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I've got an older Shuttle PC that has a 2.26GHz P4, 1GB of ram, and an ATI 9600. It stutters pretty bad when trying to watch HD content. Is there something in particular that I can upgrade to get it to play HD smooth or is it worth just buying a new HTPC? What's the cheapest I can get away with to play HD videos? edit: I tried using Media Player Classic Home Cinema edition and the 720p playback was quite a bit better, looks like it might be worth upgrading the hardware though. fletcher fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Jul 20, 2009 |
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Jul 20, 2009 03:33
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SynMoo posted:Check out the other CPU options for your socket type. A P4 3.06GHz (Northwood) seems to be the fastest I can put in there. Think it's worth trying for $25? I'm really tempted to just shell out like $500 for some new HTPC hardware but if I can get 720p to be watchable with that CPU it would be awesome. fletcher fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jul 20, 2009 |
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Jul 20, 2009 16:56
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SynMoo posted:For $25, I'd give it a shot. AGP. Is there a particular video card that is really good for playing HD content?
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Jul 21, 2009 20:56
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Cheesus Christ posted:This might be a silly or redundant question, but what resolution do you guys have your TV set to? I'm at 1360 x 768 on my Samsung LN46A550 'cause my computer can't do 1080p anyway and I can't read the text at anything higher from my couch. Try 1280x720
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Jul 23, 2009 18:14
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SynMoo posted:For $25, I'd give it a shot. Awww it still doesn't play HD smooth. It's a little better, but not really good enough to tolerate it for a whole movie. Still looking for advice on what AGP card would give me the best 720p performance. Is one like this ok?
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Jul 23, 2009 22:04
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XP stopped booting for some reason on my HTPC so I decided to put Ubuntu 10.04 on it with XBMC - holy moly it is awesome. Got my Streamzap remote control working with it too. I'm running it on somewhat older hardware though (P4 3GHz, Radeon 9600, 1GB ram) and I notice navigating around the menu is a little laggy. It's totally usable, I just notice that it's not quite as smooth as it could be. I'm assuming if I had some better hardware it would be nice and smooth?
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Oct 8, 2010 22:19
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evilalien posted:The GT430 does about everything you could want in a graphics card for a HTPC. It will bitstream HD audio, and decode h264, and is pretty efficient in terms of power consumption. It isn't powerful enough to play recent games, but that isn't something I care about for a HTPC. What's a good budget CPU to pair with that card? Also, is the onboard video on any of the micro atx motherboards decent enough to play 1080p? fletcher fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Dec 30, 2011 |
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Dec 30, 2011 21:49
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Sporadic posted:If you don't mind spending more, you can get a Zotac Nano for $199 with free 64GB SSD. It also comes with little remote control. Can that thing handle playing a 1080p mkv with XBMC?
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Oct 29, 2012 04:32
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Has anybody tried installing Ubuntu 12.10 on a Zotac AD10? Did you run into any driver issues?
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Oct 30, 2012 21:24
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Crumps Brother posted:I installed it on an AD11 and everything worked flawlessly except for the IR. Honestly, I didn't spend much time trying to solve that issue since I knew it worked just fine with OpenElec and decided to switch over to that. I haven't heard of OpenELEC until a couple days ago. Is there any reason to use vanilla XBMC over OpenELEC?
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Oct 30, 2012 21:46
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Yeah, this box is only gonna be for XBMC. It would be nice to be able to watch The Daily Show as well on it. Is there a way to bring up a web browser in OpenELEC? I keep hitting a database connection error on their website.
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Oct 30, 2012 22:17
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Sporadic posted:If you don't mind spending more, you can get a Zotac Nano for $199 with free 64GB SSD. It also comes with little remote control. Thank you for recommending this. Got it set up with OpenELEC over the weekend, and it is really really awesome. I tried Ubuntu & XBMC first, but the performance for 1080p was pretty poo poo. I was trying Ubuntu 12.10 and it sounds like there are some issues with the AMD drivers, and I didn't really feel like spending a lot of time trying to get it to work so... So I tried OpenELEC instead, and found the AMD Fusion build of OpenELEC performs waaaay better, 1080p was no problem for it. Had to tweak a config file to get the analog sound jack to work, everything else worked just fine. I can even power it on and off with the remote!
