Acer Aspire Revo R3610

BionicRasher

Looking at getting myself set up for a HTPC which might also be used on occasion as a regular PC for browsing the web and doing a tiny bit of stuff like office kind of stuff on the very rare occasion.
Looking at the Acer Aspire Revo R3610. I have a wireless network etc with 1TB of storage attached and I have set up and a very old PC with Boxee on it at the moment in the bedroom and that will do the job as a TV for the bedroom to watch movies etc
Looking at making the Revo the main box for processing all my stuff like movies TV shows Music and photos etc. and having it sit behind the main TV. I would like to run Boxee on it as I like it and its very user friendly for all the family. I wont be doing any gaming on it as we have a Wii but maybe I can hook that up too.

A few questions
1. What are peoples thoughts on the Revo? is it a good bit of kit?
2. Where can these be purchased in Ireland (I see them on eBuyer.com and they are retailing at about 315 ex delivery)
3. What are the wireless Keyboard and mouse like?
4. We have Androids so can these things be controlled by an App on an Android phone? Or for that matter can Boxee be controlled by Android?
5. Might even try to get all these things set up for DLNA - have read a little about it but not too familiar - is this easy to set up?
6. I will also be getting a new TV - are all HD TVs DLNA at this stage or should we be looking out for any particular ones?

I will more the likely come up with other issues and questions as i get all my bits and bytes organised too but sorry for all the questions first time around

Wcool

Actually there is a lot of information on this box (and its predecessor) in this thread: Acer Aspire Revo R3600

I own a R3600 and use it as an HTPC and am extremely happy. The total cost for me was below 200 euro as I bought the Linux version. If you a technical enough you can save 100 euro's by buying a Revo version without Windows (Linux on XBMC runs smoother than on Windows anyway)

Not many outlets out there, I bought mine from ebuyer. I tried Irish companies but they didn't stock them.

My version did not come with a wireless keyboard and mouse but where both not that good. If you are going to use it as a HTPC, iyou probably would want to change that anyway. I bought this myself: Lenove wireless keyboard It is too small for typing but perfect to control XBMC

It seems there is an Android App:
Android Remote

No experience with DLNA, i use samba to connect to other computers.

Good luck!

BionicRasher

Thanks for the reply - going to do a little research on it and also on on maybe a USB freesat stick for the box too. Is that possible. Would really like to get rid of Sky and just use Freesat and Boxee stuff.

I spotted NAVI-X on Boxee. Has anyone used that? I tried streaming some stuff but my old PC is not up to it and also internet was crawling. Looks good however.

Wcool

Adding a TV tuner is my only problem. We don't have digital television here in Galway and most gadgets suitable for USB (the box does not have a PCI slot) are not working for Linux.

If it would I might put MythTV on it. Would appreciate pointers here as well:
What is analog USB dongle is compatible with Linux, such that I can record analog TV?

Jakmeehan

tui0hcg wrote: »

going to do a little research on it and also on on maybe a USB freesat stick for the box too

I didn't know such things existed! I am also considering one of these machines for a HTPC. Can anyone suggest a good USB Freesat stick?

Antigrav

@Wcool you seem to be in the same place as me

I'm in the middle of upgrading my HTPC and home network and have similar priorities:

1. HTPC in living room to play live TV, internet TV, recorded Video (HD) and Audio through A/V Receiver into 5.1 Home Theatre sound system.

2. Central TV Capture box with old analogue TV tuner card Hauppage PVR-350, a newer USB DTT tuner and a Freesat PCI card.

3. Other PCs, Netbooks, XBOX360 around house acting as front ends.

To work with I have:

- old HTPC, VIA Mini-ITX Mobo EPIA MII1200, 250Gb disk, Coax S/PDIF, DVI output
- old SONY Desktop Pentium 4 2.0GHz, 1 Gb RAM, 200Gb disk
- 1Tb NAS embedded Linux, runs Samba and Bittorrent
- new silent HTPC, ASUS AT310NT-I Mobo ION2, 2Gb RAM, 40Gb SSD Drive Ubuntu 10.10

We've been watching HD movies and internet TV on the new HTPC for a couple of weeks, but I want to get rid of my SKY box and use the money to get a VPN service (like Overplay) to bring in Hulu, BBC iPlayer etc.

What was Boxee like to set up? I put XMBC on the new HTPC and it is easy to use for Wife and kids for Movies, Audio, Photos, etc.

I tried to get a MythTV backend working on the old HTPC, but it doesn't have enough grunt to manage video decoding and overlays, so have ditched that. I'm thinking of converting the old Sony into my Myth backed, but will have to set up a new PC in Kitchen = €€

The choice now is whether to keep hacking at a open source Linux/XBMC/Boxee/MythTV type solution, or fork out the money for Windows 7 upgrades and go with W7 Media Centre around the house.

