Just in case- Alternatives to SageTV

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

That's a great Idea, I didn't know you could do a net boot with OpenELEC.

Most modern BIOS's will support network booting of just about any OS (windows included) via gPXE (you may have to flash gPXE into your BIOS). All it takes is an iSCSI target and proper DHCP configuration to point the system to the proper target. Win7 supports this in the core product, having iSCSI drivers in the core, but it is possible with XP as well (with some tweaking).

[Evil_Attorney]

hmm, I played around with a normal install of xbmc recently, but didn't see a native resolution switching setting. I'll have to check again.

[stanger89]

I believe XBMC has frame rate switching but not resolution switching.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by eric3a

I'd just found out about OpenElec recently and intended to have a look into it to see what my other clients are going to be. (small "PC" under OpenElec, or more Pivos type boxes).
I wanted to investigate what a cheap but capable Openelec box would look like, and had a look around at the XBMC hardware forums, but seems everyone has a different idea. No surprise.... But I'm such a noob at Linux boxes, I have no idea how to pitch it right. I am surprised (pleasantly so) that a $140 box is a reasonable option!
Any ideas?

Eric

If you are looking to use an OpenELEC build, I'd take a look at the hardware they have builds specifically built for, instead of using the 'generic' build. Basically, this comes down to certain CPU/GPU combos, which is pretty easy when looking at APU's. Examples of OpenELEC's builds:
ION - Intel Atom or i3 plus NVidia ION chipset
Fusion - AMD e350 and similar APU (should run fine on just about any fusion APU (A4, A6, A8)
Intel - Intel CPU + Intel graphics (basically Clarkdale or Sandy Bridge)

Looking at those, compared to the cost-performance of those options, I'd probably choose the e350 or a low end A4 over the other flavors.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

hmm, I played around with a normal install of xbmc recently, but didn't see a native resolution switching setting. I'll have to check again.

Sorry, yes, no resolution switching, just framerate switching (which in most case is all that really matters - most like the scaler in the GPU is far better than that of the TV)

[wayner]

Originally Posted by eric3a

I'd just found out about OpenElec recently and intended to have a look into it to see what my other clients are going to be. (small "PC" under OpenElec, or more Pivos type boxes).
I wanted to investigate what a cheap but capable Openelec box would look like, and had a look around at the XBMC hardware forums, but seems everyone has a different idea. No surprise.... But I'm such a noob at Linux boxes, I have no idea how to pitch it right. I am surprised (pleasantly so) that a $140 box is a reasonable option!
Any ideas?

Eric

A $35 box is also a reasonable option and pretty risk free.

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by wayner

A $35 box is also a reasonable option and pretty risk free.

I don't think that is a fair prices comparison to other devices, that actually have cases, power supplies, IR, remotes, SD memory etc. I just ordered two, and with mpeg licenses, shipping etc, it's easily going to cost over $60 and I'll be reusing some components I have. My Pivos XS was $90 purchased locally and it is a complete plug and play unit (although the remote is average so I configured another I had).

I also have OpenElec running on an ION and frankly the Asrock ION 330 is still junk.

Martin

[banjo]

Hello,

I'm looking for a way to use the "For The Record" software with sageTV, it will let me use my Digital Recording easy then the DVBE4Sage.

Thanks

[panteragstk]

I have the foxconn a3700 which is an e-450. It plays everything including h.264, vc-1, mpeg2, silverlight 5 (netflix, which has gpu decoding), and HD flash with 10.3 installed and the little broadcom crystal HD. Everything is offloaded to the GPU so the weak CPU isn't even noticed. Sage client runs great. OpenElec runs VERY fast and everything works including auto refresh switching. I don't think HD audio support has been added to OpenElec yet, but when it does it will be pretty much complete. For the $150 I paid for the box, $18 for memory $20 for the Crystal HD, I couldn't be happier with the box.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I don't think HD audio support has been added to OpenElec yet, but when it does it will be pretty much complete.

