New music/media box for the in-laws

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Two years ago, I installed boxee on a very old PC that my inlaws weren’t using. I ripped my father-in-law’s music for him, and setup pandora. I brought over an old stereo receiver, picked up some outdoor speakers and managed to teach him how to use that simple setup. The current has worked pretty well, but was really slow because the computer is almost 10 years old now. Last week my father-in-law called to tell me that the music is skipping, and wants to get something new. I can tell him to buy something (computer, streaming box, or put a computer together myself).

The trouble is, I’m not really sure what the best option is for him. Although there are a number options here: a PC/HTPC running windows media center or XBMC, a stand media box from boxee, an appleTV (with XBMC?) or any of the others that have been reviewed here– I can’t find one that seems like a perfect fit. So I’m asking for help with suggestions here.

My father-in-law is essentially computer illiterate. If there is a computer problem, they are almost an hour away and I’ll need to fix it myself. He currently only uses this for music: ripped mp3s, pandora, and spotify (which I installed, but I don’t think he really uses much). The computer runs some old version of boxee (barely), and it hooked up to a receiver and drives two outdoor speakers. At the very least, I need to offer him the same simple, easy access to music. I prefer a simple gui as opposes to forcing him to navigate different applications/windows/etc.– though I suppose he can be taught if necessary.

Although this is primarily going to be used for music, I would really like to incorporate video into this setup either now or at some point in the future. They have a 55 inch TV, and use TIVO with all the premiums. It would be great to be able to bring over some recorded content or ripped movies and dump them on a sever/media box that they can watch easily with their TV. I don’t think the TV can be the only/primary display for accessing and controlling music.

XBMC looks fantastic!, they even have an application for the ipad and iphone that allows complete remote control. This would work great, but pandora either isn’t working or is finicky. I suspect that there is a good deal of updating necessary to keep something like this stable. Still its free, and is capable of doing what I need.

Plex looks neat too, but it looks to be similar in many ways to XBMC.

WMC is an option too. I’m just not sure if its the best option.

Boxee box: This is the easiest option, even if I have the thing connected to a computer display. He is familiar with the navigation as well.

Any advice or suggestions are appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

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