Having just got myself a new 1080p TV, I hooked up the cheap laptop I have to it on HDMI and now I'm sitting in the lounge typing this on Brisky in a more comfy chair.

It's just better.

However, the lappy will only output in 720p and struggles to play very high res video full screen, so I am looking to build myself a media centre PC for the lounge.

It's clear I need some more horsepower than this lappy, but I'm also doing it on a budget. I need a smallish case, likely a micro ATX motherboard and a graphics card with HDMI output. Would be goog if it's quiet too, I don't want another hovercraft sitting next to the TV like my gaming rig is

All spec suggestions are welcome.

Acer Revo running XBMC, basically silent, cheap, plays 1080p flawlessly

any Atom based Nettop will do

http://www.ebuyer.com/391203-lenovo-q180-nettop-pc-vc73guk £170 for that

XBMC live/ubuntu totally free from http://www.xbmc.org

you could possibly look into the raspberry pi as an option. nice and cheap, will run xbmc and outputs 1080p no bother.

sure, its no powerhouse, but for £30 or thereabouts it's worth considering- its also passively cooled so nice and quiet.

The problem with the RPi is where do you keep your media? The GPU decoder can only do certain formats (x264 in an MKV container, and MPEG2, I believe) so you're limited to playing back particular files and DVDs, the CPU isn't powerful enough to decode. So you need storage, in order to download all your media, because even though XBMC will stream from things like iPlayer via your broadband connection, these are in a format that can't be accelerated by the RPi's GPU and will play back poorly if at all. And since the RPi only has 2 USB ports, your storage options are pretty limited.

Personally, if I was doing it, it'd either be an HP Microserver crammed with large disks and an Nvidia VDPAU-capable graphics card, or the modern equivalent of my 3 year old Intel Atom + Nvidia ION system with RAIDed USB drives. The Atom in mine streams stuff off iPlayer etc with no problem, and can handle a decent sized RAID array for stuff I want to store in proper HD formats. It's more expensive, but more suitable IMO.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

Media Portal. Runs like a dream, supports remote control etc. Use it across many PCs. Easy to configure too. Drives a 10foot interface easily, and an interface that my techno-illiterate parents can cope with.

Most basic PC it's on in the family is a 2GHZ P4, 1 GB RAM, 20GB HDD, 512Mb Graphics card (Nvida somethingorother in an AGP slot)

I'm building a media pc from the HP N40L Microserver (currently £100 cashback). Asus Xonar 7.1 soundcard bought from ebay for £24, £12 spent on my dvd drive, not decided on my graphics card yet, hdd used was a spare one I had laying around.

Total spend with the graphics card will probably be around £220 (inc the £100 cashback), its very quiet even with 3 HDD's in it and is a great backup device, it plays fine using the VGA port but I too intend to use HDMI.

Matthew

Western Digital media player, you can either get one with or without a hard drive. Very little faffing around trying to set up and configure.

£70 for the version with no drive or £140 with 1TB drive.

Excellent devices, I've been using them for years.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/

I'm building a media pc from the HP N40L Microserver (currently £100 cashback). Asus Xonar 7.1 soundcard bought from ebay for £24, £12 spent on my dvd drive, not decided on my graphics card yet, hdd used was a spare one I had laying around.

Total spend with the graphics card will probably be around £220 (inc the £100 cashback), its very quiet even with 3 HDD's in it and is a great backup device, it plays fine using the VGA port but I too intend to use HDMI.

Matthew

Just what I was going to recommend. I guess you could bypass the need for the sound card if you get a GPU with sound over HDMI?

Have been faffing about with an sff of late. Its an atx micro, shoe box style. The I am trying to address the problem of noise. Changed the fan on the cpu to a Noiseblocker which is now inaudible, ie if I stop the fan I can't detect any change in noise level. Now I have to sort out something about the power supply fan. The Seasonic which has good specs noise and quality wise is discontinued, non of the others I have found reviews for seem to be of the same quality - build or fan noise, unfortunately. I think sff stuff is in a bit of a null atm.

We can't get TV here, but use Iplayer, and that works reasonably to give us HD on most sources - we are getting fibre next week (yeh!) currently lows of 1.5 to highs of 4.5Mbps, with outages occasionally.

The picture using the on board graphics card is acceptable, may invest in an AMD H6570 1Gb , about £50 if no improvement after fibre. Fanless, so silent but slight reservations about heat.

Sound is bobbins from the on-board dac. Spent most of this week looking at various off board solutions. Fiio E17, nuforce, arcam rDAC, and lately cambridge audio Dm100. So thats a range of about £100 -£200. It will drive some Audioengine A2's. (not brilliant so far, just blown a power supply - needless a super special unique plug).

With the ATXm case you can swop and change components but from a limited palette, unfortunately not many are quiet enough for media/HT if it has to share a room.

