Htpc

Post by **Compo** » Wed May 22, 2013 5:02 pm

I am currently looking at a HTPC-esque solution for my home media. I currently have a HP Microserver with WHS 2011 installed, which I also feed all my photo's, music and movies (with Bluray ripped MKV's) onto. I have installed "plex" on the server and on my Macbook retina and seems pretty good. Looking at the cost of building a dedicated, compact PC, would a Mac mini be a good way to go with this or are there better solutions out their including software?
Appreciate any thoughts on this, I am looking at spending around Â£500 on the solution. Cheers

Post by **andrew** » Wed May 22, 2013 7:55 pm

You probably already know this but... thought about a raspberry pi with XBMC on it ? its what I currently use and it plays everything over the network just fine, and all for Â£50. Me and migamagoo both run the same setup, except he's got a bravia (sony) linked tv remote so he can control the pi with the tv remote, very swish and simple for the gf/wife/kids to operate.
Just bought myself a N54L last night on ebuyer, they've got that 100quid cash back offer on at the moment, you find it ok ?

Post by **Trig** » Wed May 22, 2013 9:16 pm

AppleTV?
Seeing as your an Apple fan boi and all that

Post by **Compo** » Wed May 22, 2013 9:36 pm

Didn't actually consider the raspberry Pi to be honest and they are pretty cheap

not sure if it can remux the MKV vids, though as they need quite a bit of grunt to do that. I would do it at the server end but it is only an amd turion based system, so pretty weak. Would be a winner on the Raspberry otherwise. I don't want a more powerful server as it is on 24/7 so could be costly. Despite a recent spree on Apple products, I am not quite at fanboi level, yet. I need to buy a Mac Pro tower and convince myself it is better than my main rig at double the cost/half the performance!! The Apple TV is a no go as well for the same reason as the raspberry. Good suggestions, though chaps, I am a pretty awkward customer on this one, though lol.

Post by **Compo** » Wed May 22, 2013 9:56 pm

Missed your question, Andrew about the server

I have the N40L, it is an excellent server, really well put together and accessible. I have the drive it ships with for the Os and fitted 2x2TB western digital green drives as well. I have stablebit drive pool and drive scanner as plug ins installed with WHS. Had one or two hiccups with WHS but that is down to me more than anything. That cashback was a clincher for me!

Post by **andrew** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:20 pm

Thanks for that.

The only thing we've found with playback is a 20gb mkv stutters/buffers/breaksup. Anything else like 12-13gb is fine and very high quality obviously.
Plus you can power them off the usb on the tv

so if done right all you need is network (I use wired, mig uses wireless usb dongle). Did I mention im on commission ?

Cable tied to back of the telly they're a very good cheap setup that even I managed fine

Post by **Compo** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:32 pm

The blurray MKV's tend to be between 20 to 35GB unfortunately but that is outstanding PQ

I don't actually have any Usb ports on my TV, it's one of the last Pioneer Kuro sets, though so nothing really touches it on image reproduction!!

Post by **Trig** » Thu May 23, 2013 1:38 pm

Have you looked at the cheap Media Players with USB/SDCard in and then HDMI out?

<a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/search?subcat=328 ... er&cat=395" target="_blank">http://www.ebuyer.com/search?subcat=328 ... cat=395</a>

Oh, and on a side note, start saving up for new hard drives...
Greens are wank for 24/7 stuff, Reds are where its at, just swapped out 2x2tb 1x1tb Greens out of mine for a pair of 3tb Red..

Post by **Nellyboy** » Thu May 23, 2013 1:55 pm

I run my raspberry Pi with raspbmc on it. It plays 1080p mkv files fine and navi-x plugin that allows you to watch a crapload of stuff streamed from who knows where. The tv remote even works straight with the pi for xbmc and old mce remote just works as does android xbmc app and others for remote. It also turns the telly on and off. Nuff said. I do have a pc under the telly as well but use it less and less as a lot of content is available at the moment through navi-x. My pi is downloading movies to an external 2tb hdd at the moment. It has other uses but not for me. Will try to play 1080p content from my gaming rig tonight on it to see how it handles it. The problem I have with it is my tv is only stereo so have to set it to downgrade to 2.0 sound. It is ok but I really need an amp or something with hdmi in and out so I can get 5.1. I think the only way for surround sound is through the hdmi cable to the amp think then into the telly.

I like it.

Any questions ask away.

Post by **Compo** » Thu May 23, 2013 4:50 pm

Have you had problems with your WD Green's then Trig? Not had an issue with mine so far but also don't want any!!

Nellyboy, I would be interested in how your 1080p playback gets on. I am becoming more tempted by the Rasberry and have no experience with one, so would be an interesting exercise. I have decided to move on from my PS3 as the library lookup is terrible. this is where Plex caught my interest. So if XBMC at least meets this, I will be happy.
Do you have any links to guides that may be worth a read at all? Might do a bit of research

Post by **andrew** » Thu May 23, 2013 5:37 pm

Essentially get yourself a pi with a blank sd card, load a small file onto the sd from the xbmc website, plug into network and power, it goes off onto the internet and downloads/sets itself up. Done. I've changed the skin to a less graphicy (is that a word ?) text one to speed menu navigation up.
As Nelly can confirm they're most excellent

If you don't like it or get on with it, pop it on ebay and you wont be far out of pocket!

Post by **Trig** » Thu May 23, 2013 9:39 pm

Just watch the greens on the scanner, low power drives load unload the heads a lot which scanner picks up on.
look over on wegotserved.com....

Post by **Compo** » Thu May 23, 2013 10:22 pm

Just checked the scanner and they appear fine, although having a dig on the net earlier did show up the potential issues

I will put some dough aside, as I can use them as sizable raid 0 scratch drives!! Not sure how to swap em and keep the data intact, though

Oh and I have now ordered a raspberry. If it doesn't fulfil my requirements as a htpc, I will soon find another use for it

Post by **Nellyboy** » Fri May 24, 2013 11:56 am

Well I tried playing mkv's from the network. 720p seemed ok but 1080p started then stopped trying to keep up. I think the Pi will not work at 1080p with network shared content. Local usb 1080p files are fine on mine and streamed from navi-x stuff is fine at 720p. Will have a dig around for info to read up on.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?filters= ... lclk=month" target="_blank">Raspbmc on uToob</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... lbu-atYJQo" target="_blank">Rasplex on uToob</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTJPW022EeA" target="_blank">Rasplex playing 1080p from network</a>

Update::::

Well the Pi is getting more interesting by the day. Now I am copying movies to it over the network albeit slowly at 2megs a sec tops for some reason. It does have plugins for utorrent and transmission for downloading torrents. It also server as media server share on my network so I can stream 1080p to my tablet with not a dropped frame. Working on a few other things so will update in a day or two.

Post by **Hammer** » Fri May 24, 2013 3:32 pm

I have a little cyclone MK2 box that decodes 720 & 1080 MKV's under the TV .It's a small unit that reads via usb. I normally just copy my MKV's to a usb powered HD and it plays them fine.
The only drawback is the remote is a bit crappy.

I'm currently thinking about maybe getting a NAS setup to store my stuff on as I'm always running out of disk space and replacing the cyclone Mk2 box with <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Box-Midnight- ... ords=g+box" target="_blank">G-Box Midnight MX2 Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Dual Core XBMC Streaming Mini HTPC TV Box Player</a>

I'm not clued up on the HTPC as I've never used one. I think the above box will suit my needs and I can add a wireless keyboard to surf the net etc.

I think this may be a fairly reasonable priced way to set up a HTPC.