Living Room Media Centre Suggestions

[KLR600]

My wife and I have just moved into a new flat and we’re thinking about getting some kind of media centre thing for the living room. We’re not interested in getting live TV and won’t be connecting to an aerial but we are definitely interested in streaming HD video from the web and probably getting a Netflix account or something along those lines. We’d also like to use it for playing music when we have guests over and some light internet browsing.

I don’t know much about computers but what we’d like is some kind of desktop PC instead of a console so we can install ad blocker programs, VPN stuff (we are in Germany but want to get British and American television) and have a lot of storage for music as well as be able to do some light internet browsing easily (facebook, emails etc). We will be streaming over a wireless network (we get about 40-45Mbps d/l over our wireless network so hopefully that should be sufficient) because the router is not in the living room and we don’t want to run cables between rooms. We’d like to hook the PC up to our Samsung TV for visuals and our stereo for audio. We’d also like to use a wireless keyboard with either a touch pad built in or a wireless mouse because we’re lazy and don’t want to have to get up from the sofa.

Is a PC best suited to this job or are there other things out there that do what we want that are better? We’d like to do this as cheap as possible (sub £100 if possible but the cheaper the better) but we are based in Germany. We have family in the UK and we visit fairly often though so it wouldn't be a problem posting packages although I don’t know how well a computer would handle a 900 mile journey across Europe in the hands of Royal Mail or DHL.
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[supZ]

Personally I use a Raspberry pi + 2tb external drive (but a NAS would be better) running raspBMC (offshoot of XBMC media centre)

works perfectly, no noisy fans to distract me, low power, small, mobile app to remote control it. (or you can use a keyboard/mouse if you wish)

all my media is on the drive, just access that and pick what i want.

also cheap.
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[CaNsA]

[daemonoid]

You can pick up an older Mac mini for around £100 on ebay, slightly more if you want the wireless keyboard and 'mighty mouse'.

Optical and stereo out, dvi->HDMI for the pic and way too many USB sockets. It's virtually silent and uses 1W when not in use but still on (measured by one of those silly sockets). It also has a suitable living room look that many PCs do not, which keeps my missus happy.

I use mine for the exact same setup and find it incredibly useful. Have tried my ip, but the experience is simply not as pleasurable... It's actually a suitable use-case for the 'my first OS' experience of macos...
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[c_dug]

The Slice media player looks pretty good to me, as a ready to go unit rather than needing set up time like the Pi. Runs an adapted version of XBMC if I remember right.
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[t121anf]

[monkeybiker]

I have no idea what you people are saying

[The Artist]

I don't see the appeal of these smart TV's. I just have my large TV on an extended desktop to a PC. Could use any PC or laptop and just plug it in when needed and boom, more functionality than any smart TV out there.

[t121anf]

[KLR600]

Thanks for the replies, lots of stuff to think about

I'd heard of the Raspberry PI but had forgotten about it when I started the thread. After a quick bit of reading on it it seem like a good choice and something to investigate further. I haven't read if you can do normal web browsing on it but I'm not familiar with XBMC as I've never had an xbox or anything else that runs XBMC.

The Intel NUC looks exactly like what we want but a bit pricey (brand new anyway). Maybe we'll just stump up the cash and treat ourselves or just get a lower spec model! Good shout either way.

We have considered older second hand machines and we'll probably have a look around to see if there is anything good when we do come to buy. Pretty much plug and play too which is a bonus.

The Slice media player looks pretty good but I think I'd rather just stump up the little bit extra and get the Intel NUC if that's how much we were going to spend.

Getting into servers is a bit above my head and with all the other more user friendly suggestions probably isn't something that we'll look into.

In terms of storage I can't see that we'll need much more than 1/200GB for music which we could easily fit on portable drives anyway. We don't download films/torrents and we'll be streaming everything we watch so we won't need terabytes of storage. I have a desktop PC as my main computer and my wife has a laptop as her main computer. I also have a PS3 which I have had connected to networks and stuff before but it's always been sketchy with streaming TV, you can't install adblockers and web browsing is a pain with it. We're looking for a permanent, fit and forget solution though which is why we're not just plugging her laptop into the TV.

Thanks for the suggestions, very helpful
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[CaNsA]

[stigger]

If you're only streaming try a chromecast. --> www.chromecast.com

and cheap too.

[trevoriv]

I found the Pi too sluggish (even with a slight clock) and it struggled with streaming full 1080p especially when trying to pass through DTS.

I've got a NUC (D34010WYK) now and it does the job perfectly. I've stuck XBMC on it for that media center feel but still got Windows 7 for web browsing and the rest (BT Sport/Sky Go etc).
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[RhynoCZ]

I saw the new ,,Zotac ZBOX PI320 pico'' the other day. It does run W 8.1, but it's got only the ''no name'' intel HD graphics GPU chip.

On the other hand it will run much better than the PI, even when it costs 3x more than a Raspberry.

SPECS:
Intel Atom Z3735F (quad-core, 1.33GHz, turbo 1.83GHz)
Intel HD Graphics (DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.3)
32GB EMMC storage (soldered to the MB)
2GB of DDR3L Ram (1333MHz)
HDMI, 3x USB 3.0, 3.5mm audio out/in, Ethernet port, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, memory card reader, pre-instaled Windows 8.1
Passively cooled.
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[Seb]

DNLA and a transcode capable server make smart TVs the best thing ever. No additional boxes, no cables, nothing to switch on or dust out. Just push your film collection over wifi directly to the TV itself. Samsung's even have the ability to pull media in via the TV's search bar, a god send if you have a larger library.

Soon to be ready for 4K and onwards++

https://i.imgur.com/dWK3hx4.jpg
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[CaNsA]

[supZ]

[CaNsA]

[supZ]

nope.

apparently not.. just double checked. thought it was /shrug
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[CaNsA]

The R-pi is a decent bit kit, but people shouldn't think that it will give the same performance as a pre-built/custom HTPC.

I've posted this a few times,

The main problem with the r-pi is the eth0 port is just a eth>usb adapter, and the USB data bus is getting used for everything.
The amount of bandwidth in that databus just cant handle the throughput required, along with the r/w speeds of the sdcard/thumbdrive.

To get the most from the pi, you have to use the databus bandwidth efficiently.
Do not use SMB to pull data across the network as the network overheads are fucking huge. These overheads are using valuable bandwidth that could be used for pulling the actual data (the video you are watching) you want.
Use NFS instead. NFS has the lowest amount of network overheads meaning you have more bandwidth available for that video.

Unless you have a DTS capable a/v reciever or TV to pass the audio stream onto then stop getting DTS video.
The Pi just hasnt got the grunt to decode DTS sound.

Overclock the Pi to 1ghz.

Use this config.txt if you have a 512mb version.

arm_freq=1000
core_freq=500
gpu_freq=500
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=6
disable_overscan=1
force_turbo=1
gpu_mem=256

If you have the 256mb version, gpu_mem=128

[trevoriv]

I do love the Pi and will be using it as a media center elsewhere in the house but I did get frustrated with some of the performance issues and handling large libraries etc.

I didnt pay a lot for the Intel NUC but it was definately worth it. But if you're on a budget the Pi is decent.
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[CaNsA]

[kramdra]

Need something to put films on telly. I dont like the idea of a transcoding server, needs to be portable to work on other TV's.

[CaNsA]

[lozzypop1]