Plenty of power, just stick a wireless dongle in the back with the extra tenner. You can probably get another few hundred mhz out of the CPU on stock volts too - just up the multiplier a notch or two.
No HDMI etc?
Can you build a HTPC for sub £350?
- Thread starter NeilF
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No HDMI etc?
My concern with that CPU/MB would be how well would it cope with video playback etc across a range of different codecs etc? Surely the GFU only helps with the main ones?
Soldato
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If you're going to be running XBMC, hardware decoding only works with the Linux version.
I use the Windows version though, and my E2160 (currently at about 2.4GHz) runs everything I've tried flawlessly, even at stock.
Edit: If you're going to be playing HD content I'd steer clear of the Atom, unless you know you're going to be using hardware decoding.
I use the Windows version though, and my E2160 (currently at about 2.4GHz) runs everything I've tried flawlessly, even at stock.
Edit: If you're going to be playing HD content I'd steer clear of the Atom, unless you know you're going to be using hardware decoding.
Well it would seem to make sense from above to just run the Windows 7 Media Center? If I get a nice cheap dual core AMD or something with a passive cooler, and one of those antec cases with a built in PSU etc...
yeah if you want to play compressed video then I'm not sure. Probably be better going with an intel c2d with a 3600+ ati gfx or a amd x2 with the 780g mobo.
Altho the zodac does say it supports h.264 but can see much in the way of testing in reviews. The atom/ion combo looks like a perfect solution if you are going to just watch dvd/blu-ray from disc and uncompressed dvd/blu-ray on hdd.
Any joy?
As I said in my previous reply to you:-
That would be most appreciated. If it turns out the WDTV can navigate around folders and photos at a reasonable rate problem solved. Basically it just needs to allow us to view out collection of photos in the lounge in a fast friendly manner. If it takes too long to move from one picture to the next it will be too painful to use.
From feedback the WDTV is too slow
From feedback the WDTV is too slow
Shame with a HTPC not to use it to record and playback TV and dvd,
so either add in some usb tv tuners with reliable drivers or a pci card or two,
dont forget a good remote (microsoft one is girlfriend friendly but its mostly tied to windows)
dont overspecify on the cpu or ram, if your including everthing including a friendly OS then £350 is only achivable if your very mean.
I suspect you really need a hard drive media player but you might struggle to spot a reivew that proves your photo collection can be shown properly
so either add in some usb tv tuners with reliable drivers or a pci card or two,
dont forget a good remote (microsoft one is girlfriend friendly but its mostly tied to windows)
dont overspecify on the cpu or ram, if your including everthing including a friendly OS then £350 is only achivable if your very mean.
I suspect you really need a hard drive media player but you might struggle to spot a reivew that proves your photo collection can be shown properly
Given the advice I've received here and elsewhere, I suspect I will either go:-
a) WDTV and forget about viewing photos on the TV. So for well under £200 I get a very portable/friendly media player.
b) EVA9150 which appears to handle photos adequately. And this would cost just under £300. I believe as this unit also outputs via scart (when HDMI) is not in use, I can plug it into my existing video sender (has a spare scart imput) and broadcast the unit around the house. I already have receivers in the bedroom, and in the garage. So I could watch media in the garage while working out for example
I went with the tried and trusted Athlon 5050e + Gigabyte AMD 780G motherboard + LG Bluray/HDDVD drive for HDMI + 1080P goodness
Got an Antec NSK2480 case and bought Vista HP
If you don't want to record TV I reckon it might squeeze in about your budget.
Got an Antec NSK2480 case and bought Vista HP
If you don't want to record TV I reckon it might squeeze in about your budget.
One major stumbling block I spotted over the weekend is that my TV unit, as well as bing mostly enclosed (not good for heat) isn't deep enough for most of these cases (eg: your NSK2480)
Mmmm I see. You could always stick the TV on top of the NSK2480 
I think that the Netgear is your best bet to be honest. No OS overhead as such, family friendly, and will fit in your cabinet.
