HTPC Users?

[C0RR0SIVE]

Don't really mean to hijack the thread, but does Plex permit streaming to a Xbox? I notice older versions can, but have heard the recent versions no longer support streaming to the console.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

I haven't tried yet, I'll give it a shot today and let ya know.

 

[Jayce]

Well, got some new deets on the HTPC idea, so if someone wants to chime in I'd appreciate it.

I began looking around for some different scenarios. Pretty much any route I went I'd be paying 300 minimal, which was stinging a little bit. The current Sandy Bridge lineup, while solid, seems to have a 24fps bug issue that is more noticable than some other platforms out there. Since the new 2012 Ivy's are coming by Intel and are to fix that, I had trouble justifying 300+ on a HTPC setup when their next product should fix that issue.

As a result, I was semi back to square one, but I kept looking at the parts I had laying around. I ended up finding a board by ASRock that is AM2/AM2+/AM3. Coupled with that, it has a PCIE X16 2.0 slot, so if the onboard graphics (ATI HD 4250) doesn't hold up to par with 1080 playback, I can easily drop in an updated graphics card and be rolling. Considering this board supports up to AM3 I can also get a higher powered proc in there if need be as well, though I doubt that'll have to happen.

Nonetheless, 60 bucks and I can get a new board, with enough older compatibility to use my DDR2 ram and AM2 processor, and enough newer compatibility to handle a dedicated updated graphics card as well as a semi updated processor if need be. 60 sounds a lot better than 300... so I think I may go this route, especially considering my buddy has a similar build (but with an HD 3200 instead of HD 4250) and claims he had decent 1080 playback in Linux.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

I was playing with PLEXBMC with a 1.4Ghz c2d and a 8400GT, plays 1080 decently well, I will probably be loading just PLEX to the machine a bit later to see how it fares with that.

 

[Nitestick]

c0rr0sive, I haven't used Plex but I've used the free DLNA server tvmobili with Debian to stream to my xbox 360. It does have some fairly rudimentary transcoding support that I've been unable to get working but if your media is in mostly xbox compatible formats you shouldn't have any issues. I wrote a quick guide for setup: Server Setup – TV Mobili - nitestick.net | nitestick.net

 

[Jayce]

@ c0rr0sive - How long were you running that 1080 stream for? I was talking to some HTPC users and some people were suggesting that my processor is on the low end of the 1080-supported range, and suggested after running for lengths of time I may notice a jutter every now and then.

That got me wondering if I could get a sweet combo deal on NewEgg, so I poked around. In short, I was considering on a board that was AM2/AM2+/AM3 to use with my current 2.0ghz Athlon II, but getting a board that supported that as well as PCIE x16 2.0 for the graphics card (as the onboard HD 4250 card supposedly cannot bitstream HD audio via HDMI) ended up ramping the board price to about 65 shipped. No big deal, but when I saw an AM3 board/CPU bundle @ 107 I began to think a little differently.

3.1 GHz Dual Core Athlon II X2 255 Regor is the proc I'm looking at. Think that would better my chances for seamless playback?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

About 40 minutes watching Avatar as a test, then I started to get issues with juttering, but it's because the computer over heated.

 

[Jayce]

Got things rolling here... As I mentioned earlier, I ended up going with some newer gear. I grabbed an i3 2100, which is a 3.1ghz dual core Sandy Bridge processor. I also got hooked up with a GT 440 Nvidia. Couple that with 4gb of RAM and you have a beautiful setup.

When I first hooked it up, I had video, but no audio via HDMI. I went into my sound preferences and noticed there were multiple profiles for my sound card. It was easy to figure out... I just played a song and selected each one until one worked.

The only other video issue I had was aligning things properly. I'm not into TVs that much so I know very little. I fiddled with the settings and found out I should disable "auto aspect" and set the profile to "native." I can only imagine the native entry allows the TV to be accepting of whatever the computer wants to do, which in my case I wanted a certain resolution and it was pushed accordingly once these settings were in place.

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome Shell. The default bright-ish theme was a bit much on the TV, so I ended up installing a dark theme known as Blapple, which is available on gnome-look.org. A dark theme on a HTPC just kind of makes sense, and this theme is easy to read while looking good.

I have to admit, I like having the full capability of a full blown computer as a HTPC. I mean, Gnome Shell is beautiful. No doubt about it. So it presents itself in a very intuitive way and allows me to fire up the trusty browser for some YouTube or Hulu or basic web browsing.

So far, I'm loving it. Playback is solid. HD playback never skips a beat with the processor being darn near idle the entire time, but I'm sure I have the dedicated graphics card to thank for that.

Now all I need is to get some serious hard drive space in this sucker and we can drop our cable bill and save a few bones thanks to Hulu streaming and some locally saved content... Gotta love it!