Opinions of HTPC build

DermicSavage

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 8, 2004
Messages
1,107
I'm currently planning to build a small system capable of some media storage and to be used as a media player for downloaded/web streaming video. The intent is to go full 1080p with the system, but I can settle with 720p playback. I mainly intend to use XBMC as a full time interface with the computer to play and stream whatever I want.

For me the aesthetics of a small case are a big deal to me. I want to have that small device I can throw in the midst of my TV stand and not eating up a major slice of space. So, I'm trying to squeeze the best bang per buck in the smallest package possible.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=15138232

Mobo: JetWay JNF81-T56N-LF
CPU: AMD eOntario (G-Series) T56N Dual Core 1.6 GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1066
Hard drive: 2x 2.5" 1TB Samsung Spinpoint 5400RPM in RAID0
Case: Habey EMC-600B w/ 120W power supply

I've been leaning more toward AMD's new embedded APU as I have understood, the integrated radeon can easily handle 1080p playback. I could be wrong though, as thus is why I'm doing a sanity check here! Moving up to a sandy bridge i3-2100T is about an extra $100, so I'm not certain if I really want to go that route.

Really, the two points that matter most to me is to keep the extremely small form factor and get as much storage as possible. I'm thinking this is the best bet, it's just more a concern if the processor is capable of standing up to the job.

Thanks [H]!
 
As along as that G series is the embedded form of the E-350 (it looks like it is) you'll be able to play 1080 just fine.

One question though, why RAID0 instead of RAID1? You do get increased perf and cap however I've never been a fan of RAID0.
 
If you plan on making the HTPC also be your media downloader and media storage, your gonna need a little more cpu power.

Just imagine watching a movie while your try to unrar something, or someone access your HTPC over the network and sucks up half your cpu power.
 
If you plan on making the HTPC also be your media downloader and media storage, your gonna need a little more cpu power.

Just imagine watching a movie while your try to unrar something, or someone access your HTPC over the network and sucks up half your cpu power.

Huh? How much CPU power do you think it takes for network file transfers? A E-350 can play a 1080 movie and uses only 34% of it's resources doing so. Network file transfers might take an additional 10% if that.

I'm intrigued though how does one untar a file and at the same exact time watch a movie?
 
As along as that G series is the embedded form of the E-350 (it looks like it is) you'll be able to play 1080 just fine.

One question though, why RAID0 instead of RAID1? You do get increased perf and cap however I've never been a fan of RAID0.

Yes, as far as I could tell it is, I've been trying to establish the correlation between this and the E350, but couldn't find anything definitely saying it was. Doing a mirror would defeat the purpose of storage capacity. I've debated getting 3-4 hard drives and doing a RAID5 instead, but alas cost and case are a delimiting factor.

If you plan on making the HTPC also be your media downloader and media storage, your gonna need a little more cpu power.

Just imagine watching a movie while your try to unrar something, or someone access your HTPC over the network and sucks up half your cpu power.

If anything, the second core can pick up extracting tasks, but also I'm hoping having the extractor run on low priority would make a difference as well. It's too bad no one has really used it as one, so maybe I'll have to be the one to test it out!

I'm intrigued though how does one untar a file and at the same exact time watch a movie?

I've made a myriad of scripts to have everything be automated in the background. All that I'd need to do is to drop a file on the system and then let it extract and sort. All the while XBMC is up the entire time.
 
Yes, as far as I could tell it is, I've been trying to establish the correlation between this and the E350, but couldn't find anything definitely saying it was. Doing a mirror would defeat the purpose of storage capacity. I've debated getting 3-4 hard drives and doing a RAID5 instead, but alas cost and case are a delimiting factor.

As long as the data is backed up somewhere / inconsequential go for it. In regards to untar you are correct with being able to setting priority. I still don't know what would be untarred but it can be done. I'm actually running XBMC right now so I'm really interested in your build. Would be nice for you to report back and tell us how it went.
 
It may be awhile yet before I really pull the trigger on it. Still waiting to get home from Afghanistan first, hopefully be back in the next 2 months. I'll definitely report back then on how well it works!

Thanks for the advice :D
 
Huh? How much CPU power do you think it takes for network file transfers? A E-350 can play a 1080 movie and uses only 34% of it's resources doing so. Network file transfers might take an additional 10% if that.

I'm intrigued though how does one untar a file and at the same exact time watch a movie?

Keep reading your link. Specifically when playing a BR disc with encryption enabled. at 57% use you need to start to be careful of what you do in the background.

But anyways, the market is going to be different two months from now, so he might as well ask again then.
 
Keep reading your link. Specifically when playing a BR disc with encryption enabled. at 57% use you need to start to be careful of what you do in the background.

But anyways, the market is going to be different two months from now, so he might as well ask again then.

? His build doesn't include a BR reader.
 
I have a file server that uses an E-350. When i do a file transfer to it at 80meg/second over the network, it pushes the cpu well over 50%. I am running windows Raid 1 and Raid 5 though.

In addition, media meta data scrapper puts the cpu at 100%
 
Why does it sound like people are making every excuse in the book in order to persuade you not to get that E-350?
 
XBMC on Windows or Linux/Live?

The only reason I ask is that it can be tricky to get AMD hardware acceleration working under XBMC/Linux.
 
my e-350 plays 1080p (XBMC) just fine while accepting network transfers at gigabit speed. i download, extract and categorize media on my PC and move it over to the htpc.
 