I love the flexibility on my HTPC, but its not without its headaches (I'm having a real issue with the machine coming out of standby/OFF in the middle of the night for no reason! It makes me want to abandon Vista and see if I have better luck with Win7 or Mythbuntu)
I think that the Netgear is your best bet to be honest. No OS overhead as such, family friendly, and will fit in your cabinet.
I love the flexibility on my HTPC, but its not without its headaches (I'm having a real issue with the machine coming out of standby/OFF in the middle of the night for no reason! It makes me want to abandon Vista and see if I have better luck with Win7 or Mythbuntu)
Any joy?
As I said in my previous reply to you:-
That would be most appreciated. If it turns out the WDTV can navigate around folders and photos at a reasonable rate problem solved. Basically it just needs to allow us to view out collection of photos in the lounge in a fast friendly manner. If it takes too long to move from one picture to the next it will be too painful to use.
From feedback the WDTV is too slow
Just had a play with a variety of pictures from a family wedding. Takes approx 1.5-2 secs to go to the next image from pressing the button on the remote. It does have a timed slideshow mode as well.
Image size doesn't seem to make much difference - 4MP, 8MP and 12MP images all respond in around the same time.
Same images using Front Row on my Mac laptop are taking about half a second to display.
Thanks....
That doesn't sounds as bad as some people have suggested (especially for pictures of they size). Any chance you could resize a group of image down to say 720 or 1080 pixels in height (what ever your native resolution is) and see how fast they display?
Here is a video of the EVA9150 going through some images around 600K in size. Watch from about 50 seconds onwards... That is about as slow as I could tolerate... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKRjn9c2EDQ
How would your describe your general interface in navigating to the appropriate folder, viewing & navigating thumbnails and viewing maximised? Can you move through pages of thumbnails etc quickly?
I suspect you'll say the interface is laggy - This seems to be the general opinion of moving around the unit...
ps: I'm quite happy to rerender all my photos to 720 or 1080 pixels in height to make them smaller and a better native resolution for the unit!
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I resized some of the 12MP images to 720 and it is more responsive at under a second to switch, so it's a fraction slower than the Youtube unit. It feels slower as there's no funky fade effect. The images look better for the resize - details are better resolved. Then again it took the image editor 30+ minutes to resize the 400 images...
If there is a perception of lag it's probably related to the remote as there's not an instantaneous response when you press the button. It's nowhere near as bad as say a V+ box and I don't find it to be a problem.
Thumbnails - bit sluggish the first time when it creates the thumbnail files on the fly and adds to the database, after that it's fine. I tend to view things organised by folder on the disk, and it's coping with 400+ thumbnailed photos no worries. It displays 10 thumbnails to a page (ie five on two rows).
That is most kind of you! I'd say the clip shows those 100-300K images take about 1.5->2 seconds to display on the EVA9150. One other thing is that's the EVA9150 viewing the 100-300K images off a NAS too, so not off a local drive. You recon yours is a bit slower?
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That's not bad at all really. How big were your files roughly? 100-300K I suspect?
Given that the EVA9150 is (seemingly) a touch fast than that, with files not optimally sized, off a NAS too, I think I'll go with the EVA9150 at the moment... But it is £130 more...
ps: I have an app that will mirror your original photos to a destination and resize them, ignoring ones already done etc. My plan is obviously just to run that app every month or so to move the photos over the unit, pre-sized to 720p.
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That's not bad at all really. How big were your files roughly? 100-300K I suspect?
Given that the EVA9150 is (seemingly) a touch fast than that, with files not optimally sized, off a NAS too, I think I'll go with the EVA9150 at the moment... But it is £130 more...
ps: I have an app that will mirror your original photos to a destination and resize them, ignoring ones already done etc. My plan is obviously just to run that app every month or so to move the photos over the unit, pre-sized to 720p.
Yeah around that. There's under 0.5s between the 12MP 2.5MB file and the 150k optimised version.
That's quite surprising! Wonder where all that time is going then!?
I can just imagine in the code a nice little "sleep 1" in there