PCFormat Forum Archive

Hi Guys,

I will be getting married in December and will have a nice full HD tv. YAY ME! That was just a bit of background so you know why i want to do this.

So to the point. I have been using XBMC on my current pc to manage all my media for some time now. Now that i am getting married i want to get a dedicated media centre.

I read about boxee, roku, xbmc and the apple tv.

I want to know which one you guys think is the best?

Thanks.
D§

Build your own pc

XBMC is a nice player.

However, I use Media Browser.


And then use media center master to manage your media (Works with both)

Build your own pc

thats the comparatively expensive way out

i bought an HP Proliant microserver in a group buy at R899 - upgraded the ram to 4gigs for 200bucks and added a graphics card (Sapphire radeon HD6450) for R500 and now all i need to spend on is the harddrives that im adding to it

i have a choice of using windows or linux or even Mountain Lion in the form of a hackintosh (as per TonymacX86 website) for the operating system or i could even use a flash drive and use XBMCbuntu and i can add whatever software i chose

it works brilliantly as a media server as well as a media playback device with all the relevant software installed - and k-lite codec pack works better for me than XBMC does and i really, really want to try out mediaportal

I also have a media player ie a mede8er 500x2 which is way cheaper than building up a PC - that allows me lots of advantages ie my mkv files can actually play HD audio over HDMI (thats dolby true HD and DTS-HD(master audio) which a PC will struggle to play without the relevant software ie its one of the reasons why i want to try media portal since i havent been able to configure XBMC and k-lite codec pack to pass through the HD audio to my AV receiver

so yep there are many ways to do what you want to do it all depends how far you wish to go and how much you want to spend and if you have the required supporting ancillary equipment ie sound systems which can playback HD audio as well as 3D tv's

We have a Medi8er - not sure if that is the same thing. We convert and transfer before we watch.

And congratulations on getting hitched! May it be a wonderful union.

I'm a Mede8er man too. The only one of those you mentioned I've actually seen in the flesh is the Apple TV, which works very nice for the friend who has it, but it must be said that he is a huge Apple fanboi (iPhone for him and wife, several different iPods, iPad, iMac, MacBook and Apple TV all under the same roof).

Thanks for the tips guys.

We have an apple tv here at the office. My office is full of apple fanbois.

I was hoping for an alternative. it only costs $99 so it probably is the cheapest easiest solution.

@naughty I will be looking out for HP Proliant microserver