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To go with my new HDTV, I'm planning to build a HTPC. I don't have any spare high-end hardware, so I'll be buying everything new. Currently I'd like a machine just to play digital HD content, but I'd like to be able to upgrade in the future with a Bluray drive and TV tuner to add functionality. Here's my rough list: Linkworld Black body/ Silver strip Steel 6280-01 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - $36.99 Foxconn M7PMX-S LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - $49.99 A-DATA 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - $32.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - $119.99 Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $139.99 I'm planning on running Vista MCE on it, and adding a Hauppage WINTV-HVR 1800 and a Lite-on Blueray/DVD reader in the next month or so. Is this going to be a sufficient setup for running 1080p content? My current cable provider's HD offerings suck, and I'm considering switching to digital TV with an HD package through my phone company soon, but this will give me a head start 
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Sep 28, 2008 04:15
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TraderStav posted:It's a good start. Up the processor to the 8400 at a minimum though. It's only another $30. I can't speak to the TV tuner aspect, I just use the companies DVR so I don't have to complicate things on my HTPC much more. If you know where to get proper ... files... then you won't even need the Blu-ray player, that being said it's a nice add on down the road. Check out XBMC in lieu of Vista MCE, but either way you really can't go wrong. Best of luck I love mine! Can Vista MCE play Blueray discs? The only reason I'm adding a Bluray drive in the future is because a standalone player is still $250-350, and I can pick up a BD-ROM for the HTPC for ~$100-120. Plus it combines everything into one box/remote, and I like to keep my stand as uncluttered as possible
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Sep 30, 2008 04:18
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Critique this HTPC, please. I thought about the Asrock 330 nettop, but I wanted something with front USB ports, and I don't really need a DVD player (though I may add one in the future): ASUS AT3N7A-I Intel Atom 330 (1M Cache, 1.6GHz, Dual-Core) NVIDIA ION Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail $159.99 hec Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC 7K09 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Retail $54.99 Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996529 - Retail $44.99 I'll be adding a 1TB WD Caviar Green drive that I already own, plus a MCE remote for control. Mostly just for playing digital media, photo slideshows, etc. Some 1080p WMV and h.264 stuff, mostly 720p xvids. XBMC liveCD for frontend. Look decent, or should I consider a C2D and MicroATX board with onboard HDMI?
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Oct 25, 2009 01:49
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TheScott2K posted:I keep seeing people cite 720p Xvids. Are you making these yourself or what? It's been my understanding that Xvid has been dead as an HD format since like 2006. Actually, nm. I checked, and they're just standard-def Xvids from an HD source. Nothing special, I just use them because my current DVD player plays xvid/divx, but not h.264. I'd just like to know if anyone else has any experience with this particular board. I've had good luck with Asus for ATX boards in the past, but the reviews for this particular board/CPU combo seem less than stellar. If anyone has a better suggestion for a low-power board/CPU combo for a quiet-as-possible settop box, I'd love other suggestions
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Oct 25, 2009 22:24
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I've heard about the fan noise issue, but I'm not too concerned about it. The PC will be pretty well baffled from the front in the stand, the venting is mostly to the back. The Zotac board is supposed to run quieter, so that's an option as well. I don't really need the wireless, and I'd prefer not having another power brick. I can always fab up a duct and quieter fan in the case as well.
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Oct 27, 2009 04:52
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Regnevelc posted:God damnit, I hate ubuntu. XBMC isn't working after I upgrade to Ubuntu 9.1 It says it needs OpenGL rendering and to check supported hardware. Nvidia drivers are updated to 195, so that shouldn't be an issue I had this issue, and eventually I uninstalled all the drivers from the apt repositories, and downloaded and installed the drivers from Nvidia's website. They're only 190.42, but they work. Same system for me, Ubuntu Karmic desktop, XBMC 9.11 final. Make sure you stop gdm, install from command line, run nvidia-xconfig, then restart gdm. Hopefully it should work fine then.
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Jan 4, 2010 04:16
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I don't really feel the need to have Couch Potato do post-processing, tbh. I just have SABnzbd move the completed files to where my XBMC box looks for them, and it's always scraped them without a problem. Sick Beard's post-processing is nice, because it keeps everything nicely organized by show/season/etc, as well as keeping track of what's been found and what hasn't been. I don't feel the need to be that organized with anything else, since XBMC handles everything else.
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Sep 12, 2011 04:09
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If you want to run other services, just use XBMCbuntu or whatever their prepackaged install is. I love OpenELEC on my Pi, but my HTPC (old Atom/ION build) runs XBMCbuntu, and its as easy as installing apps and services on a regular Ubuntu system.