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Nov 5, 2012 20:53
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Crumps Brother posted:Just a note on this. I think it has to do with the hardware acceleration that's built in to XMBC. I had issues with HD playback as well when I was trying non-OpenELEC options even though Ubuntu claimed to have my video drivers all up-to-date and whatnot. The Fusion option for OpenELEC has XVBA built-in, but I guess a vanilla install of XBMC doesn't? The wiki contains a page about installing XBMC with XVBA in it right here. When I used that particular version of XBMC my playback issues were solved. Ahhh, thank you for the additional information. I can't believe that wiki page didn't come up in all my googling over the weekend. I may have to give it another go then when I have some time to futz with it, would be nice to have a full OS on it. Is that extra stuff likely to get incorporated into the main XBMC build any time soon?
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Nov 6, 2012 00:53
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UndyingShadow posted:I'm at my wits end, and can't seem to find anything. Subsonic does this, and it is awesome.
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Nov 19, 2012 22:21
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jonathan posted:Have you tried full side by side or only 1/2 side by side ? I've never really compared the two. Don't do it. The Forum Rules are pretty clear on this topic. Now, if you want to discuss why you are having trouble playing the h264 1080p 3D DTS 5.1 videos you've recorded of yourself wanking, there is no issue. OK well maybe one issue.
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Nov 21, 2012 04:56
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KingKapalone posted:So all these Zotacs don't include memory or a HDD. After adding them, how does the price compare to building a comparable HTPC from scratch? I think it is very comparable in price. I was contemplating building my own, but I was really glad I went with the ad-10 instead. My main criteria were: 1080p, quiet, small. You can probably build something a tiny bit more powerful with a similar budget, but getting it as small and quiet as the zbox is going to be pretty tricky. I didn't want to have to deal with any headaches regarding cooling, so I ended up going with the ad-10. It is an awesome little computer.
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Nov 21, 2012 20:30
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Don Lapre posted:The ad10 also has built in ir which can power the system on and off. Speaking of the built in IR, what is the trick for blocking the little sensor? My zbox sits just a little low under the TV for the remote to always work, so I wanted to mount the external one a bit higher up. I ran into a problem where if I have the external IR sensor connected, then my inputs were getting sent to XBMC twice, once for the built in IR sensor and once for the external IR sensor, I presume. I put a piece of electrical tape over the sensor, but it still worked fine. Put another one over, still worked. 10 layers later and it finally blocks it out, but I can still get it to pick up if I'm at just the right angle. How is this infrared light so magical?? I thought for sure there would be a BIOS setting to disable the built in one, but I didn't see it. Did I miss it?
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Nov 21, 2012 20:50
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Don Lapre posted:It's called cir in the bios.  Thank you!
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Nov 22, 2012 04:16
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Do you guys have trouble getting the mounting bracket attached to the SSD in the Zotac AD10/AD12? I could only get 1 screw in and I had to just use tape for the other side.
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Dec 21, 2012 04:55
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I run OpenELEC on my AD10. It performs great, no issues playing 720p or 1080p content. Remote works great using both the internal IR sensor as well as the included external IR sensor. Wifi worked but couldn't handle streaming HD, I use gigabit ethernet instead. Buffering time is almost non-existent, and fast-forward/rewind are really snappy. I haven't tried doing audio over HDMI, since my receiver is kinda old and doesn't support HDMI, so I just use analog audio.
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Dec 27, 2012 01:38
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I wonder how many goons have an AD10 & N40L now. Lowtax needs to get some commission going on these things.
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Jan 4, 2013 00:59
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Worked fine for me with OpenELEC. I disabled the internal IR sensor to avoid every button press being picked up twice.
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Jan 4, 2013 05:35
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fookolt posted:Out of the Rokus and WD TV Lives and Boxees and Logitech Revues and everything else, what's the best HD streaming device that'll work with PS3 Media Server or Universal Media Server? My PS3 works great but it is way overkill for just watching movies transcoded by my main machine. It may be overkill but what's the point of buying another device if the PS3 is already hooked up to the TV?
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Jan 10, 2013 03:18
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Does the RPi do 1080p mkvs?
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Jan 26, 2013 02:08
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The only thing I wish OpenELEC had is a MAME emulator and a web browser that supports flash.
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Feb 2, 2013 21:50
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kri kri posted:Logitech f310 is about $23 on amazon He wanted a wireless one, which puts it closer to $50. Xbox controller is the way to go, in my opinion. Sets yourself up nicely if you ever want to start using Steam & Big Picture.