The ARM powered devices looks great. I am trying to psych myself up to take three old but serviceable arm7 powered acorns computers down to the tip - still have a soft spot.

Anyway, with only maybe 4-5 watts to dissipate, no need for fans. Do they have any expansion capability? sound should be easy, and presumably a SSD could be used for storage? but is there some sort of external graphic card? Only three little silent boxes - nice!

ps, if its the same lenovo keyboard, I really liked them when I tried them out. Can't find any one to retail me one.

Just what I was going to recommend. I guess you could bypass the need for the sound card if you get a GPU with sound over HDMI?

Correct, the only real problem is you are limited to a PCI-Express Gen 2 x16 connector with x16 link slot for your card and you can only fit a single height card due to the case being so small. I did buy the ATI 6450 (I think) that others have used without problems but mine refused to boot with the card in :(

Indeed, which is annoying as I've got a few spare at home, but they're all too big. :(

Need to grab myself an HD4540 (or 5450, one of the two) after Christmas as they're cheap and fit.

acer revo with xbmc all the way, you can even attach it to the back of most tv's so it becomes invisible, came with a wireless kb and mouse. only downside is theres no dvd/blueray drive built in

it has 4 usb (one is used for the kb/mouse receiver) hdmi out, since i bought this ive never used my popcorn hour

its not much bigger than an old video cassette and silent running, i can browse the tinternet, watch a film and listen to music all day long on my big screen tv

Edited 9 December, 201213 yr by the mad monk

I'll have a look into the Acer Revos. I do want to keep this running as a Windows PC running Win7 or Win8, though another option would be a Mac Mini.

I don't need a DVD drive in it as I have a PS3 for Bluray and DVD playing. I shoud be able to build something fairly cheaply, though the case will be bigger, my only worry is noise and having the audio through the HDMI. It also looks like I don't need THAT much of a CPU.

Right now, the laptop is doing a decent job, even streaming video wirelessly from iTunes on my Mac, it's just that it could be even better if I could use 1080p

There are quite a few of the nettops around after following some suggestions on here. Some with i3's even i7! and fanless!

Maybe someone will work on the problem of improving graphics externally. None had space to fit a current pci card surprisingly enough. While most of the nettops I looked at claim 1080p, quite a few of the reviews, if they do have reservations, it seems to be principally with the display.

Going to keep my eyes open for next time...

As far as the sounds, I went and bought an Arcam rPac on 14 day try'n'buy. It won't be going back,

I now have some bass, action scenes now have some impact. Clarity so even deaf ol' me can understand dialogue on a lower volume setting . Even a semblance of dynamic range rather than all compressed. (a big hate hate hate!!!)

Considering the tiny speakers its remarkable.

An Atom CPU is up to the job.

I use my Netbook plugged into the TV and that has an N270, 3GB RAM and nVidia ION GPU.

Like the HP server with £100 cash back. Good price.

Phil

Sony PS3 everytime i have used WD Media Player, Xento Media Player, Small Micro PC with XMBC. You can't beat the PS3 though DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD. I still have the other kit just incase i get a cinavia video however i manage to avoid these usually and only rarely have to dig out the other players. You can pic up a New shape super slim for £130 there almost silent running although ugly as sin. wack a cheap 500gb hard disc in the side or network to a NAS. Remote control is a worth while buy.

Sony PS3 everytime i have used WD Media Player, Xento Media Player, Small Micro PC with XMBC. You can't beat the PS3 though DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD. I still have the other kit just incase i get a cinavia video however i manage to avoid these usually and only rarely have to dig out the other players. You can pic up a New shape super slim for £130 there almost silent running although ugly as sin. wack a cheap 500gb hard disc in the side or network to a NAS. Remote control is a worth while buy.

XBMC supports both DTS-MA and True-HD now

XBMC supports both DTS-MA and True-HD now

Its ok if you like fiddling for fiddling sake and customised skins etc. But for straight out of the box performance you can't beat the PS3. Especially as you get all the extra's blu ray drive + gaming at full frame rate etc! No Mkv support is a shame but other than that its ace.

Its ok if you like fiddling for fiddling sake and customised skins etc. But for straight out of the box performance you can't beat the PS3. Especially as you get all the extra's blu ray drive + gaming at full frame rate etc! No Mkv support is a shame but other than that its ace.

It's not fiddling at all, the latest XBMC installs are flawless out the box with everything working fine AND it has full MKV support.

as for xbmc, i just used the install file and never touched another thing since, been about 12 months now and its still on the same install, never found a need to fiddle

it even downloads the covers etc, theres so much to it but i never use it for anything other than mkv's

i have mine running from windows 7 but you can just as easily have it running off a pendrive, im a n00b and i had no issues with it at all

I didn't say you had to fiddle with it i just said its ok for fiddling with. i.e its customisable and can be installed on a plethora of devices.