HTPC to replace the raspberry Pi

blackice8r

blackice8r

blackice8r

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I think I have been using my Pi as a HTPC for a year or so now, I'm getting fed-up with how slow it moves in the menu (using raspbmc), stock speed

The Odroid-U2 board for $89 looks cool, but with the accessories , shipping costs etc - the price goes up, also the software is still in development for it (and mostly under android ) http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/main.php


I have my movies on my Hp microserver so I just mainly need my HTPC to be able to play them and stream youtube etc.

I'm in between waiting for a PS4 and building a HTPC.

At a first look I think the price for a good HTPC would be about £250 (I was thinking to use AMD A6 series APU )

Do you guys have some suggestions for replacing my raspberry PI?
I quite like XBMC, that's why I'm not going for something like a WD TV , Roku or Apple Tv (I hate apple)

I want something powerfully but cheap :D I know that is pricey - that's why I'm thinking , maybe it's worth paying more to get the PS4

The Odroid-U2 board with all accessories I need would be about £125 , fast and a decent price, too bad XBMC doesn't work properly on it yet :(...
 
Have you played around with raspbmc after overclocking your pi? I only ask because I overclocked mine using the presets and the menu has been smooth as silk since.
 
Mirmo said:
Have you played around with raspbmc after overclocking your pi? I only ask because I overclocked mine using the presets and the menu has been smooth as silk since.
Click to expand...

I've been keeping it at stock speed, I can try to overclock it, I have a second one if I kill this one :D , and I have radiators installed on the two chips

"sudo raspi-config" kicks in the wizzard I think, no?
How high did you overclock?

Update: nothing happens when I send the "sudo raspi-config" via SSH, updating debian now etc (sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade )
 
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HP Microserver, really good cashback at the moment if yer quick.
AMD 6450, HDMI and sound over HDMI.
Low power solution, comes with 1 HDD room for 3 more and of course a Optical Bay.
reasonably quiet too :)

Have a look in the microserver thread to see how inventive people have been at shoving more drives in too :)

that would come in well under your £250 goal
 
Try a newer version of OpenELEC, and overclock the Pi a little - if you've got a good power supply and heatsinks, you should be able to push the speed quite a bit - this will help with menus and allow you to play back higher bit-rate stuff.

This is free - and if you're still not happy, then look at building a PC to run XBMC on.
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
HP Microserver, really good cashback at the moment if yer quick.
AMD 6450, HDMI and sound over HDMI.
Low power solution, comes with 1 HDD room for 3 more and of course a Optical Bay.
reasonably quiet too :)

Have a look in the microserver thread to see how inventive people have been at shoving more drives in too :)

that would come in well under your £250 goal
Click to expand...

He already has one :)

With that in mind I would suggest just using that. Drop a 6450 GPU in there, wack XBMC on it and your good to go. It will play everything and hardware accelerate smoothly
 
all good points, I'll start with overclocking the PI, then overclocking + OpenELEC

if that doesn't work, I'll try sticking an AMD 6450 in the Hp microserver

Currently my microserver acts as a File and Print server, OpenVPN server, runs my Utorrent , and now it might run XBMC , I was thinking it might be too much - but if I think of it , it doesn't do them all at the same time so it might cope :D

I do want a new toy but I could spend the money on something else if I can get my existing kit to provide the functionality.

Thank you guys for the suggestions!
 
I wouldn't use the Microserver as an HTPC in the living room - you don't want a small box filled with noisy hard drives whilst you're trying to watch a film.
 
I wouldn't use the Microserver as an HTPC in the living room - you don't want a small box filled with noisy hard drives whilst you're trying to watch a film.
Click to expand...

my microserver seems to be quiet, maybe because it's not doing much I guess...

I also have a powerful sound system :D I'm not to worried the microserver will beat the sound system :)
 
I think that there is very little noise from the Microserver, you can even get a passive GPU for it. But as you noted the HD noise, well all that would apply is the odd access as it streamed from the server to the TV. Whilst my server is now in the loft, two floors above, when I had four 2TB HD's in the HTPC they were extremely quiet when watching TV shows or Films stored on them.

With my Z5500's booming away I hardly seem to hear the phone ring, never mind an odd chirp or two from the HD.

But as noise is kinda subjective some, as noted above, will find it an issue.
 
I take it an AMD 6450 inside the microserver would do a much better job than an overclocked PI?

