Want to build a shuttle type media centre pc

[Pumpkinstew]

I have the KISS DP 600 and have been pretty disappointed with it. The KISS firmware was lousy and although the Linksys re-write has improved things greatly it still won't support 5.1 surround sound from the analogue jacks. Since it's no longer being supported I suppose it never will. Although there is an animation of a dolphin on the LCD screen now, which kind of makes up for the lack of decent sound.
I've been able to playback most filetypes from an 80GB Lacie external USB HDD but it fails to recognise my 500GB Freecom.
DVD playback is OK on my standard def CRT screen via SCART, but then I wouldn't see any signal degradation on that set up.
I confess I haven't tried streaming media wirelessly (although there's enough evidence that it doesn't work for me to think it's not worth bothering.)

[CliffyG]

I've bought the bits for my media centre pc now, cost just under 270. I think the flexibility of it far outweighs any of the standalones i've looked at so far, i'll be sticking vista ultimate 64 on it. Here's the spec if anyone is interested (i have 1gig of 6400 DDR II already):

Antec NSK1300 MATX Cube Case Black/Silver - With 300W PSU
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI 690G Socket AM2 onboard VGA 6 channel audio mATX
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.1GHz) Socket AM2 Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO SILENT 256MB DDR2
LiteOn DH-16D2P 16x48 DVD-Rom Black Bare Drive - OEM
SCART -SVHS+2Ph .75m
Cyberlink Media Center Remote Control - With Mini USB IR Receiver

[Joe 90]

Originally Posted by LeperousDust

Have you got a 360 or ordinary xbox? You can put the XBMC on the old style xb, i think that works quite well? Especially if you have the remote...

i've had my XBMC xb for like 4/5 yrs and its still awesome

stick a 300gb HDD in and pump it full of video files

*the version of the XBMC/Executer OS that i've got isn't great with drives over 250gb but there might be an update seen as though that was 4 yrs ago that i set it up.

It'd serious pwn all systems with like a 1tb disk especially if you're a dab hand with a soldering iron as the xbox has serious mod options on it with it being a stripped down PC in a small, quiet box.

oh yeah - and its dirt cheap. i paid £120 many moons ago.

[LeperousDust]

Exactly, you can pick xboxs up for sod all now days, rebox them, and throw XBMC on and bob really is your mothers uncle for under £100. Shame a processing power is huge though... There are a few drawbacks of XBMC but for the money you really can't complain...

[Desmo]

Originally Posted by LeperousDust

bob really is your mothers uncle

Bob would need to be your mother's brother

[CliffyG]

I shall let you know.

My biggest concern at the moment is how power management will work and if i can resume from standby / turn on with the remote control.

[LeperousDust]

Originally Posted by Desmo

Bob would need to be your mother's brother

Dammit, smart arse Must egage my brain the next time...

[Mark]

Originally Posted by CliffyG

My biggest concern at the moment is how power management will work and if i can resume from standby / turn on with the remote control.

Powering on from cold probably requires hardware support. You might be able to resume from Standby though (the MCE remote supports this).

FYI - Lozza - if you're looking at the Fusion case still, this case supports remote power on, but wiring it up is a pain in the backside (you have to remove the whole LCD/IR panel and add wires to the back of it - and rumour has it that the holes for the wires don't line up with the connectors. I didn't need this feature so didn't bother. :/

On the subjecct of the HD 2400, it doesn't have hardware DVD playback acceleration so the CPU will have to work harder (though that CPU is more than capable). For the benefit of anyone else spectating, DVD hardware acceleration is enabled fully on the HD 2600 XT and 38x0, partially on the 2900, and (I believe) not on the 2600 Pro or 2400. Higher-end nVidia cards are supposed to have equivalent features too but driver support seems a little more flaky.

[CliffyG]

Originally Posted by Mark

Powering on from cold probably requires hardware support. You might be able to resume from Standby though (the MCE remote supports this).

Ah k that's probably good enough as it will be off most of the day. Wonder how the scart switching works with standby.

[CliffyG]

It's all up and running now, fairly pleased with it although not sure it's as quiet as it could be. It's just the PSU and PCI slot fan running at the moment but depending on how heat goes i may drop the PCI slot one. The mobo supports USB power on from S4 which is hibernate which is fine by me as it auto hibernates after an hour. Have 2 niggles at the moment, i can't use FF and RW while watching AVI's and it doesn't auto switch SCART channels. Latter i'm not too fussed about but i really want to get FF and Rw fixed.