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I'm about to buy all the parts for my HTPC. But I have 2 questions. 1. I'm going to use a SSD just for the speed of the OS on it. Should I also get a cheap platter drive since all the media streaming might wear out the SSD earlier? Or should I just buy the one drive, keep the HTPC silent, and when it craps out, I just hope I have an image of the hard drive and clone it back? I figured SSDs are only getting cheaper by the month. 2. I'm going to use something like Linux Mint & XBMC on it. However, I was wondering if there's a program that I can run so that it acts like an Apple Device so I can pipe the audio from iTunes on my desktop computer to the HTPC? It would be nice to use this all with my iPhone, and the remote app, to control the music on my HTPC.
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Oct 24, 2010 18:41
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Hob_Gadling posted:For what it's worth, I haven't yet run into a situation where disk speed would be any sort of bottleneck or even important. Noise level and storage space more important to me. This is partly also because I never shut down the HTPC. You bring up a good point. I do have 2.5 terrabytes in this computer, but that's because one of the 1TB drives is faulty, and I haven't gotten around to sending it back to WD. I guess I should go ahead and do that, and when it comes back I'll put it in the HTPC as it's storage, and just move whatever files to that. EDIT: Bam, added an eSATA enclosure since the hard drive is a 3.5 drive, and purchased. IUG fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Oct 24, 2010 |
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Oct 24, 2010 20:34
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Woo, HTPC built. Just cloning Linux Mint to the flashdrive to give it something to boot to. Unfortunetly, I have to return my graphics card as I got a PCI Express 2.0 card instead of a x16, so it would stand about an inch taller than the case it fits in. Luckily, video can come out of the motherboard without it, however I want a dedicated graphics card just because I might do some emulation on it, and just don't want to take too much away from the processor if I get a full 1080 TV.
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Oct 28, 2010 05:07
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Thermopyle posted:A large portion of my shows aren't on iTunes last I checked, and even if that wasn't an issue I'd still have to break the DRM to play on all my devices. Given that downloading Tv shows hasnt been shown to be illegal, especially since if I really wanted I could rip everything from my Dish Network feed, I think I've chosen the moral high ground here. Oh yeah, those copyright things don't do anything and you never hear anything about copyright owners trying to protect it or anything. Nope.
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Mar 3, 2011 04:07
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Thermopyle posted:That doesn't prove its illegal. I know of no court cases trying the legality of downloading TV shows, which is a completely different beast than movies. I'm just quoting this because it's so loving stupid. "I didn't know it was illegal to murder someone in North Dakota because I haven't heard of any of these court cases".
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Mar 3, 2011 04:36
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Does anyone know if that Windows 7 "Welcome to Windows" animation that starts up before the login prompt can be disabled to boot up faster? I have a suspicion it stays there until the animation is done, and given that I'm on a SSD, maybe it's done loading the OS before that animation finishes. I don't know if I'm wrong or not, but I keep on hearing "boot up in seconds" with SSDs, and my boot time is about 30 seconds still.
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Jun 13, 2011 18:15
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danbanana posted:i doubt it, especially since there's stuff going on while that animation is playing. running win7 with my SSD only takes ~20 seconds to boot from cold (including loading BIOS), and when that animation is done, EVERYTHING is loaded. Well, that's my point. I wonder if it's done before the animation is. However, they let the animation finish before moving on, even if the stuff going on behind the scenes is done. I guess the only way to know would be to disable the animation and see, and I was wondering if it can be done or has been done.
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Jun 18, 2011 21:45
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Is there a Windows 7 app that will let you run an Airplay service? I'd prefer something that could run from the taskbar in the background, so I can keep XBMC in the foreground. I'd like to find the cheapest way to stream my iTunes library (Mac) to my (future) surround sound system. I know there are other options, but if I can make something that's Airplay capable, then I can also stream from my phone.