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Feb 15, 2013 01:09
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Is there an awesome frontend like XBMC but for emulation?
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Mar 1, 2013 01:55
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Yep, that is the build for you. Also, when did OpenELEC get a fancy new website?
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Mar 7, 2013 03:01
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Yuck, XP. I would say that is terrible idea - Ubuntu is a much better option.
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Mar 15, 2013 19:11
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kri kri posted:I feel like with netflix, amazon, etc I don't require as much storage as I used to. Yes if you want to be at the mercy of content licensing negotiations that have the potential to make all that content you like having available simply go away.
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Apr 5, 2013 00:40
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So I reluctantly ditched OpenELEC for Ubuntu 12.10 (so I can run Crashplan, Flash player, Emulation, etc) and 1080p playback isn't quite as good as it was with OpenELEC. I'm running the Catalyst 13.4 drivers and XBMC 12.1 Frodo. Do I need to manually install xvba? For some reason I thought it was included in the new version of XBMC. Also, the buttons on the remote aren't mapped quite the same, is there a way to import whatever remote control config file OpenELEC used?
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Apr 26, 2013 01:43
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fletcher posted:So I reluctantly ditched OpenELEC for Ubuntu 12.10 (so I can run Crashplan, Flash player, Emulation, etc) and 1080p playback isn't quite as good as it was with OpenELEC. I'm running the Catalyst 13.4 drivers and XBMC 12.1 Frodo. Do I need to manually install xvba? For some reason I thought it was included in the new version of XBMC. Whoops forgot about this thread. Got everything installed now per the guide, 1080p playback is still sluggish though
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Apr 26, 2013 05:38
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Horn posted:Are you using XBMCbuntu? For some reason the XBMC that ships with that doesn't support hardware rendering. Nope I'm using Ubuntu 12.10
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Apr 26, 2013 17:12
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Chemondelay posted:I've ordered a Zotac AD12, sans internal drive. Would I be better of running OpenELEC/XBMC from a USB 3.0 thumb drive, or an SD card? I would go with a USB thumb drive because then it's easy to plug into any other computer, should the need arise. I don't think any modern hard drive would have difficulty with video playback. Check out http://edwardbetts.com/price_per_tb/internal_hdd/ for the price per GB list to find a good deal. I think a lot of goons have been buying the WD Reds lately.
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May 10, 2013 05:31
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Having Ubuntu on my AD10 is awesome, now that I HD video playback seems to be working well. Messed with a bunch of settings and something seemed to do the trick, 1080p plays nice and smooth, no dropped frames. Having ZSNES is a great bonus, need to pick up one of those Xbox 360 Controller wireless receivers so I can use my existing controllers. Also installed bluemon, paired my iPhone to the AD10 via bluetooth, so I can stream music to it. Pretty sweet! I have all my music on a remote server running Subsonic...thinking about how those bits get from that remote server to my speakers with this configuration blows my mind., it is like magic. It's all free software too (or at least was) with the exception of the iSub app on my phone.
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May 10, 2013 05:46
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Clanpot Shake posted:I'm moving soon, and the space I'm moving to will make it such that watching things on my computer monitor won't really work anymore. I'm considering making an HTPC and having it read media from my computer and project onto the wall. About how much am I looking at spending to build an HTPC (storage will be on my PC), projector, speakers, and screen? The projector will be the most expensive part. The computer will probably be the cheapest part (Zotac AD12 + thumbdrive + RAM for like $250). For the projector/speakers, you'd really just have to pick a budget that works for you. For the screen you can just paint it on the wall.
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May 28, 2013 19:25
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Maybe time for a new HTPC thread?
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Sep 8, 2013 22:45
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I mean really what's the best latency they could theoretically achieve with the streaming? Is it a feasible system if an extra 50-100ms of lag can be a big deal in certain games?
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Feb 4, 2014 04:28
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KingKapalone posted:Reposting this question from last week. Any ideas? Thanks. What OS are you running? What version of the AMD video drivers? Any chance there is a background process running consuming processing power? (I noticed my youtube videos were choppy when I had crashplan running) Is hardware acceleration enabled in your Flash player settings?
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Mar 28, 2014 01:52
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wolfbiker posted:Edit: It has a 10/100 port. They still make 10/100 poo poo?? Why in the world would this not have gigabit ethernet?
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Apr 2, 2014 19:27
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