BTW, I have WHS 2011 on the server, I was reading that some people had problems getting XBMC to work on it, hopefully they were just isolated cases - or is this a known issue?


EDIT: if I come to think of it, XBMC on my microserver might not be so great, I have to remember to always start the XBMC gui when I close my RDP sessions to the server, the beauty of the raspberry Pi is that whenever I switch to it XBMX is loaded , with my server it would be different...

I've tried remotely to overclock the PI and I think it crashed as it didn't come back :D (bloody "raspi-config" is not installed, tried installing APT couldn't find the package so I edited /boot/config.txt with some fairly high numbers:
arm_freq=950
gpu_freq=350
core_freq=450
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=2
force_turbo=1
gpu_mem=128
disable_overscan=1


I'll install OpenELEC when I get home and see how I can overclock my PI , I checked before trying the overclock from Raspbmc and the CPU was at 800MHz
 
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I've installed 2k8 on my Microserver.
Its my media server, uTorrent box, HTPC and also performs general browsing and stuff.

not had any issues with noise from it.
Mines filled with Sammy F1 1TB's, 8GB Black Dragon, 6450 1Gb, Asus Xonar DG and a BR drive.
Quite a nice little box of tricks :)
 
I run my Pi at 900mhz using a Sandisk Extreme SD card, which is very fast. I still get some lag when moving into the TV series (might reflect that I have a lot) and other menus can be a little slow. But I must remember not to compare with my HTPC and its hardware. For me my Pi is on a secondary TV and so I "manage" with it fine (running OpenElec 3.0.6) however I would not like it to be on our primary TV over that of a more traditional HTPC.
 
blackice8r said:
I take it an AMD 6450 inside the microserver would do a much better job than an overclocked PI?

BTW, I have WHS 2011 on the server, I was reading that some people had problems getting XBMC to work on it, hopefully they were just isolated cases - or is this a known issue?


EDIT: if I come to think of it, XBMC on my microserver might not be so great, I have to remember to always start the XBMC gui when I close my RDP sessions to the server, the beauty of the raspberry Pi is that whenever I switch to it XBMX is loaded , with my server it would be different...

I've tried remotely to overclock the PI and I think it crashed as it didn't come back :D (bloody "raspi-config" is not installed, tried installing APT couldn't find the package so I edited /boot/config.txt with some fairly high numbers:
arm_freq=950
gpu_freq=350
core_freq=450
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=2
force_turbo=1
gpu_mem=128
disable_overscan=1


I'll install OpenELEC when I get home and see how I can overclock my PI , I checked before trying the overclock from Raspbmc and the CPU was at 800MHz
Click to expand...

You can enable multiple RDP sessions so it's not a problem. I have server 2012 installed on mine and have it set to auto-login with a locked down user account and have XBMC in the startup folder so it automatically launches when the HP is turned on/logged in.

With RDP sessions I can still remote desktop as an admin and it doesn't affect the XBMCuser account
 
cokecan said:
You can enable multiple RDP sessions so it's not a problem. I have server 2012 installed on mine and have it set to auto-login with a locked down user account and have XBMC in the startup folder so it automatically launches when the HP is turned on/logged in.

With RDP sessions I can still remote desktop as an admin and it doesn't affect the XBMCuser account
Click to expand...

that is a good point, I can't imagine right now exactly how that works (how does the TV output the "right" user?) but if you got it working then, that would solve my problem
WHS 2011 allows 2 RDP sessions so, one restricted user and the admin should work

just got home , prepared the SD card with OpenELEC just to realize the Pi is dead , RIP my faithful PI :( :o

I promised my second PI to a friend so...time to move on, I have ordered a Asus HD 6450 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card , to stick in my microserver...
I don't look forward to opening the little box :(
 
I can't rate my HP microserver enough.

SSD for fast boot - it auto logs in and launches XBMC running on WHS2011. It also has Plex running.
8TB of storage.
And a low profile GFX Card Radeon 6450.
8Gb Ram.

I've got a 2nd one which will be used with FreeNas for backing up my HTPC and so on. :)
 
Confused said:
I wouldn't use the Microserver as an HTPC in the living room - you don't want a small box filled with noisy hard drives whilst you're trying to watch a film.
Click to expand...

It's really not noisy. I've slept in the lounge when we've had guests round and it's the light that's more disturbing than the noise.

Background noise of a house/flat drowns out the microserver.
 
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