ZBOX + RAM + HDD - $249.99


Rajahal

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Yeah... I ordered on last night too...  I'll put XBMC on it to replace the a much more power hungry 7 or 8 year old pentium based HTPC in my theater.

 

My XBMC box is on a 12+ year old Pentium 4 with an 8400gs video card. It actually works great and draws little power, that's why I haven't replaced it yet. But, it also lives in the closet of the room behind the TV and wires run through a tunnel I made through the wall. The second it needs to live in plain sight it'll be replaced.

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How does XBMC compare to Media Center?  I honestly never heard of XBMC until now and just started to look into it.  I currently just use the Media Browser program for Media Center, but seems that XBMC is pretty popular.

 

I have only used Media Center sparingly but XBMC is great.  I use a version called openelec from openelec.tv

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How does XBMC compare to Media Center?  I honestly never heard of XBMC until now and just started to look into it.  I currently just use the Media Browser program for Media Center, but seems that XBMC is pretty popular.

I'm actually in the middle of that struggle now myself.  I have used Media Browser but I prefer XMBC for the following reasons...

1. Better GUI

2. Highly customizeable

3. The scrapers seem to work a lot better than WMC or Media Browser

4. Upconverts SD DVDs to 1080p reasonably well (not perfect but it's better than WMC or Media Browser)

5. Large user base with good support forums

 

The biggest downside to XBMC is that is does not have PVR capability but the developers are working on that and I think there is a beta version out there.  Once the PVR capability is there I'll ditch WMC and use XBMC only.

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How does XBMC compare to Media Center?  I honestly never heard of XBMC until now and just started to look into it.  I currently just use the Media Browser program for Media Center, but seems that XBMC is pretty popular.

 

I have only used Media Center sparingly but XBMC is great.  I use a version called openelec from openelec.tv

 

What is the benefit in using openelec instead of xbmc?

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The biggest downside to XBMC is that is does not have PVR capability but the developers are working on that and I think there is a beta version out there.  Once the PVR capability is there I'll ditch WMC and use XBMC only.

 

I've been seeing lots of PVR activity in the XBMC forums the past few weeks actually. I think it even comes standard on version 10.x.

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The biggest downside to XBMC is that is does not have PVR capability but the developers are working on that and I think there is a beta version out there.  Once the PVR capability is there I'll ditch WMC and use XBMC only.

 

I've been seeing lots of PVR activity in the XBMC forums the past few weeks actually. I think it even comes standard on version 10.x.

I'll have to look into that then.  I really want to have a single solution to my media needs.  The WAF would increase substantially.
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I had already been considering one of the ZBox's to stream stuff from my newly built unRAID box. Couldn't resist the deal that included the RAM and drive. Ordered. Thanks for the heads up on the deal.

 

I've already been doing some playing with the XBMC Live boot CD on my laptop, and it had no trouble talking to the unRAID box and streaming content nicely. Will be nice getting the ZBox rocking XBMC, hooked up to the projector...

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Since it's easy to do, I suggest downloading the XBMC Live ISO image so you can kick the tires of XBMC and see how you like it. It's easy to boot up on any relatively newer machine (laptop, desktop, what-have-you). And if you do end up going with it, that XBMC Live disc does the install of it as well. Of course, you could always try out the Windows build as well, etc.

 

For the time being, I'll be using the iPhone XBMC Remote app. I installed that and tested it out with the Live boot CD and it worked beautifully. It's really quite a slick little app, and a very cool approach to the remote functionality. My ZBox shipped from Newegg, so I'm just waiting for it to arrive in the next few days. Looking forward to getting it all installed and setup, and start rockin' all the content I've been constantly amassing on the unRAID box... :)

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Since it's easy to do, I suggest downloading the XBMC Live ISO image so you can kick the tires of XBMC and see how you like it. It's easy to boot up on any relatively newer machine (laptop, desktop, what-have-you). And if you do end up going with it, that XBMC Live disc does the install of it as well. Of course, you could always try out the Windows build as well, etc.

 

For the time being, I'll be using the iPhone XBMC Remote app. I installed that and tested it out with the Live boot CD and it worked beautifully. It's really quite a slick little app, and a very cool approach to the remote functionality. My ZBox shipped from Newegg, so I'm just waiting for it to arrive in the next few days. Looking forward to getting it all installed and setup, and start rockin' all the content I've been constantly amassing on the unRAID box... :)

 

I actually have xbmc on my PC right now. hat is the difference between the windows build and Live? Is live just like its own OS?

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I actually have xbmc on my PC right now. hat is the difference between the windows build and Live? Is live just like its own OS?

 

The Live version is much less resource hungry since it lives on a very small implementation of Linux and does not require a bloated Windows installation to run on top of. It's also super easy and quick to install. It's main use, though, is as a try before you buy type deal. You can pop it in the CD Drive/USB drive, boot up the PC and it'll boot into XBMC without installing anything. You get to try everything out without making any changes to your PC. It's similar to a Ubuntu Live CD if you've ever used one of those before.

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Yeah, as somebody who has used that XBMC Live CD to evaluate recently, I must say that it's a great resource to be able to truly try out the full platform. I'd had experience with previous media center platforms (most of which were so-so at best), but knew pretty darn quick that I liked XBMC much more. Never mind the interface and functionality features, but it played most anything I threw at it. Fantastic format/codec support (as best as I could tell in the few hours of testing I did).

 

Looking forward to putting it in nice lean-and-mean, self-contained format on the ZBox when it arrives. Essentially making it a dedicated media swiss-army-knife hardware device.

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I actually have xbmc on my PC right now. hat is the difference between the windows build and Live? Is live just like its own OS?

 

The Live version is much less resource hungry since it lives on a very small implementation of Linux and does not require a bloated Windows installation to run on top of. It's also super easy and quick to install. It's main use, though, is as a try before you buy type deal. You can pop it in the CD Drive/USB drive, boot up the PC and it'll boot into XBMC without installing anything. You get to try everything out without making any changes to your PC. It's similar to a Ubuntu Live CD if you've ever used one of those before.

 

So do you eventually have to buy the live version? the windows version is free. If you use the LIve on a zbox or something without windows will you have a desktop or browser? or is it just strictly xbmc

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