For now I'll keep hacking If it gets past Christmas and divorce is looming, we'll go W7

Antigrav

Wcool wrote:

Adding a TV tuner is my only problem. We don't have digital television here in Galway and most gadgets suitable for USB (the box does not have a PCI slot) are not working for Linux.

BTW: The Hauppauge USB sticks are well sopported on Linux. I got mine from DABS.ie

Wcool

Antigrav wrote: »

@Wcool you seem to be in the same place as me

- old HTPC, VIA Mini-ITX Mobo EPIA MII1200, 250Gb disk, Coax S/PDIF, DVI output
- old SONY Desktop Pentium 4 2.0GHz, 1 Gb RAM, 200Gb disk
- 1Tb NAS embedded Linux, runs Samba and Bittorrent
- new silent HTPC, ASUS AT310NT-I Mobo ION2, 2Gb RAM, 40Gb SSD Drive Ubuntu 10.10

...

I tried to get a MythTV backend working on the old HTPC, but it doesn't have enough grunt to manage video decoding and overlays, so have ditched that. I'm thinking of converting the old Sony into my Myth backed, but will have to set up a new PC in Kitchen = €€

The choice now is whether to keep hacking at a open source Linux/XBMC/Boxee/MythTV type solution, or fork out the money for Windows 7 upgrades and go with W7 Media Centre around the house.
...

My setup is the Revo in the living room, wife proof XBMC on it, she loves it
And my back end is a self build VIA Epia 10000 with lots of disks acting as always on homeserver, torrents, NAS, FTP, etc.
The only thing I miss is TV tuner + recording. I don't want to have another computer always on for decoding (I am a bit of a low power freak) so the Revo has to do this as well. But the Revo has no PCI slots.

In the bargain alerts section there is a thread about a 8 euro DVB-T USB dongle, I just bought it and will let you know. But the ultimate goal is to also add freeview satellite and get rid of NTL. I don't want to run windows if possible (all my always on stuff is linux)
DVB-T Usb dongle

In your case: your new HTPC box with ION2 should have enough horsepower to decode your TV no?? So why not put your MythTV backend on your HTPC as well?

Wcool

i see now that you mention that your HTPC does not have enough grunt for video decoding. Forgive me my ignorance but what does it involve?

If it does not work for you, it will certainly will not work for me with my older ION system

That would suck, as I don't want to buy an extra box either.

wexfordman

Hi,


Hi
Been doing a bit of research and was thinking of adding these to my Christmas list:-

Acer revi 3610 from ebuyer Linux edition for 200 stg

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/236577

And this little device below which will allow me use my iPhone as a ir remote from anywhere in the house

http://www.keene.co.uk/electronic/ke...)/KIRA128.html

Wondering though if I could use the revo to do the ir device instead though ?

Any thoughts/ advice appreciated!

Regards
Eamon

Jakmeehan

wexfordman wrote: »

Hi,


Hi
Been doing a bit of research and was thinking of adding these to my Christmas list:-

Acer revi 3610 from ebuyer Linux edition for 200 stg

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/236577

And this little device below which will allow me use my iPhone as a ir remote from anywhere in the house

http://www.keene.co.uk/electronic/ke...)/KIRA128.html

Wondering though if I could use the revo to do the ir device instead though ?

Any thoughts/ advice appreciated!

Regards
Eamon

Well if you're running xbmc on the revo you can use the xbmc iPhone app to control it, same goes for boxee. Not IR, but does the job

wexfordman

Jakmeehan wrote: »

Well if you're running xbmc on the revo you can use the xbmc iPhone app to control it, same goes for boxee. Not IR, but does the job

Yeah, was planning on using Xbmc but want to use iphone to control sky box, DVD and tv also hence the kira device if I can't do it with a pc based ir solution!

Thanks
Eamon

Jakmeehan

Using your iPhone to control your sky box etc will drive you mental once the novelty wears off. I'd say you'd be much better off buying an actual remote control that will control all your equipment, and buying an ir receiver for the revo. Then use eventghost to map any ir commands from remote to anything you want.

That way you have one remote that controls everything, including your HTPC/XBMC

Wcool

+1 to Jakmeehan

You really want a dedicated remote after 10 min. And you don't need that IR extender to control your XBMC! Well, as long as you have a home network.

You can setup XBMC to be controlled by other devices and use your LAN and wifi to control your XBMC over your network. There are 2 or 3 apps out there, this is one of them: http://www.collect3.com.au/xbmc-remote/

Jakmeehan

Wcool wrote: »

There are 2 or 3 apps out there, this is one of them: http://www.collect3.com.au/xbmc-remote/

By far the best

silvine

That Collect3 app is brilliant. However, the iphone would probably be a little frustrating for controlling other devices.