Slashdot Mirror

I have a set-up where all my media files are stored on a generic Linux file server running Samba for CIFS/SMB and exporting NFS shares. This can be any old box you have laying around, and yes, the Raspberry Pi can do this fine.

My televisions have small boxes mounted via VESA-mount adapters on the back of them. 2 are Raspberry Pis, 1 is a Zotac Z-Box. Two are wired, one is wireless, all have power and HDMI cables. All run OpenELEC as a front end and I use Yatse on my Android phone as a remote.

The downsides are you can't integrate Netflix into OpenELEC (which is really just a skinned, slimmed XBMC) because of lack of DRM support on Linux. I haven't checked on Amazon Prime video or Hulu Plus video support lately. I know it was working before with the BlueCop repository of add-ons.

As far as i'm concerned, XBMC is pretty much the only way to go here. I keep my media files (Movies, TV, Music) on a terabyte drive in my first generation Mac Pro and samba share them gigabit to a Zotac id41 running Openelec. Openelec is an appliance-like Linux distribution that installs quickly and does nothing other than run XBMC (there's no "desktop" except XBMC; you can control it via ssh). I tried Serviio, and a couple of streaming servers, but they don't always understand what a file is supposed to do and choke on it. Samba just shares files and lets the remote machine figure them out. XBMC figures everything out that I've sent it so far; it has a host of plug-ins (what they call "add ons") including one for the BBC iPlayer, and for the ITV player, and for Hulu and you can even control rtorrent from one of them. For the Beeb and ITV I use Witopia's VPN service which can be invoked from Openelec's command line if you know what you're about. Plays 1080p nicely on my 50", all sorts of 5.1 audio goes through a semi-decent Pioneer amp. Openelec is not for dedicated Linux tinkerers. I set the Zotac up originally with Arch Linux because, you know, "I'm a geek, uh huh, uh huh" and it was a huge mistake because I was updating the damned thing every 20 minutes the way Arch people do, and I put a desktop on it and installed browsers and so forth thinking that I'd have a neat fully blown computer there in my living room and I could surf and check my email -- fahgeddaboudit! It's an HTPC only these days, plays music and video. Those Zotacs are powerful little machines though. I have a friend in town does the same thing with a Pi.

All --

Check out the ZBOX ID-13U ... ~$140 with an Atom D525 ...

I send them out as Data Conversion Appliances.

With 4GB + 500MB HDD the cost is .LT. $250 including shipping.

Zotac Home:

http://www.zotacusa.com/zboxsd-id13.html

buy it here:

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/14020846750539532622?hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=buy%20zbox%20id13&oq=buy%20zbox%20id13&gs_l=serp.3...1472.1472.3.2591.1.1.0.0.0.0.134.134.0j1.1.0.les;..0.0...1c..2.serp.0XVQgSwPijk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1920&bih=935&sa=X&ei=I_8TUeDsEY-uqwH7goCoCg&ved=0CFQQ8wIwAA&prds=scoring:tp
-- kjh

Dumpster diving has become pretty much unviable in the last 3 years... I still have a lot of gear, but try not to stock up any more. What remains is for eventual repairs. In a few years, I'll all trash it, I'm sure.

I just built 2 itx boxes:

1 with a e-350 apu board, 8gb of ram, and a 1tb hard drive for $195.00 for everything.

1 with a intel g550, itx board, 8gb of ram,and a 1Tb hd for $265 for everything.

I just bought a Zotaz Zbox - AMD E-450, 2GB RAM, 64GB for $300 in the same formfactor as this "new" Intel formfactor: 4.17in x 4.17in x 1.46in

http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-nano-xs-ad11-plus.html

This Atom D525 Box:

http://www.zotacusa.com/zboxsd-id13.html

( about $200 ) works well once provisioned with RAM, HD and CentOS 6.

For more throughput( about 4x ), this I3-based box runs very well for about $400:

http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-id82.html

Tiny, well made and reliable.

-- kjh

This Atom D525 Box:

http://www.zotacusa.com/zboxsd-id13.html

( about $200 ) works well once provisioned with RAM, HD and CentOS 6.

For more throughput( about 4x ), this I3-based box runs very well for about $400:

http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-id82.html

Tiny, well made and reliable.

-- kjh

I think we're going there eventually... I mean the CPU, GPU, RAM etc. keeps getting better - even smart phones have a gigabyte of RAM these days. They won't be doing anything heavy but for light workloads, the hardest is probably watching movies on YouTube but the latest generation of phones can already decode and stream 1080p to a TV like for example here. How much more power would the average non-gamer really need? I've been thinking about replacing one of my parents' boxes with a zbox nano which is pretty much as minimal as you get but in reality it's still overkill for their needs. As long as they got to use a big screen and a big keyboard a smart phone would be plenty.

Try building your own x86 PC that takes 5 watts out of the wall.

Well, you asked for it. I've been a happy customer of these guys no financial gain. This is buying a complete system with case and everything although you get to purchase drives and possibly RAM separately.

http://www.zotacusa.com/

The zbox makes a great, ridiculously overpowered mythtv frontend.

http://soekris.com/

This box is commercial / semi-industrial grade and is basically a router platform ready to go.

You have to carefully avoid google to avoid finding "single digit wattage" PC-like hardware.

Only on /. would a guy paying $75/month for cablemodem to connect to a $2000 gaming PC that gets a new $500 graphics card every couple months worry about 5 watts of electricity, considering that in a civilized area 1 watt costs about $1 per year.

If you are not running Flash, a Linux box running the cheapest ION you can find will be quite sufficient for display purposes.

Exactly...something like this would be perfect. Just install Ubuntu and XMBC.

Of course you could also install XBMC on an Apple TV too, but that might have problems with non-H.264 content. I'd be interested to hear whether XBMC runs well on the new $99 Apple TV models, since that could be a really cheap option.

Well, HDMI is generally compatible with DVI via a relatively inexpensive adapter (which I think most cards come with). So a card with one of each DVI, HDMI and VGA ports actually has the capacity for two DVI devices (or two HDMI devices). I'm fairly sure this is the case with the GT 240; In Zotac's case, they actually include an HDMI to DVI cable (it's just a dongle, shown here, but should do the job).

For a while, I was running my X-Box 360 Elite via an HDMI to DVI converter on my 22" monitor; Interestingly (and mostly unrelated to your question), it actually treated it as a monitor and not a TV, allowing me to choose the native resolution. Hooray for EDID. :P

Well, HDMI is generally compatible with DVI via a relatively inexpensive adapter (which I think most cards come with). So a card with one of each DVI, HDMI and VGA ports actually has the capacity for two DVI devices (or two HDMI devices). I'm fairly sure this is the case with the GT 240; In Zotac's case, they actually include an HDMI to DVI cable (it's just a dongle, shown here, but should do the job).

For a while, I was running my X-Box 360 Elite via an HDMI to DVI converter on my 22" monitor; Interestingly (and mostly unrelated to your question), it actually treated it as a monitor and not a TV, allowing me to choose the native resolution. Hooray for EDID. :P