Why does it sound like people are making every excuse in the book in order to persuade you not to get that E-350?

No one is trying to persuade him into not getting it, but he does deserve to know the drawbacks. I mentioned Blu-Ray playback just in case he wants to add that in the future. After you've been burned a couple of times buying systems and parts that people online swear is perfect only to find out that for example 1080p works, but 1080i is horrible you'll be thankful for people who at least alert you of things you haven't thought about.
 
No one is trying to persuade him into not getting it, but he does deserve to know the drawbacks. I mentioned Blu-Ray playback just in case he wants to add that in the future. After you've been burned a couple of times buying systems and parts that people online swear is perfect only to find out that for example 1080p works, but 1080i is horrible you'll be thankful for people who at least alert you of things you haven't thought about.

I would say so when the case he has can't even fit the BR drive. He would have to upgrade more than just the chip if he wanted to go there, no? There's no problem warning people of possible things they have missed. However, when it's obvious someone is going for a specific form factor it's kind of ridiculous to be talking about RAID 5 and RAID 1 together (which would be too much for most of the HTPC cases out there and is definately not fitting in that ITX case) or BR drives (which the case can't fit either) while at the same time coming up with additional unrealistic scenarios that a build like that will rarely encounter. 1080 content plays fine on that build. So far I haven't seen anyone who says it doesn't. If the case were larger then of course recommend things that can actually fit in the case.

He's on linux as well (it looks like since it's not within the spec) so overall the amount of resources required is far lower than on WM7. He's not recording movies, transcoding video, etc. If he were well then that would be a completely different build.
 
He's on linux as well (it looks like since it's not within the spec) so overall the amount of resources required is far lower than on WM7. He's not recording movies, transcoding video, etc. If he were well then that would be a completely different build.

I guessed he was but thought I'd ask. From what I've google'd in the past, getting hardware acceleration working requires getting a beta build of XBMC. The E350 seems to handle 1080p really well once thats done.
 
I guessed he was but thought I'd ask. From what I've google'd in the past, getting hardware acceleration working requires getting a beta build of XBMC. The E350 seems to handle 1080p really well once thats done.

Looks like you're right. It requires the latest build for the E-350 but it is possible (for Linux ...obviously I doubt there would be much issue with a Win setup). I went on the XBMC boards. Here is the CPU util and power from someone with a E-350. This is under Windows though.

Sleep mode - 1w draw
Windows idle - 0-1% cpu usage/17w draw
XBMC idle - 20-26% CPU usage/25-26w draw
480p MKV h.264 - 8-11% CPU usage/18w draw
720p MKV h.264 - 10-15% CPU usage/18-19w draw
1080p MKV h.264 - 13-15% CPU usage/19-20w draw
 
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Thanks for all the input. My intent is to run Ubuntu or some other simple type of linux (since I have zero experience with Linux). If that fails, I do have an old copy of XP MCE, but ugh I want to avoid that.

Good to know to grab the beta version of XBMC. The main intent for this box is to play mkv h.264 files at 1080p. I also was intending this box to be my main downloader and scraper as well, so that's where I'm curious on the power of it. I right now I am definitely leaning for the E350 platform, so I will reprice in a few months when I get home. Definitely an exciting concept and test for the new embedded platforms
 
Thanks for all the input. My intent is to run Ubuntu or some other simple type of linux (since I have zero experience with Linux). If that fails, I do have an old copy of XP MCE, but ugh I want to avoid that.

Good to know to grab the beta version of XBMC. The main intent for this box is to play mkv h.264 files at 1080p. I also was intending this box to be my main downloader and scraper as well, so that's where I'm curious on the power of it. I right now I am definitely leaning for the E350 platform, so I will reprice in a few months when I get home. Definitely an exciting concept and test for the new embedded platforms

I decided to look into this a bit more for you. So this is the deal the Windows XBMC setup is the best setup (easiest and performs slightly better actually) with XBMC (yes it works for Windows too) with regards to E350 (nvidia has always had better drivers in Linux and so far nothing has changed in that regard). However, if you like to play and save yourself $100 it can be done in Linux and here is how you do it. Overall it's pretty simple. However, if it's your first time using Linux please feel free to ask for help... i'll walk you through it.
 
Awesome, thanks a ton for the advice. I'll definitely hit you up when I pull the trigger on it all and get it set up. If windows really is better to use, I could load my copy of XP just fine then. It's just that it's a 32-bit version, so alas I wont be able to use as much RAM, but in XP I wouldn't need more than 2GB anyway
 
XBMC only supports hardware acceleration under Windows 7.

I'm fairly certain this isn't true at this point. I'm preparing to make the switch from WMC/MediaBrowser to XBMC this weekend, and in my reading it appears that hardware acceleration is available under Linux. Even on AMD-based setups.
 
I meant under windows. The XBMC for Win FAQ says it needs Win7 for hardware acceleration (DXVA2).
There are a few hoops to jump through with AMD acceleration in Linux but it does work.
 
Awesome, thanks a ton for the advice. I'll definitely hit you up when I pull the trigger on it all and get it set up. If windows really is better to use, I could load my copy of XP just fine then. It's just that it's a 32-bit version, so alas I wont be able to use as much RAM, but in XP I wouldn't need more than 2GB anyway

Try Linux first. If you can't get it, which I doubt with the help on these boards... then think about spending more for Win7. But right now, it can be done in Linux and it really isn't that hard at this point.
 
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