new: custom media pc

gagomes

1. What is your budget? circa [ <= 300eur]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Connect via HDMI to the telly to play movies. General house automation.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [No]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [No, or maybe I can't think of any]
Yes. 3TB hdd.

5. Do you need a monitor? [No]
No
6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Speakers]
Nope
7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
No
8. How can you pay? [Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Laser]
All
9. When are you purchasing? [ASAP]
ASAP

Serephucus

Do you want it to have any sort of form factor/colour/noise levels?
Are you going to be storing much stuff on it, or is the storage being handled by a separate machine?

(Out of curiosity) what home automation stuff are you planning on doing with it?

gagomes

Serephucus wrote: »

Do you want it to have any sort of form factor/colour/noise levels?
Are you going to be storing much stuff on it, or is the storage being handled by a separate machine?

(Out of curiosity) what home automation stuff are you planning on doing with it?

Storage wise, I'll be putting a 3TB disk and an external usb blu ray and usb wireless nic on it which I already got.

Usage, will be basically running Linux and xbmc. Ideally I'll use this host for just streaming video to the telly and as a general purpose server, to bridge the connection between skybox and the wireless lan. I currently use a raspbery pi which works well, but I would like it to be a little more responsive.

An HDMI output will be required (though, I have no other requirements than the HDMI out. I don't intend to play games with it

1. HDMI output requirement
2. Preferrably Silent, but no specific requirements around this.
3. Form factor I would love something like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Dell_Optiplex_745_flat.JPG - if not anything else will do.
4. 1x Ethernet


Thank you for the help. I am writing this post by a computer that was spec'd with the kind help from the kind folks on this forum.

Serephucus

I take it you've look at a Pi 2? 'Cause those things are a pretty massive jump from the first ones.

gagomes

Serephucus wrote: »

I take it you've look at a Pi 2? 'Cause those things are a pretty massive jump from the first ones.

I haven't had the chance yet. It's on my wish list. Should I get one?

I was hoping to have something a bit more powerful, so I can have background tasks while playing videos, etc.

Serephucus

I don't know to be honest. I tried XBMC on a Pi a while back myself, and while it worked, it was pretty damn slow. From what I understand the Pi 2 is about 4x as fast.

Maybe something like a NUC then. Not much bigger than a Pi, but you could stuff a low voltage i5 and SSD in there.