Any suggestions for a small home media PC?

BetterThanThou

I've gotten to the point where my room is an absolute wreck and is in need of a makeover. All my room has is my bed, PC and a few snakes. So I figured turning it into somewhat of a home theater could be a good idea, as most of what I use my PC for is watching TV shows. I'd like a small PC that I can mount on a small shelf. I'd like a fairly quiet one. Power is not very important at all. Currently, the most intensive thing I use my PC for is streaming videos, and I can't see that changing. I'm not quite prepared to buy a smart TV, as I do still surf the web regularly, and I've heard most smart TVs are not good for that. Size wize, a Mac mini would be ideal. But I'd rather a windows PC and a cheaper one if possible.
So my requirements are:
- Quiet
- Small, comparable to Mac Mini.
- At least 4 USB ports.
- Capable of streaming HD video and surfing the web smoothly.

I'd be looking for the cheapest good option possible. as I'm on a budget, though I don't want to cheap out and get something that doesn't do the job well either.

Gyck

An ITX build should fit with what you're looking for but they're actually quite expensive to build. A cheaper option might be to go with a laptop. Are you viewing satellite or Saorview, or both?

White Heart Loon

Intel Nuc? You'll find various versions on Amazon
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/overview.html

BetterThanThou

Thanks for the posts. I looked into an ITX build and it seemed like a good idea. But it seems the Intel NUC would do the job just as well and save a bit of money at the same time. All of my viewing is done via internet streaming, so I don't even have a TV subscription in my room as traditional TV doesn't appeal to me anymore. Can't be bothered to set up anything like Saorview either, as I won't watch it. I've got two additional questions. I've noticed all ITX and some NUC builds both come without Windows. But also without a disc drive, can I buy a copy of Windows 7/8 on a USB drive and just install that, or will I have more hassle getting Windows on it? And secondly, how do SSDs and HDDs compare? I've heard SSDs offer greatly increased performance and less noise, is this true? Is it worth the extra money?

White Heart Loon

The reason I suggested the Nuc is that I built a HTPC 3 years ago with a neat case with external 60w powerpack psu, mItx motherboard, 4GB of ram and a 40GB SSD. My board has just died and in looking for a replacement I find it's not cost effective to buy a new board for the case I have and am considering a Nuc myself. There two thing holding me back. First is that they have a cpu fan, I want completely silent, my last HTPC had no moving parts, no noise, no dust. Second is the lack of SPDIF as i need it for the surround sound system i got, the Nuc only does sound over HDMI.

Why do you want Windows? It's clunky and slows down your hardware. I have OpenElec on mine, no overheads of running an OS, boots straight to XBMC. You can make a Usb key installer for Windows if you need it, plenty of guides of you Google.

SSD's have no noise, they are like a big SD card, no moving parts. The more expensive ones are many times faster that a mechanical hard drive, but even the budget ones are fast as they have no spin up and seek times.

BetterThanThou

White Heart Loon wrote: »

The reason I suggested the Nuc is that I built a HTPC 3 years ago with a neat case with external 60w powerpack psu, mItx motherboard, 4GB of ram and a 40GB SSD. My board has just died and in looking for a replacement I find it's not cost effective to buy a new board for the case I have and am considering a Nuc myself. There two thing holding me back. First is that they have a cpu fan, I want completely silent, my last HTPC had no moving parts, no noise, no dust. Second is the lack of SPDIF as i need it for the surround sound system i got, the Nuc only does sound over HDMI.

Why do you want Windows? It's clunky and slows down your hardware. I have OpenElec on mine, no overheads of running an OS, boots straight to XBMC. You can make a Usb key installer for Windows if you need it, plenty of guides of you Google.

SSD's have no noise, they are like a big SD card, no moving parts. The more expensive ones are many times faster that a mechanical hard drive, but even the budget ones are fast as they have no spin up and seek times.

Thanks for the reply, looks like I'll definitely go with an SSD then. I want Windows as I want to have options, while it's primarily a home theater PC. I want to be able to use it for everything else, my room is pretty much a man cave and it's where I spend most of my time while in my house. So while the primary use for the PC would be for watching TV shows and movies. I'd like the PC to be somewhat versatile. I'd like the option to play old PC games if I want, I'm not too concerned with speed, the Windows PC I have now I can boot up and have Netflix running in 2 minutes, even less if I just leave it on standby, that's perfectly fine for me. I just feel the versatility of having Windows is much better than the speed of OpenElec.

Gyck

Whatever you go for don't skimp on the RAM...

Diarmuid

If you just want to stream movies to your TV, then a RaspberryPi with openelec on it is not a bad option. You would get the Raspberrypi + case + wireless usb + PSU for ~€60 and OpenElec is a very impressive piece of software. Fully configurable via the graphical front end. I tried it out at the weekend and am it's very impressive. However if the web browser is important then it's probably not the way to go for you.

yoyo

Diarmuid wrote: »

If you just want to stream movies to your TV, then a RaspberryPi with openelec on it is not a bad option. You would get the Raspberrypi + case + wireless usb + PSU for ~€60 and OpenElec is a very impressive piece of software. Fully configurable via the graphical front end. I tried it out at the weekend and am it's very impressive. However if the web browser is important then it's probably not the way to go for you.

The Rasberry Pis are good but being realistic are a bit slow, particularly if op will be using the computer as a PC as well. I have a Pi with Rasbmc and it's good but certainly you do notice the devices limited RAM and CPU when it's doing more intensive tasks.
The Nucs do look great though, only just heard about them myself recently..

Nick