Associate
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2004
- Posts
- 15
Ive been tinkering with media boxes for a many years now, i first started using xbmc on the original xbox. For the past year ive moved onto the PC version of XBMC.
I first started on windows 7 but found it rather slow for starting up and the whole business of windows licencing for every box just adds to much extra expense.
So i moved on to a linux distribution called Arch Linux and started learning from the ground up about linux. Im glad i made the switch as im very happy with the end product.
I think many people know that choosing the hardware especially the case is difficult one, for me i wanted a stylish compact box, that was quite.
I tried numerous cases but none seemed to fit most of my needs, im now using the cases pictured below. There solid aluminium, come with a ac/dc 120w power supply and very compact considering they can handle a 3.5" drive. I let some pictures do the talking.
Im using AMD zacate based motherboards, there pretty basic but you dont really need any more features for media playback. These are more than powerful enough to handle all your HD content, they playback 1080p 24p mode beautifully with no skipping or jerking.
For storage im using 16Gb msata SSD drives, which can boot into XBMC in around 10 seconds. They have there own integrated power supply so it keeps everything inside the case nice and tidy. I have also measured the power usage of these using a standard wall plug monitor. At idle they use 10watts which i think is pretty impressive considering its a PC.
Ive also written scripts so make its easy to enable services like Couchpotato, sickbeard, transmission etc and changing ip addresses plus much more. Also a backupdvd script using makemkv cli, just enter the name of the movie and it will sort out the rest for you then enter it into the XBMC library.
This is a quick write up of what ive done so far, will add more info soon.
I first started on windows 7 but found it rather slow for starting up and the whole business of windows licencing for every box just adds to much extra expense.
So i moved on to a linux distribution called Arch Linux and started learning from the ground up about linux. Im glad i made the switch as im very happy with the end product.
I think many people know that choosing the hardware especially the case is difficult one, for me i wanted a stylish compact box, that was quite.
I tried numerous cases but none seemed to fit most of my needs, im now using the cases pictured below. There solid aluminium, come with a ac/dc 120w power supply and very compact considering they can handle a 3.5" drive. I let some pictures do the talking.
Im using AMD zacate based motherboards, there pretty basic but you dont really need any more features for media playback. These are more than powerful enough to handle all your HD content, they playback 1080p 24p mode beautifully with no skipping or jerking.
For storage im using 16Gb msata SSD drives, which can boot into XBMC in around 10 seconds. They have there own integrated power supply so it keeps everything inside the case nice and tidy. I have also measured the power usage of these using a standard wall plug monitor. At idle they use 10watts which i think is pretty impressive considering its a PC.
Ive also written scripts so make its easy to enable services like Couchpotato, sickbeard, transmission etc and changing ip addresses plus much more. Also a backupdvd script using makemkv cli, just enter the name of the movie and it will sort out the rest for you then enter it into the XBMC library.
This is a quick write up of what ive done so far, will add more info soon.
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