Media Centres Created 12 years ago2012-04-11 10:59:19 UTC by digital_ice

Right, advice time.

I'm looking to build a new media centre as cheaply as possible so I can stream my music and video around my house.I think it's a pretty fair bet I'm going to be running XBMCbuntu as the OS but hardware wise I'm open to advice.

Ideally I'd like a NAS server attached to a lightweight, silent machine for the conroller - but as I said, I am budget limited.I've been looking at the Acer Aspire Revo Nettop as a thin, silent centre instead (obviously changing the hard drive for a faster, bigger one) but I've never been a big fan of Acer's build quality.

The downside of this is that I'd still need an independant bluray/dvd player should I want to watch discs that I've not ripped to mp4

Anyone done anything similar and have any ideas?

Umm, if you had your hands dirty making a pc before id recommend buying an AMD e350 platform then you have an option of expanding to a raid card if you want to do an internal storage and the ability to hook anything up to it.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-e350iae45-amd-apu-fusion-review/
Asus has a fanless model if noise is a concern. It runs full hd no prob.
Though the size is bigger than these mini pc's.

Zotac's zboxes are also a good choice for this.

NAS'es arent cheap when you go for more than 2 drives.

Um. What. I just built my brand new HTPC tonight, using XBMCbuntu
I used an Antec ISK case and a Core i3 CPU (which has the Sandy Bridge GPU). All up, cost me $450 including an SSD boot drive. I'm running mine on external hard drives, though, not a NAS. I was thinking about posting a journal about it tomorrow, now you've stolen my thunder

Couldn't recommend XBMCbuntu more, it's a fantastic piece of software.

I heard Raspberry Pi can actually be used as a media center since it can play blu-ray quality video. The problem is that it's not easily available yet and Ubuntu is not compatible with the ARM processor it's using, so you'll have to rely on Debian or Archlinux or something.
A major advantage is that RP only uses about 3W as far as I know.
Anyway, this is more for experienced users than for somebody who wants a media center to be installed quickly.

Raspberry Pi is just for fun.
I was gonna suggest an i3 but it might be a bit expensive given that you only need a media center, though not sure what kind of budget you are on

Heh, already got a raspberry pi on backorder, not sure if it's suitable really.

Budget is cheap as possible, I've got plenty of parts kicking about, but all spare cases are brutish tower cases with massive fans (ex-gaming PCs) - not really small quiet and cute enough for the missus to accept sitting in the living room.

Penguin, you've sold me on XBMCbuntu - I love the desktop app, just never played with the OS version. I suppose a usb3 external drive would still be pretty nippy with I/O speeds.

I'm liking the ISK case, might have a hunt around see what parts I can salvage that would work with the mini-ATX boards (what board you using out of interest PB?)

You know what, just make your journal post and I'll flick through

/me returns PB's thunder

Heh, okay, I'll get something up tonight after work