All-in-One Bedroom Mediacentre possibility

FeersumEnjin · 2007-06-08, 15:08

Okay,

I saw this and couldn't help thinking that it could make a neat bedroom mediacentre/TV, running Mediaportal

ECS AIO 950 15" TFT Pc

Now I need to make a few clarifying statements:

1) I have seen this unit for £150 delivered with 2ghz P4 CPU (Don't know if it's Williamette or Northwood) , 256mb ram, 40gb HD and XP Pro

2) All my media is stored on 2 X SAMBA NAS drives so the Hard drive size is not an issue

3) TV would be provided by USB DVB-T stick to replace the 14" CRT/DVD TV and Digibox I currently have mounted on the wall via a bracket

4)Additionally I would look to install 512-1Gb ram, wifi or DLAN adaptor and a Microsoft MCE Remote as I currently have a keyboard I use on a seperate Mediacentre

What I'm not sure of is whether this will have the "Poke" both from the CPU and the integrated graphics to handle Xvid (Avi) / X.264 (Mkv & Mp4) videos as these are the formats that most of my collection is in.
As an example my laptop a P3M 1.2Ghz running Kubuntu can handle the Divx but I'm not so sure about X.264 and linux is lighter on system resources than windows

I don't expect stellar performance and it won't get heavy use so doesn't warrent a lot of cash

So what do you think fella's, Is it worth a shot, I would estimate a total system cost of:
£150 for the PC
£25 for 1024Mb stick of E-bay bargain ram
£20 for an MCE Remote
£20 for DVB-T Usb stick

£215

petzlux · 2007-06-10, 16:25

If you already have a existing HTPC in another room, why not take advantage of the new TVengine 3 and use the bedroom HTPC as a pure client. that way no need for local storage, or dvb-tuner. You just would need LAN/Wifi access (N wifi I guess should work).
No need then aswell for 1gb ram, 512 should be enough, and you could get rid of the HD and replace it with a flash drive / SSD.

mcbelly · 2007-06-10, 16:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by petzlux

If you already have a existing HTPC in another room, why not take advantage of the new TVengine 3 and use the bedroom HTPC as a pure client. that way no need for local storage, or dvb-tuner. You just would need LAN/Wifi access (N wifi I guess should work).
No need then aswell for 1gb ram, 512 should be enough, and you could get rid of the HD and replace it with a flash drive / SSD.

That would work for the TV part, but not for playing videos or music (if I understand the concept correctly).

As for your question :

My spanish is a bit rusty ;-), but what Mediaportal needs is gfx. You need a not-so-highly-sophisticated-but-still-powerful gfx card. And the barebone doesn´t seem to have that. So, if my spanish is correct, better don´t.

mcbelly

petzlux · 2007-06-10, 19:17

Why wouldnt it work for Videos and Music ? He already mentioned that all MediaFiles are stored on a NAS, and remote network shares access is no problem for MediaPortal.

Also, any fairly recent (last 4 years I would imagine) onboard graphics component can cope with Video content, you only ever need a dedicated graphics card for 3d.

View Poll Results: All-in-One mediacentre a worthy Idea?
Yes I think its a good idea	5	100.00%
I'm not sure it will work	0	0%
No way Jose, that'll never work	0	0%
Voters: 5. You may not vote on this poll

2007-06-08, 15:08	#1 (permalink)
FeersumEnjin Portal User Join Date: May 2007 Age: 32 Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	All-in-One Bedroom Mediacentre possibility Okay, I saw this and couldn't help thinking that it could make a neat bedroom mediacentre/TV, running Mediaportal ECS AIO 950 15" TFT Pc Now I need to make a few clarifying statements: 1) I have seen this unit for £150 delivered with 2ghz P4 CPU (Don't know if it's Williamette or Northwood) , 256mb ram, 40gb HD and XP Pro 2) All my media is stored on 2 X SAMBA NAS drives so the Hard drive size is not an issue 3) TV would be provided by USB DVB-T stick to replace the 14" CRT/DVD TV and Digibox I currently have mounted on the wall via a bracket 4)Additionally I would look to install 512-1Gb ram, wifi or DLAN adaptor and a Microsoft MCE Remote as I currently have a keyboard I use on a seperate Mediacentre What I'm not sure of is whether this will have the "Poke" both from the CPU and the integrated graphics to handle Xvid (Avi) / X.264 (Mkv & Mp4) videos as these are the formats that most of my collection is in. As an example my laptop a P3M 1.2Ghz running Kubuntu can handle the Divx but I'm not so sure about X.264 and linux is lighter on system resources than windows I don't expect stellar performance and it won't get heavy use so doesn't warrent a lot of cash So what do you think fella's, Is it worth a shot, I would estimate a total system cost of: £150 for the PC £25 for 1024Mb stick of E-bay bargain ram £20 for an MCE Remote £20 for DVB-T Usb stick £215 Last edited by FeersumEnjin; 2007-06-08 at 15:43.

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2007-06-10, 16:25	#2 (permalink)
petzlux Portal Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 52 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	If you already have a existing HTPC in another room, why not take advantage of the new TVengine 3 and use the bedroom HTPC as a pure client. that way no need for local storage, or dvb-tuner. You just would need LAN/Wifi access (N wifi I guess should work). No need then aswell for 1gb ram, 512 should be enough, and you could get rid of the HD and replace it with a flash drive / SSD.

2007-06-10, 19:17	#4 (permalink)
petzlux Portal Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 52 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Country:	Why wouldnt it work for Videos and Music ? He already mentioned that all MediaFiles are stored on a NAS, and remote network shares access is no problem for MediaPortal. Also, any fairly recent (last 4 years I would imagine) onboard graphics component can cope with Video content, you only ever need a dedicated graphics card for 3d.