Shuttle XS36V for XBMC

Supercell

Any thoughts about his pre built system ?
pros for me are that its fanless and low powered, specs seem like it would do the job.

£182 on Amazon
Specs on Shuttle website

Or the Shuttle xs35 v3

- Graphics look to have better support hmm ??

Any comments?
Looking to build complete system for less than 300 euro - this would need hdd and memory added. Have a hdd already that I could use.

Its no good without a decent GPU. The modern Intel GPUs are fine but that old GMA3650 is no good for video acceleration.

If you are building then consider this for a low-powered system
http://www.amazon.co.uk/C8HM70-I-HDMI-Motherboard-On-Board-Celeron/dp/B00AID5Z4U

Same CPU/GPU as the base Intel NUC and a lot of people are using those for HTPCs, they handle everything fine except for frame-packed 3D.

Of course if you want a pre-built system then the NUC itself is a good option. Zotac have a few interesting Zboxes too. Would really need to know exactly what you want to do with it and what OS you'll be running to give a proper recommendation.

Supercell

Thanks its for video playback only. Not interested in 3D , just tv series and usual mkv type stuff. Has to have wireless. Not bothered about linux or windows I'm pretty comfortable with both. Linux is free so i guess that would be preferred. Silent/ish and low powered would be nice too. Smooth 1080 playback is extremely important to me. HDMI audio too would be nice but not a prerequisite.

I was looking at the NUC as it ticks a lot of boxes, but seems by the time I added wireless, a drive (doesnt use standard 2.5 inch ones) and memory the final cost would be closer to the €500 mark which is more than I have for this.

Padraig Mor

Supercell wrote: »

I was looking at the NUC as it ticks a lot of boxes, but seems by the time I added wireless, a drive (doesnt use standard 2.5 inch ones) and memory the final cost would be closer to the €500 mark which is more than I have for this.

You could run Openelec from a flash drive - no need for the SSD.

keithclancy

Supercell wrote: »

Thanks its for video playback only. Not interested in 3D , just tv series and usual mkv type stuff. Has to have wireless. Not bothered about linux or windows I'm pretty comfortable with both. Linux is free so i guess that would be preferred. Silent/ish and low powered would be nice too. Smooth 1080 playback is extremely important to me. HDMI audio too would be nice but not a prerequisite.

I was looking at the NUC as it ticks a lot of boxes, but seems by the time I added wireless, a drive (doesnt use standard 2.5 inch ones) and memory the final cost would be closer to the €500 mark which is more than I have for this.

If its just 1080P movies with 7.1 output over HDMI then a Raspberry Pi will do it for you.

And will cost a hell of a lot less, probably around 80 euros with Wifi, SD Card, Case and HDMI Cable, USB Charger (Although you probably already have some of this already)

Best of all its completely silent.

Setup one at a mates and it replaced his Atom based box.

Also does his torrent downloading in the background without problems.

Openelec is easy to install and does everything out of the box.

Supercell

Supercell wrote: »

I was looking at the NUC as it ticks a lot of boxes, but seems by the time I added wireless, a drive (doesnt use standard 2.5 inch ones) and memory the final cost would be closer to the €500 mark which is more than I have for this.

The Celeron NUC is about €170 (on Dabs and elsewhere) so should be under €300 with RAM, wifi card and a small mSATA drive.

Here's a decent example of a self-build:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Celeron-Processor-2-6GHz-Socket/dp/B00B4NZYRQ
http://www.amazon.co.uk/P8H61-I-R2-0-Motherboard-Socket-Express/dp/B008RQ0FJK
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silverstone-sst-ml05b-usb-30-milo-slim-htpc-mini-itx-black-w-o-psu
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/300w-be-quiet!-bn133-sfx-micro-atx-psu-with-80mm-quiet-fan-80plus-green

That's about £160 so say €200 with shipping (very roughly, I don't have time to price everything exactly). There are cheaper SFX PSUs available but might want to check the building & upgrading forum for opinions on their quality.

Shop around for a stick of RAM, wifi card, use your existing HDD. Should be well under €300 total. Boot OpenElec or XBMCBuntu. Will handle 1080p perfectly and there's enough CPU power that menus and fanart in XBMC should be lightning fast.

Might even have enough CPU power to decode HEVC in the future, but if not, the case and mobo allow you to just throw in a future GPU.

Supercell

Thanks very much, hadn't really looked into the self build option.

i saw this post on the XBMC forum and have priced up delivery of the parts from elara and amazon (using parcel motel) and using my own hdd the grand total comes to about 365 euro which is a little over budget but sorely tempting!

Need to think it over for a few days

califano

This is what you need. Completely silent and boots into xbmc(linux image). Streams 1080p smoothly. Much cheaper too, everything else just for xbmc is unnecessary price wise.

rounders123

rounders123 wrote: »

Much cheaper too, everything else just for xbmc is unnecessary price wise.

I don't agree, low powered systems like RPi, all the various Android boxes etc. tend to be extremely slow in the menus, updating the library etc. I have a large library and when I played with an RPi it took 30 seconds just to click into 'movies' from the home screen.

Speed and smoothness are all part of the user experience and some people are willing to pay more for it.

Not to mention that playback requirements differ. To me a box that doesnt do 24p output is completely useless... just a toy rather than a proper HTPC. Pretty much none of these Android boxes will do it, neither will Ouya.

If you want a low price system then its fantastic that they are available, but to say that everything else is unneccesary is simply wrong imo.

califano

You are basing your counter argument on the performance of a RPi which i wasnt vouching for in the first place!. If you were basing it on a 510b M3 box fine!

rounders123

rounders123 wrote: »

You are basing your counter argument on the performance of a RPi which i wasnt vouching for in the first place!. If you were basing it on a 510b M3 box fine!

Im referring to everything in the "very low performance" category. RPi, Ouya all the cheap Android SOCs (incl your M3). Yes there are performance differences between them, but they are all laggy experiences compared to the type of systems being discussed in this thread.

And as mentioned, the playback capabilities are not enough for some users.

Like I said, it is great that they exist but to say that faster/better systems are unnecessary, I can't agree with it.

califano

ugh, its not an android box!

rounders123

rounders123 wrote: »

ugh, its not an android box!

It was just shorthand i was using for any number of cheap, low powered SOCs... 99% of them ship with Android (including Amlogic M3) so 'Android box/stick' has caught on as a general term.

It doesnt change the point I was making which is that all these affordable ARM-based machines are slow/laggy in XBMC and many have playback or output limitations. So how can you say that anything else is unnecessary?