router lives so are all wired rather than wireless.

my router is on the opposite side of the room to my TV and i don’t really want to run cables across for the pi. NAS box will sit happily next to the router though, but i was considering a powered USB hub anyway so that should work.