I have all this mp3 media and I want Kate to be able to play it on the stereo. I also want to make use of Spotify as Kate likes having the radio on during the day but appreciates that it's wank. I would also like to download movies and play them but I am not sure what the best modern way of doing that. I don't have an HDTV yet but will do one day.
So, I need a media box. The basic requirements are that it can play:
- MP3
- Spotify
- HD films
- Blu Ray
- DVDs
- Download torrents
and also do:
So, I imagine the specs I need are:
- Mini ITX (or Micro) mobo
- Mini ITX case
- PSU (400W)?
- Processor? - No idea
- Operating system - time to go Linux?
- 2 or 4 gigs of RAM
- n speed wireless
- Blu Ray / DVD drive (about £80 now!)
- Couple of FAT hard drives (although one at first, and another later)
- Wireless keyboard and mouse or remote thingy
I tend to build my own for the geeky pleasure and I like the idea of swapping out hard drives as they come down in price.
I am tempted to take the bones of my Beaker desktop system (4400 X2 Althon, 4 gig RAM, 400W PSU) into a media PC and upgrading that stuff (and Mobo) to power up Beaker.
Opinions desired! :)
Have you looked at something
Have you looked at something like Popcorn Hour?
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/
I was looking at doing something fairly similar, but hit issues with trying to make it quiet and useable, while having enough power to output HD. Ultimately I didn't, and now use LoveFilm instead of downloads, and my stereo has a 16gig USB stick jammed in it.
I had looked at popcorn hour
I had looked at popcorn hour but what worries me is obselence (sp?). If want to use service X - I know I can on Beaker but I might not able to on Popcorn hour without them coding it into their front end. I think bespoke PC solution is probably the best way but if the technology isn't up to it then I'll treat the PH as the fallback.
Well, it depends what you
Well, it depends what you mean by 'up to it.' With an unlimited budget you could make something fast, capable and quiet, but if you want a PC that can push out 1080p video it's going to be expensive to get it quiet. If you don't care about noise, then you could stick something together out of the spares you have and some other bits (bluray drive, that sort of thing.) Personally, I hate PC noise in the living room, which is why I settled on my solution (dedicated player hardware in the living room, big noisy fileserver in the cupboard) but your mileage may vary. Remember that if you're torrenting on it, it'll need to be on pretty much 24/7, so you'll have that PC noise in your living room all the time, whatever you're doing.
If you do go with a PC, avoid linux for this (unless it's just a fileserver.) Linux media playback is more hassle than it's worth and, depending on your hardware, might never work right. I'd suggest Windows MCE or 7, and get an MCE remote; having to faff with a keyboard and mouse every time you want to watch a movie will piss you off over time. Of course if MS have pulled an Apple, and the MCE remote will only drive Media Player, that might not help...
It doesn't sound like you're planning to, but it's worth remembering that you can't reliably stream HD over wireless, even N. So if you go for the fileserver and thin player thing you'll need something else to connect them. I use ethernet over mains to avoid trailing cables, and it works surprisingly well.
I've been using a WDTV unit
I've been using a WDTV unit it's just a little box that takes a usb input and will then play back movies, mp3's, and pictures on your tv at full 1080p and it's playback support is suitably large to include anything I've thrown at it without recoding. It lacks any networking capability or the like and you need to supply your own usb hdd but the box itself it was only 80 quid and it work with any old cheapo usb drive or usb stick.
Another possibility is a
Another possibility is a PS3, I guess it doesn't torrent or Spotify, maybe someone who owns one could verify.
What kind of budget did you have in mind?
That WDTV box looks pretty
That WDTV box looks pretty nifty...given the price of large USB sticks these days 'tis a very cheap option.
I think the xBox allows streaming from a PC, but never tried to set it up, so couldn't confirm. I'd be surprised if it does HD streaming (as per Aggro's statement, had limited or no joy trying that).
With the PS3 you do have the
With the PS3 you do have the option of installing linux I've never done it but it is Sony authorised there is the option right in the cross media bar. With that there I would suspect anything it can't natively do would be possible with sufficient fucking about the guts of linux.
You could potentially get a
You could potentially get a netbook with HDMI output. I'm not too upto date on whats out there, but
http://www.pocket-lint.com/quick-review/3576/asus-n10j-noteb...
Has HDMI, and can output 1080p. They tend to be fairly low noise, and a wireless keyboard and mouse would sort you out.
//added. It also comes with a built-in UPS.
I've just spotted that WD
I've just spotted that WD have also just released a network capable version of their WDTV called WDTVlive it'll do all the things the previous one did plus stream from a network and it had dts and dts2.0 support now. It'll also do things like youtube pandora and a few other internet sites more coming as they fiddle with the firmware apparantly.
The new one costs 100 quid or so from amazon I'd expect the previous version to drop in price given that.
AFAIK PS3 slim doesn't
AFAIK PS3 slim doesn't support linux, so if you want to go that way, you'll need to move soon (although see my previous comments about linux media support.) The xbox media streaming is what I was using before I got my stand-alone player; it was ok for XVID/DIVX and WMV, but was really picky about encoding oddities and audio formats. HD was right out.
I think the PS3 can be encouraged to stream and play HD .mkv files in its media centre mode, but I've no direct experience of that.
The WD thing looks like a good budget solution, but I guess it loses out on convenience? With an HD movie being 12-16GB (for 1080p), even over USB2 it'll take a while to load up on the USB storage before you can sit down to watch.
Just had a look at that
Just had a look at that WDTVLive thing. Looks pretty sweet for the price. Seems about as capable as the DVICo box I have for less than half the price.
Combine that with something like a Thecus NAS box (or a fileserver made from Beaker,) and you'd have a fairly cheap and convenient solution to watching HD video. Wouldn't do spotify or play DVD/bluray though.
Oh one thing I overheard
Oh one thing I overheard when I was in WD last week was torrent software in association with the WDTVLive it sounded like they were still working the kinks out but I would suspect it'll have that capability in the near future
I've not put a lot of HD
I've not put a lot of HD content on mine a few open source 1080p movies to check and mostly 720p torrented video otherwise but I've not noticed any delay in spooling up the video on those you hit play and away it goes streaming from the usb hard disk. I would think USB2 is more than enough for most 1080p formats I mean bluray has a theoretical maximum of about 400Mbps which is less than the maximum transfer rate USB2 is capable of at 480Mbps and even then 1x bluray is only 36Mbps.
It only has to stream the stuff over the usb after all
Oh, agreed. I was talking
Oh, agreed. I was talking about putting the stuff on the USB device in the first place; once it's on there, I'm certain it'll play just fine.
Ah I see I use one of those
Ah I see
I use one of those Esata bays for that which is suitably speedy if not very well supported. One of many reasons why esata is dying a slow and painful death.
I also heartily endorse the Thesus Nas products which may or may not contain chips designed about 6ft to the left of where I'm sitting :D
The WDLive might just be the
The WDLive might just be the way forward. I want there to be a capability for Blu Ray - USB Blu Ray drives are bound to come - they are a bit mental atm.
As for central fileserver - I'll have to see about that. Beaker might just have to be that. It's close to the front room but isn't so noisy to be off putting.
I don't know if it will pull
I don't know if it will pull media off a usb optical drive it's designed for mass storage compliant devices which is typically usb sticks usb hard disks some usb media players and some digicams
Optical devices use a completely different command set
Rather neatly the WDTV live
Rather neatly the WDTV live also turns any usb hard drive attached to it into a NAS device you can then access as a networked drive. I guess it's obvious all the parts are there but it's nice that they actually took the time to put them together and make it work.