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Aug 29, 2011 02:24
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EC posted:See my post over on the XBMC forums. I ended up dropping AppToService and using something else...FireDaemon I think. But it works well enough. Seems to have major limitations. No music?
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Aug 29, 2011 16:16
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EC posted:For music, you'll need ShairPort. It works, sort of. If XBMC plays music at any time, it'll prevent ShairPort from playing back anything. I ended up with a remote button that kills ShairPort process and restarts it, which fixes it. This is awesome, it worked perfectly. I might actually go and disable the music library of XBMC now, for all I'll have to use it. Hopefully playing a video doesn't disable this function, but I'll test that later.
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Aug 29, 2011 16:53
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EC posted:In my experience XBMC playing any sort of audio/video file would make Shairport not work. I'm sure XBMC is just taking control of the audio device and not letting it go. It would be super cool if someone turned it into a native add-on, but I'm not holding my breath. I just tested, and I got it to work pre and post video watching. I listened to a song for a bit, then watched an episode of a show, and then continued iTunes on my Mac to play on my Windows 7 HTPC. So I guess there must be a difference in our setups somewhere.
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Aug 30, 2011 03:25
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szlevi posted:
Did you read his question? He asked for a fix, he doesn't want it to do this.
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Jan 22, 2012 05:15
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Could you set up a cron job that would just quit the program at a certain time, and open it at another? Or are you looking for something more elegant? Because otherwise that would allow you to use any program of your choice.
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Feb 18, 2012 01:35
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Alright, so I bought a Logitech Harmony remote recently, and I am still programing it all. I also have an IR receiver for my HTPC that runs Windows 7. That receiver did have a remote, and it's own software with it too. However, I'm wondering what's the best way to go about installing something on the computer to make it see the IR receiver, and then how to best program my remote. Does someone have a guide that works well without installing a million hacks or 3rd party programs?
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Mar 3, 2012 18:41
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Probably, but you have such a limited selection of stuff there, and it's way overpriced too. I used to work at a Best Buy, and you'll get the option of about 2 cases, no motherboards or CPUs unless you order online and ship to store, and about 3 average power supplies. Any shipping you pay from another website has to be cheaper than them.
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Apr 14, 2012 22:16
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Powdered Toast Man posted:So, I'm trying to cut the cord. What I have: Somewhat related, but you should read this topic: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3482219 Basically, content providers are trying to make it so you need a cable subscription to use Hulu.
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May 2, 2012 20:47
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Is there a MCE IR receiver that is like those micro bluetooth adapters? I have a spare USB port right on the front of my HTPC, and the other one has the bluetooth adapter in it that's the size of the port, and only a few millimeters out from the port. Seeing as I also have a Logitech remote, I don't need a remote for it (although if it's inexpensive enough, I guess it won't hurt).
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Nov 5, 2012 03:39
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jonathan posted:Last question, is 100mbit wired good enough for streaming 1080p ? Gigabit is so much faster and not expensive, there's really no reason why you shouldn't get gigabit switches/routers, even if to only future-proof your network. It's 10 times the speed for a minimal investment.
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Dec 1, 2012 21:39
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Don Lapre posted:Call logitech support and maybe they will replace it. I strongly doubt they would: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/23/logitech-q3-earnings-selling-harmony-remotes/
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Jan 25, 2013 00:03
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Stugazi posted:Plex running on my Grandstream GXP2200 Androind deskphone. Playing American Idol? The worst use of office equipment. You're fired.
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Jan 26, 2013 20:48
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kri kri posted:If you don't need or want to run windows just get a 8 or 16gb SD card for OE. I've been thinking of doing one of these HTPCs that is a bit more portable. But is it really a good idea to run a OS off a USB or SD card? I was under the impression that a large number of read/writes would quickly fry flash memory like that.
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Feb 2, 2013 21:00
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Yeah, I know they're inexpensive, I just didn't want to throw it away every few months (it would just seem wasteful to me). How is the boot time on that setup?
