XBMC Dedicated HTPC Capable of Netflix/Hulu Playback Through PlayOn

[Ogi]

Hello guys,

First time poster here.  I want to build a dedicated XBMC PC (greatly prefer to use XBMC Live, and not have to install an OS and XBMC on top of that). Normally I would just get an ION platform of some sort, however on my WHS box, I run PlayOn, which is capable of routing Netflix, Hulu and other online content to XBMC, regardless of what OS XBMC is installed on.  The ION CPU isn’t beefy enough to handle Netflix or Hulu streaming.  That leaves the i3 cpu, and I don’t know much about which motherboards that can connect with i3 cpu’s are good for HTPC setups.  

Ideally I would like a small-ish form factor, I don’t need the thing to fit in the palm of my hand or anything, but I would like for it to be fairly quiet.  

Suggestions anyone? 

[Mike Garcen]

Hi Ogi!!! I think you’re officially my first Facebook real friend to start a thread here ever!

Assuming you can’t wait for the next Sandy Bridge version (or need it), then i would recommend the INtel Clarkdale platform. There’s several good boards, depending on the size you need. They can all handle a Core i3 and can also bit stream. I’ve been using the DH55 (i think) for the past while and haven’t had a single issue, so i think u’ll be pleased.

You might want to consider upping to a Core i5 if only for future needs. But based on what you’re using it for, the i3 should be fine.

[Ogi]

Considering XBMC can offload the video decoding to the graphics card, I don’t think I will have a need for the i5 anytime soon.  The most recent issue I’ve had is with network transfer speeds from my WHS box.  I’m getting around 30MB/s, and I should be getting closer to 80-90MB/s … but I’ll have to look into that at another time.

 

I was thinking it’s funny how with all the time we’ve spent playing hoops, we never talked about interests outside of basketball haha.  

 

I’ll look at that board.  I also need to evaluate some smaller SSDs that I can run XBMC off of (I hope to get a sub 10 second boot up time on this box, and using a minimal ubuntu (other linux distro) with a SSD, I think it’s a reasonable goal).

[mikinho]

If you are going w/ a XBMC distro I would recommend an Intel manufactered board like the DH57JG or at the very least a board with Intel network cards.  My favorite distro for XBMC is Gentoo though Arch is a good middle ground between Gentoo and Debian.

For your poor WHS speeds what is 1- your switch do you have; 2- your network cards; 3- what drives do you have in your WHS?

[swoon]

I’m running a Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 board with the i3-530 and it has been solid. Yes, it has the Realtek NIC and Intel NICs are generally superior, but for HTPC use, the Realtek on this board has been perfectly adequate. I recommend not buying this board though if you don’t have PCI cards because it has a 2x PCI + 2x PCIe configuration instead of 3x PCIe + 1x PCI configuration. PCI peripherals are a dying breed these days.

I can also say that a 10s boot on this board is not realistic. It probably takes that long to load the BIOS + discs.

[Ogi]

Hey Michael,

 

XBMC has it’s own distro you can install from their Live package.  I believe it’s just a minimal unbuntu install that comes w/ all the drivers you need.  There is a guy on the XBMC forms that actually made his own distro for the sole purpose of eliminating anything unnecessary to achieve faster boot up times.  I may experament with that (called Elec.tv or something like that).

I have a netgear gigabit switch.  Don’t have the model in front of me, but it is a 5 port, somewhat older (not too old since it is gigabit).  It registers the network connection as a gigabit, not just 100BaseT.  

My desktop uses a .. I want to say realtek Network controller, perhaps a Nvidia one.  In my WHS, I have 3x 2TB WD Green drives and 1x 1TB factory drive for the system drive (it’s the HP MediaSmart EX490).  Those drives while not exactly peak performers, should be able transfer files at a rate greater than 30ish MB/s.  I’ve been debating doing a server restore and essentially reinstalling the WHS OS on the drive (or replacing the system drive w/ another 2TB drive, and doing a server recovery).  Regardless, this is an issue I can worry about at a later time,  but when I do start troubleshooting, I’ll be sure to come here 🙂

 

 

 

[Ogi]

Thanks for the reply Aaron,

I can’t think of what else I would have connected to the board besides a graphics card.  Perhaps a bluetooth controller, but that can be done through an external USB dongle.  I also don’t plan on having any kind of optical disk drive, just 1 SSD drive (preferably something small like 16GB, or perhaps even smaller if I find a decent performing one for cheap).

[swoon]

In your case, the expansion slots can probably be disregarded. I like to keep my options open for the boards I buy as I like the option of redploying in a different use case. For example, if you ever got the crazy notion of adding 1 or 2 Ceton InfiniTV cards, a GPU, a second NIC, SATA card, etc. it would be more difficult or impossible with only two free PCIe slots.

[mikinho]

I know it has its own distro…I just don’t think it is very optimized compared to other distros 🙂

[Ogi]

It won’t get more efficient than this guy: http://openelec.tv/  distro size is between 55 and 80MB … been following his development on the XBMC forums, it’s rather impressive.  Not sure what kind of boot up times they are seeing, but it really can’t be much.

 

The last time I tried to install gentoo, I about pulled my hair out, then again that was 5+ years ago…

[mikinho]

Very cool, I haven’t checked it out yet.  I will be though.  Thanks

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