June 2, 201115 yr I've been looking for a while and haven't found a good answer to what fits my requirements. I am looking for a relatively small HTPC. I don't need a lot of horsepower; just enough to play 1080 MKVs streamed over wireless-N from my unRAID server. I also would like to run XBMC Live. I would like to keep the whole thing to under $250, if possible. I was looking at this: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=60549&vpn=ZBOXSD-ID12-U&manufacture=Zotac There's no mention of an ION for the GPU. Is that needed to be able to handle 1080p content? Anyhow, does anyone have a recommendation for me? Cheers, Scott
June 2, 201115 yr I am looking for something similar, but I believe I will be going with a Zacate. I am trying to help AMD anyway possible.
June 2, 201115 yr I also would like to run XBMC Live. I would like to keep the whole thing to under $250, if possible. The trick is if you want bitstreaming of TrueHD and DTS MA. If you want that, you'll have to go with a Windows install of XBMC. They're getting close to making it happen with Linux, but they're not there yet. I'm building a Zacate system because the ATI 6310 is embedded so I don't have to add a GPU to handle the bitstreaming of the audio. Zacate is also faster than the Atom. The other alternative is to backup your movies with FLAC audio and bypass the whole bitstreaming convolution. All this is moot if you don't care about the audio side as much. The ION and Zacate platforms can easily handle 1080p.
June 2, 201115 yr Author My audio system is pretty lousy, so I don't care too much about TrueHD or DTS MA. I haven't quite decided on a system yet, but I'm getting closer. Thanks for the responses, guys.
June 2, 201115 yr A miniITX Zacate board, a Minibox case c/w power supply and a cheaper SSD should meet the $250 budget. It'll be completely passive too if you pick a fanless motherboard - I think the Asus E35MI-I is a fanless version. You could also save a few bucks and/or get more storage space with a 5400rpm laptop drive which would be fairly silent anyways. Peter
June 2, 201115 yr Everything you ever need to know about HTPC's. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19553212#post19553212
June 2, 201115 yr Is there a way to get the Zbox's built in wifi antenna working through XBMC Live? I've never tried it because my HTPC is hardwired, but it would be nice. Also, is wifi fast enough to stream 1080p MKVs? I know it isn't fast enough for full BluRay images.
June 3, 201115 yr wireless tends to stutter for many people even going over N. in a win box, Live might be better. I'd ask on the XBMC forums. I have had it work with streams of about 25Mb/s on N a dedicated media channel of a 2 channel router perfectly fine. G is pretty spotty for me. there are many variables and YMMV. I have also had XBMC running on my old WHS as a Universal PNP host and able to stream to other XBMC's with no drops, including XBMC on my ipad and iphone. I'm not sure if there is a some transcoding there or just less overhead? i expected my ipad and my G only xbmc to stutter.
June 3, 201115 yr Is there a way to get the Zbox's built in wifi antenna working through XBMC Live? I've never tried it because my HTPC is hardwired, but it would be nice. Also, is wifi fast enough to stream 1080p MKVs? I know it isn't fast enough for full BluRay images. A 300Mbps 5Gz channel should be able to do it.
June 3, 201115 yr A 300Mbps 5Gz channel should be able to do it. I do this and rarely suffer a dropout, even on BluRay images. I think the key is a dedicated 5GHz channel. All the rest of my wireless traffic uses 2.4 GHz so the HTPC gets the full bandwidth it needs.
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