Nope, but if you've got a spare linux box (or VM) with about 40GB of space you can build your own pre-Frodo OE from source

[cncb]

I'm using a recent Frodo Intel build of OpenELEC and unfortunately HD audio still doesn't work on my Sandy Bridge core i3. I have been reading about a Linux patch for this provided by Intel that apparently hasn't made it into OpenELEC yet. Also, hardware acceleration (VAPPI) doesn't seem to play nice with Intel either for some reason.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

For the $150 I paid for the box, $18 for memory $20 for the Crystal HD, I couldn't be happier with the box.

Last night I was thinking about buying the box you have to play around with. <$200 is just low enough that its almost in impulse-buying range.

But, one thing I've been wondering about- what did for a remote? I wish more of those little boxes had integrated IR receivers. I'd probably just use my Harmony remote, so I just need a receiver, not a remote.

Edit to Add: Still, I'm very skeptical about building an HTPC for media playback. I thought I was happy with my original Sage box that was directly connected to my TV. Then I got the MediaMVP, and it was no contest. I haven't wanted to use a computer for media playback since. I realize forums are always filled with people complaining, but there's a lot of people complaining about various things not working on the OpenELEC boards. For <$200 I might still try it, but I'm very, very skeptical.

[Fuzzy]

If your basis of comparison is the difference between an older video card's TVOut capability and the MediaMVP's outputs, then yes, the 'purpose built hardware' would far exceed the TVOut (which on most video card consisted of a crappy analog scaler and analog converter). This is no longer the case with HD displays and PC Video. There is no 'conversion' going on between a computer and a TV anymore, so the video path is uncorrupted. About the only complaints I ever see a'la PC based video playback anymore are more around native output (24Hz output). There are plenty of ways to accomplish this, all of which in the form of basically free software.

Obviously, my opinions are just that, but I'd rather buy a $200 HTPC, than a $200 media steramer.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If your basis of comparison is the difference between an older video card's TVOut capability and the MediaMVP's outputs, then yes, the 'purpose built hardware' would far exceed the TVOut (which on most video card consisted of a crappy analog scaler and analog converter).

In my pre-MediaMVP days that was a lot of the problem I had with video quality (mainly, color). Even after that I used SageTV client on my workstation, and I ran into all kinds of problems getting things to either play back at all, or play back without micro-stuttering. Even when I mostly got things to work, there were always little things that seemed off (e.g., media playback seemed to take quite a bit longer to start up on my computer than it did on my HD300).

Maybe I could have worked through those issues with more time/effort, but I didn't particularly want to spend my time doing that.

Obviously, my opinions are just that, but I'd rather buy a $200 HTPC, than a $200 media steramer.

Now that I'm coming up on 30, in my grumpy old age I'd happily spend the same amount on a less flexible streamer that "just works" over a more flexible HTPC that I have to maintain. Obviously that's going to be a personal preference.

[Evil_Attorney]

So newegg has this AMD A-450 barebones system for under $200 with a free 64 Gb SSD drive. I would just need memory. The important question is, will this be able to bitstream HD audio? Panteragstk, how quiet is your Foxconn system?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Now that I'm coming up on 30, in my grumpy old age I'd happily spend the same amount on a less flexible streamer that "just works" over a more flexible HTPC that I have to maintain. Obviously that's going to be a personal preference.

Especially if you don't need/care about the extra flexibility.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Especially if you don't need/care about the extra flexibility.

Which usually translates into more attention to drivers and the like ...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

So newegg has this AMD A-450 barebones system for under $200 with a free 64 Gb SSD drive. I would just need memory. The important question is, will this be able to bitstream HD audio? Panteragstk, how quiet is your Foxconn system?

That would depend on the software/OS you want to use. It should stream perfectly fine in a windows based environment, using ffdshow. Linux drivers are what seem to have issues with HD bitstreaming at this point. (personally, I don't bitstream, choosing to send out multichannel LPCM instead)

[sflamm]

built one of these a while back for a friend...
handles everything fine.
but be warned - it is fairly sluggish navigating... (playback etc fine)

[Evil_Attorney]

For $200, this is a nice impulse buy, especially to play around with openelec. Maybe I'll install Win 8 later with Sage to see how it handles things. While I generally love my HD300 for TV and blu-ray rips, it crashes every time I play music (the Phoenix interface with all Apple Lossless music files). It would be nice to have one box that can reliably do video and music but also looks pretty.