Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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I've had a Popcorn Hour c200 for a little while, PSU went a few weeks back after not using it for months, i'll order one this week and fix it, but i'm not entirely sure I want to keep the box itself.
What other / better boxes are out there?
Network has over 2TB of movies and tv shows on, would need it to play every file format possible, and have a pretty menu like the Popcorn Hour box. All files have been renamed and all Meta data is shown on the Popcorn Hour box, so would like that to happen too... Posters / IMDB rating etc etc.
Thanks 
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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Try a RPi and see how you get on; it's only £25 and if you don't like it then no doubt you'll find other uses for it.
Otherwise have a look at Dune media players, personally i think they're far better than Popcorn Boxes, or if you want something cheap then WDTV.
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Brett
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Registered: 16th Dec 02
Location: Manchester
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It doesn't really end at £25 does it Dom? I guess you could try it out for that, although you'd need power wouldn't you? When I was looking, the remotes were fucking dearer than the RPi 
[Edited on 08-07-2013 by Brett]
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Brett
It doesn't really end at £25 does it Dom, which is why I didn't bother.
It's £25 for the board; if you need a PSU, SD Card, Hdmi cable or case then sure, it's going to cost you a few quid more (all bits can be had for £15-20 tops) but most people have those bits lying around.
Either way, it's still one of the cheapest methods of getting a dedicated media player. Alternatively you have those Chinese special Android devices.
quote:
Originally posted by Brett
the remotes were fucking dearer than the RPi
Dedicated media remote is around £8-15 quid off eBay, alternatively just use your phone with a free remote app (like Yatse etc) 
[Edited on 08-07-2013 by Dom]
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Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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Looked into pi's, its a lot of pissing about isn't it...?
Rather spend £100-200 for something with it all done, in a box, ready 
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Brett
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Registered: 16th Dec 02
Location: Manchester
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I couldn't be assed with the hassle either 
Think I'd rather just buy one pre-done at X price knowing it'll work straight up.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Whittie
Looked into pi's, its a lot of pissing about isn't it...?
People say it's a lot of pissing about but it's actually pretty straight forward - 30 second job getting Raspbmc/OpenElec on a SD Card, it's then just a case of sticking it in the RPi letting it install and then configuring XBMC to your liking as you would with any other XBMC install.
If you want to spunk cash at something then as said, look at Dune media players.
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LeeM
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Registered: 26th Sep 05
Location: Liverpool
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what about a jailbroken apple tv 2?
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Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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It freezes all the time.
Apple did something a few weeks ago to stop them working, so I put older firmware on it, jailbroke it, xmbc on it, and it freezes still. Again a lot of pissing about.
Does XBMC go on pretty much everything Dom?
Tempted by one of those little HP Micro servers 
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Whittie
Does XBMC go on pretty much everything Dom?
Tempted by one of those little HP Micro servers
There's various flavours of XBMC, Windows/Linux/Mac/Android/XBMC based OS's etc etc, so yeah you can stick it on pretty much anything. Although a Microserver wouldn't be my first choice considering it's a little bit noisy and not particularly power efficient; granted a windows/mac install opens you up to a few more XBMC features/plugins (ie: Netflix/Amazon/LoveFilm, web browsers etc).
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Ian W
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Registered: 8th Nov 03
Location: Wirral, Merseyside
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I've run my original D-Link Boxee Box for a few years now.
Gets a bit laggy now and again but a restart sorts that.
Plays everything, has no trouble playing blu-ray rip iso's over my network.
Its no longer supported though and gets no further updates 
[Edited on 08-07-2013 by Ian W]
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willay
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Organiser: South East, National Events
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Registered: 10th Nov 02
Location: Roydon, Essex
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Hiiia, wanna hijack this thread.
I'm also looking for a media centre box for a friend of mine, what are the proven options for under 100 quid? Something he can stream movies from his Windows PC from to and output via HDMI?
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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RPi (there are a few other boards similar to the RPi that'll handle XBMC), WDTV, Boxee, Roku, Chinese Android special, second hand Popcorn hour perhaps or one of the bottom end Dune HD players.
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noshua
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Registered: 19th Nov 08
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Lazy cunts (Whittie).
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8gb-Media-Centre-Kit-with-Raspberry-Pi-XBMC-OpenElec-IceFilms-SportsDevil-/330948840050?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item4d0e168a72
I'd get a box capable of decoding H264 on hardware and install XBMC live tbh. I have the Acer Revo R3610 but that's a few years old now, pretty sure there will be plenty of small devices around now that there are plenty of ARM chips decoding H264.
EDIT: Whittie, could get a HP Microsever for ~£100, but they're not aimed to be used as a media player as well Plenty of people getting a cheap (<£20) HDMI graphics card and running XBMC though.
I wouldn't want mine in my bedroom though if I was trying to fall asleep watching something...
EDIT2: Nice small box that runs XBMC, pricey for what it is (see rPi link above), but straight out of the box; http://www.amazon.co.uk/electronics/dp/B00CH643A8
Cheaper version here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linux-XBMC-G-Box-Midnight-Streaming/dp/B00CAT7XZY/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1373577399&sr=1-3&keywords=xbmc
[Edited on 11-07-2013 by noshua]
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