Would a 2nd HTPC be worth building?

[johnnyTheMac]

So, I successfully built my HTPC last week and I want to be able to use it throughout the house. I have Mavericks installed and XBMC. I have it hooked up to a SmartTV (LG). I have two more Smart TVs in the house (Samsung and Panasonic). I read that XBMC supports streaming through devices like TVs, but it does not support the playback of certain files, such as .mvk files. It will only play back formats that the specific TV supports. 

 

So, I was thinking about building a 2nd HTPC for one of the main TVs, and possibly one more in the bedroom, but not anytime soon. Would it be worth building a second one for a second TV?

 

I have a pretty basic i3 4330 build and will be going the same route on the second one.

 

Thank you in advance for your help!

[antoainb]

Why not just go for a NUC or a Brixx?

[ZetZet]

Why not just go for a NUC or a Brixx?

This.

[johnnyTheMac]

Why not just go for a NUC or a Brixx?

Can you please tell me what this is and what I have to do?

 

Thanks!

[Coswar]

 

So, I successfully built my HTPC last week and I want to be able to use it throughout the house. I have Mavericks installed and XBMC. I have it hooked up to a SmartTV (LG). I have two more Smart TVs in the house (Samsung and Panasonic). I read that XBMC supports streaming through devices like TVs, but it does not support the playback of certain files, such as .mvk files. It will only play back formats that the specific TV supports. 

 

So, I was thinking about building a 2nd HTPC for one of the main TVs, and possibly one more in the bedroom, but not anytime soon. Would it be worth building a second one for a second TV?

 

I have a pretty basic i3 4330 build and will be going the same route on the second one.

 

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

A cheaper solution would be to set up the HTPC as a server and then buy several Raspberry Pis for the TVs, they would be powerful enough to stream from the server, and you would have one storage area for everything which would make movies easier.

[antoainb]

Can you please tell me what this is and what I have to do?

 

Thanks!

 

They're almost the same, NUC's (Next Unit of Computing) are tiny barebone PC's from intel, Brixx's are the same but with a different design and from Gigabyte. If you wan't more info check Linus' videos out:

 

NUC:

 

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTB4rPGWV3c

 

 

Brixx:

 

 

After you buy one (either one) you'll need to add storage (m-SATA SSD's or sometimes 2.5" HDD's/SSD's) and RAM (laptop RAM). They're good because they're not that expensive and are very tiny. Also, if you are only streaming video a Raspberry Pi with Raspbmc/Open Elec/XBian will also do it well, it won't be as powerfull but even 1080p mkv video is smooth and it's waaay cheaper.

[Coswar]

NUCs are many times more expensive though

[johnnyTheMac]

Thanks for your responses! 

 

I think that I could build an HTPC for the same price as the NUC and Brix. The Raspberry Pi is a good idea, but I read that 1080p video playback on programs like VLC are kind of bad. Also, I want to be hardwired into my network. I don't want to have to rely on WiFi.

[PeskyEscky]

Thanks for your responses!

I think that I could build an HTPC for the same price as the NUC and Brix. The Raspberry Pi is a good idea, but I read that 1080p video playback on programs like VLC are kind of bad. Also, I want to be hardwired into my network. I don't want to have to rely on WiFi.

There is a model of the Raspberry Pi that has 10/100mbps ethernet... and you can run XBMC on them too. Personally they are not fast enough for me, but super cheap compared to an alternative

[Coswar]

Thanks for your responses! 

 

I think that I could build an HTPC for the same price as the NUC and Brix. The Raspberry Pi is a good idea, but I read that 1080p video playback on programs like VLC are kind of bad. Also, I want to be hardwired into my network. I don't want to have to rely on WiFi.

They have a LAN port, and it depends on how high a bit rate you are talking about, the GPU can handle 1080p- just not at the highest bitrate. XMBC would be a great addition(as mentioned above) because you would be able to see it from the couch, have all the information/meta data and even use an XBMC remote on your phone to control it if you find a keyboard and mouse too cumbersome. 

 

Also have a look into Plex- which is a server application that makes a brilliant browser based GUI for you networked devices to connect to- and allows you to stream your own movies via any browser. It also has a decoder that can be set to any bitrate/ resolution. This means that if your movies where not playing well on a device( such as a raspberry Pi) then you could lower the bitrate- and let the server do most of the work. It gives you just as much info as XBMC, but personally I have had problems setting it up.