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Feb 2, 2013 22:38
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Traxxus posted:I tried mysql once, but it syncs everything with all XBMC installs, including watch tags, separate profile or not. To separate them by profile requires setting up different databases for each one. I ended up just ditching it in the end. That's it's intended purpose though, so it's not like that was a broken function.
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Feb 7, 2013 02:58
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I just got a AD10 and all the needed parts to make this HTPC. However, I can't really do that right now, as I need a computer to manage backups for multiple computers, so I was going to do a dual partition for this computer for the time being. I was going to do one partition (32 gig SSD) with FreeNAS for the backup management for the time being, but also wanted to put OpenELEC another partition for it. Basically so when I'm done having it manage backups, or when I want a more portable HTPC I could just grab and go with a USB stick of movies. My question is, do I have to get another bootloader so I can pick between the partions? So far I have only used Chameleon back when I was running a Hackintosh, but that was a long time ago that I set that up, and probably only for Intel PCs trying to boot OS X (although it would also boot Windows for me when needed). Anyone have a simple bootloader solution for this, or is this more than I need to worry about?
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Feb 14, 2013 04:51
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iceslice posted:Instead of partitioning you could install either (or both) onto USB thumb drives or SD cards and either plug in or use the BIOS to select what you want to boot from. OpenELEC works great that way. I just bought a 128 gig SSD drive to put in my actual HTPC, and was going to take the 32 gig out of that and use for the Zotac. That's why I was going to try a dual partition, rather than buy some more USB drives.
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Feb 14, 2013 18:06
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I have a 32gig drive that's available to me that I'm taking out of another computer. So I figured since I'd have way more space than I need, I was hoping to do two partitions. One for FreeNAS for the back system I'm putting together (going to attach a 4 bay external enclosure), and another partition for OpenELEC so I can detach that enclosure and bring the computer with me with some movies on a thumbdrive/SD card so I could have a more portable HTPC. But I guess if I can't put FreeNAS on a partition then I just won't. The reason why I'm doing this odd setup is that I am trying to buy a house or condo, so depending on the living situation in the future, I may be able to come up with a better network in the new place, so then this computer would become a full HTPC.
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Feb 14, 2013 20:19
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I got a AD-10 and it just won't stop giving some 3 beep error code every time I boot it up. Searching their site or Google doesn't give you any kind of table for what these error codes mean, and they manual is devoid of it too. I've tried a different stick of ram, taking the SSD out, taking everything out, and still nothing when I power it on. I'm already regretting this purchase, so unless their tech support gets back to me soon I'm already left with a bad impression of it.
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Feb 28, 2013 03:17
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There's nothing plugged in at all except for the power cable. Doesn't matter if the ram/SSD are in it, or any combination of those two. I've submitted a ticket to them, let's see what their reply is.
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Feb 28, 2013 04:31
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Delta-Wye posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2386006&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=183#post412610643 That's the thing, there's nothing on their site, on Google, or their message board that lists what the beeps mean. It's incredibly frustrating.
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Feb 28, 2013 17:34
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It's me. I'm the idiot (although Zotac's customer service could be a bit faster). The three beeps means "no ram detected/bad ram", and I thought it was weird I was getting the same beeps for ram in and ram out. Turns out I wasn't pushing in my ram stick far enough it's its slot before securing it in place. Therefore, basically not connecting the ram at all. I could still see the pins and the clips weren't securing it quite properly in the ram's grooves for the clip. Pushed it in a bit more and then it was complaining about having no boot disk (because I hadn't given it one).