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Apr 28, 2014 17:17
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5436 posted:Get the shield android tv. It's freakishly fast and responsive and everything works. Do you have the 16GB, or 500GB model? I'm considering replacing my old Atom/Ion XBMC homebrew with something a bit more wife-friendly, and if this will do Kodi/Hulu/Netflix it looks like a winner. All my media/database is centralized on a NAS, and we cut the cable a few years ago. I was considering a Fire TV, which is about 1/2-1/3 the price, but the Shield looks more capable, and not much more than rolling my own mini-pc.
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May 30, 2015 17:55
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Is Windows Firewall on? If its behind a hardware firewall, turn it off or open up whatever port Kore uses to interface with Kodi (80 or 8080, I believe?)
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Jun 2, 2015 18:35
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The only gripe I have with the Shield isn't even so much the Shield itself, but the lovely handling of Android TV apps vs Android device apps by the app writers. I switched to make the wife happier, since she in theory can watch all her weird reality shows through the channel apps, but most of them have a Android phone/tablet app, but haven't or won't port over to Android TV. Bravo and TLC off the top of my head, but also stuff like DirecTV Now, Hulu Live, etc. We get around it by using a Play Store'd Kindle to cast to the TV, but it's clunkier than I wished. I'll probably give Sling a try once baseball season is here, since that's really the only live TV we really watch. I can cast using my phone, but that presumes I'm in the room watching with her 
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Feb 16, 2018 16:48
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My wife absolutely hates the Shield remote, and wishes it had the generic WMC remotes that we use for the Pi media players and the HTPC. Less is certainly not more. Is there a good/seamless way to use something simple like a Harmony 350 IR with the Shield?
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Jul 19, 2018 14:03
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Shield has been the most wife-friendly option I've tried. The only thing she hates is the remote, she preferred the old Windows Media Center remotes we had for the Pi and the old HTPC. I'm probably going to try a Harmony and an IR dongle to see if that's acceptable.
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Jan 8, 2019 01:06
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The Shield has been the single best purchase I've made for media consumption. Easy for the wife to use (once we replaced the awful remote with the volume slide, WTF), and it handles all her other streaming stuff without issue. Even for the shows that she has to stream from a browser, she can just cast a tab from her laptop and it works great. I had the kid set up with an Rpi running Kodi, but with the amount of 4k stuff and now having Disney+, I think I'll probably end up getting a new tube Shield for the playroom, or maybe just upgrade to a newer Pro and move our old one to her TV.
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Apr 6, 2020 19:30
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wolfbiker posted:i haven't used kodi in a couple of years but i seem to remember it being a pain on android when trying to point it at external storage? It was pretty easy to point the Shield at the NFS share for all my media. It's even using a hosted DB on th file server, though it's the only active Kodi instance on at the moment. The hardest part was putting the settings xml into the proper place on the Shield.
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Apr 10, 2020 02:01
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I don't recall navigating file structures being any different on the Shield vs my old HTPC, but then again it's been a couple years since I've had to touch it. Other than having to be in Kodi to have the back end kick off library updates, it's been shockingly reliable compared to an old KodiBuntu machine. Edit: if you're navigating files located in a direct attached USB device, that's something I've not done. All my media is on network storage, so Kodi is handling the network navigation.
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Apr 12, 2020 03:02
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I've had an issue pop up with Kodi on a Shield, where the "Recently Added" movies section just.... Doesn't work. Still shows them all on the main Movies page, but trying to navigate to Recently Added from the categories on top just goes to the Videos section. I can create a new node that will still show the last 25 (or any number) of movies added, which has been my workaround currently. This has been happening since 18.6 or so, currently on 18.9 with the stock skin.
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Nov 16, 2020 04:18
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Dyscrasia posted:That's why I keep an eye on this thread... I'm waiting for someone to come out with something better than the Shield TV that supports 4k streaming services. As soon as this happens, I'd probably buy it. I'm still running a Shield TV 4k from 2017. Steams Netflix and Disney+, runs Kodi for the home media library, can cast from phones and tablets if need be. I bought a couple Google TV Chromecasts for the other two TVs, but it's nowhere near as smooth of an experience. Apple TV is a no go for the Kodi shared library, sadly. I could switch to Plex, but Kodi has worked for years and has acceptance from the wife/kid since the XBMC days so I'm not gonna change unless I have to.
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Dec 17, 2024 01:43
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