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Mar 4, 2013 17:39
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I just setup my AD-10 with XBMCbuntu, and it works fine. I dropped in my advancedsettings.xml from another HTPC and it's almost behaving exactly like that HTPC now. I just have to figure out how to set a static IP for the AD-10 and I'll be golden I believe.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:40
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Seventyfour posted:Question: I want to buy a mini system to run XBMC and play music. But I need to stream Netflix, which means I think I need Windows 8 + media center. I was thinking the same thing for a friend who had a similar request, and I was going to look into how easy it is to jailbreak an Apple TV, since that's cheap, has the other streaming stuff built in, and then XBMC for the local network streaming. But I have to look into how easy it is to jailbreak one now.
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May 10, 2013 17:10
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Ah, I didn't know there was a v3 Apple TV. Well, I'm just trying to find a cheap option for some friends who aren't ready to buy anyways. Maybe I'll do one of those Android on a stick things for just XBMC.
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May 10, 2013 19:51
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http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/15/meet-utilite-a-99-quad-core-arm-based-pc-running-ubuntu/ So I just came across this article, it seems like this thing would be perfect and cheap for a HTPC. My AD-10 is also on ubutntu, and it works fairly well (I haven't worked out all the kinks yet, as it's not my primary HTCP).
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Jul 15, 2013 16:55
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I'm just going to warn you that I went the build-your-own route with my main HTPC, and wish that I bought an Apple Mini. Not just because I like the Mac operating system better, but those things are silent, smaller, use less electricity, etc. Really the noise is my biggest problem from my HTPC. I also have a Zotac, but at least my main HTPC is more powerful (I do have a cheap graphics card in it, since I planned on it also being used for Emulation/Steam, and wanted to at least do the N64/PS1 era stuff). It's hooked up in my living room, and it's noise is noticeable. If I have the volume up on the surround sound it'll drown it out, but it's still one of my biggest issues with the machine. My Zotac isn't as powerful and doesn't do as much, but it's silent.
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Nov 2, 2013 22:34
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shymog posted:Aftermarket cooling is important. The stock Intel HSFs don't do a great job in a lot of smaller cases because they can't vent out enough air, making them get screamingly loud. My Silverstone ML05B requires that my 3.5" SSD sits above my processor (until I get around to buying a cheap 2.5" to replace it), blocking a vent. I personally will be thinking about this part. However, it's about $60 on Amazon, so that would make Revol's PC about $530. So that just makes it even closer to a Mac Mini in price, and much much larger. The only benefit is the extra storage on his PC, the processing power which you don't really need if it's video only, and being able to run whatever OS more easily. EDIT: I'm not pushing you towards a Mac Mini, but that's just the computer I wish I bought instead for myself, so I'm comparing it that way for that reason.
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Nov 3, 2013 02:40
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At this point I would say just spend the 200-300 to get an AD-10 or one of these Intel systems people are talking about. I built a system and I'm just so tired with how noisy it is because of the fans. I did make it a bit more powerful as I wanted to game on it. But now that Steam is doing a streaming thing, it's completely useless to have a powerful system at the TV, humming over what you're trying to watch.
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Jan 26, 2014 03:25
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Yeah, I'm actually going to downgrade my HTPC just to have it silent. Steam Home Streaming is amazing. You just need to be able to use a Steam client on the HTPC, and it will put all the power on some other computer on your network that the game is actually installed on. So I'm trading my HTPC with the semi-decent graphics card for my AD-10 as we speak just to get pure silence from the HTPC.
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Feb 3, 2014 21:44
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I just found out my Zotac has OpenElec on it, so I'm downloading Ubuntu now to put on it. I want it primarily for XBMC, but if I can find an easy way to make XBMC launch Steam's Big Picture mode on that, that's my goal.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:35
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Nope, it keeps you logged in. I haven't tried with three systems yet (Mac laptop, PC desktop, Linux HTPC), but right now I'm logged in on the Mac and PC, and both Steam clients show the sum of both games. Notice how Fallout NV has "Stream" as a button on the Mac. Also, that game is obviously Windows-only, so it's not installed on the Mac. And I'm in the Streaming Beta, so that's how I can do it.
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Feb 4, 2014 02:46
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