Media Centre Hardware

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Pheerme

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Hi All,

We have been looking into getting a media centre for home for a while, but cant seem to settle on something decent.

Currently we are just streaming over the network using Plex, but this isnt ideal, as if you pause the movie/episode for too long, it kicks you out completely, and you have to reenter the entire process to get to where you were, as well as skip to the part in your movie (imagine doing this ins 3 hour film... I'm suprised I have hair left).

I would love to have XBMC on the device as it just seems ideal, especially with the feature where it shows you which episodes/movies you have watched etc.

Is there any device you would reccomend? Takealot has this one currently on special today for R1 119, doesnt seem like a bad deal to me, but I am not too familiar with these products! Any help would be appreciated :)
 
Yep very decent ,slightly better than the ones I sell.

Kodi/xmbc is most probably one of the best media interfaces you get! These devices run kodi quite well.
 
XBMC is no longer "XBMC", and has not been so for about a year, so having the "Latest XBMC" is far off from being current. FYI its been renamed KODI due to XBMC being a an XBox name. KODI comes in various versions (custom type roms you can say) the best in my opinion are TVMC and OSMC. If you are technically inclined, get a Raspberry Pi2 and set it up yourself...

Here's a full Kit to get you going .... PiFactory Kit
 
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+1 for Pi2 with OSMC. I have also owned an earlier Mygica ATV device before, but IMO the Pi2 is better.
 
Build a custom htpc.

Here's what i did, it's smaller than the playstation 4 and the cpu has a very capable gpu onboard so you can play your favourite games on it too.

http://www.chyangfun.com/cfi-a6x19.html
http://www.msi.com/product/motherboard/H97I-AC.html#hero-overview
http://ark.intel.com/products/88095/Intel-Core-i5-5675C-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz
And then ofcourse some DDR3L Memory and a drive of your choice

If you don't game then you can get this instead of the msi board and intel cpu and save a few thousand.
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/J1800IC/
or
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/D1800B-ITX/
The Asus board only uses DDR3L notebook memory, standard DDR3 notebook memory won't work

Edit: The CFI chassis comes with a 150Watt SFF psu which is borderline, if your doing the i5 build you should upgrade it to a 300Watt SFF psu. For the j1800 the 150 is more than enough.
 
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You can update those Mygica's to get Kodi, and it is cheaper then a media PC, however you wont have many storage options. If will just be using the Mygica for streaming, it will be perfect.
 
BradleyKZN said:
You can update those Mygica's to get Kodi, and it is cheaper then a media PC, however you wont have many storage options. If will just be using the Mygica for streaming, it will be perfect.
Click to expand...

Since ADSL Data is so reasonably priced these days, I don't store any media anymore, only my own action cam stuff. I use between 100 and 150gb a month at present (Capped, unshaped - forget using uncapped)
Streaming FTW :D
 
What I used to use.

Pi1 (the one that you pre-ordered years ago) -> used as a NAS ( a PiNAS) -> low on Electricity
Amazon Fire TV Stick -> Netflix, Hulu, Kodi -> Excellent

I cannot comment on the other players as I have started to just stream everything we watch and the Fire TV stick is just excellent
 
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Thanks for all of this :) I remember its Kodi now, just force of habit for me to call it XBMC I guess hehe :P

Im not too familiar with all of the different components and offerings (and devices), and it would be nice if we could have a device that we could use for storage, but if not its not the end of the world. I dont even know what TVMC or OSMC are, never familiarised myself with them...

Im not too sure how I feel about component buying, it looks like it would work out a lot more expensive? But would there be space for additional storage? Gaming isnt an issue for us, we are PC gamers, and not huge fans of console gaming. But not looking to spend thousands of rands on a media solution.
 
That's a great price for the MG582

EDIT: buy a new remote immediately though, the stock one is beyond horrible.
 
haha luckily I bought the Rii remote a few months back that I thought we were going to use, that is not being used, so I already have one :D woohoo! yay impulse buying! haha
 
Pheerme said:
Thanks for all of this :) I remember its Kodi now, just force of habit for me to call it XBMC I guess hehe :P

Im not too familiar with all of the different components and offerings (and devices), and it would be nice if we could have a device that we could use for storage, but if not its not the end of the world. I dont even know what TVMC or OSMC are, never familiarised myself with them...

Im not too sure how I feel about component buying, it looks like it would work out a lot more expensive? But would there be space for additional storage? Gaming isnt an issue for us, we are PC gamers, and not huge fans of console gaming. But not looking to spend thousands of rands on a media solution.
Click to expand...

Yes you can install one drive (ssd or spinner) and one slim dvd. It would essentialy be a pc so you can play pc games on it if you run windows or linux but yes with the i5 it will be expensive.

Using com-x.co.za as a price reference building the j1800 celeron box (hardware only) comes to R3887.

Asus J1800 board from link above.
Kingston DDR3L 1600 SO-Dimm
CFI Chassis from link above
3 tb Seagate spinner

Edit: comx-computers.co.za as price reference
 
ODTech said:
Yes you can install one drive (ssd or spinner) and one slim dvd. It would essentialy be a pc so you can play pc games on it if you run windows or linux but yes with the i5 it will be expensive.

Using com-x.co.za as a price reference building the j1800 celeron box (hardware only) comes to R3887.

Asus J1800 board from link above.
Kingston DDR3L 1600 SO-Dimm
CFI Chassis from link above
3 tb Seagate spinner

Edit: comx-computers.co.za as price reference
Click to expand...

Wow it sounds awesome but thats way out of the range that im prepared to pay for something like that :P Really appreciate the effort though! But unfortunately just not on the cards :(
 
Pheerme said:
Hi All,

We have been looking into getting a media centre for home for a while, but cant seem to settle on something decent.

Currently we are just streaming over the network using Plex, but this isnt ideal, as if you pause the movie/episode for too long, it kicks you out completely, and you have to reenter the entire process to get to where you were, as well as skip to the part in your movie (imagine doing this ins 3 hour film... I'm suprised I have hair left).

I would love to have XBMC on the device as it just seems ideal, especially with the feature where it shows you which episodes/movies you have watched etc.

Is there any device you would reccomend? Takealot has this one currently on special today for R1 119, doesnt seem like a bad deal to me, but I am not too familiar with these products! Any help would be appreciated :)
Click to expand...

Are you using the Plex app on your TV? Sounds like it's buggy or it's implementing power-saving in a way you don't want (or something else). Plex on my Roku doesn't time out when I pause (the screensaver comes up and then I can go back whenever). Also Plex tells me where I stopped watching a video and asks if I want to resume from there - the eyeball icon tells me which episodes I've watched or not.

I'd try to solve your software problems with a software solution first - maybe try upgrading whatever version of Plex player you are using (I imagine the server is up-to-date as that's on a PC somewhere - if not, do that to).

New hardware is always cool though :)
 
Neoprod said:
Are you using the Plex app on your TV? Sounds like it's buggy or it's implementing power-saving in a way you don't want (or something else). Plex on my Roku doesn't time out when I pause (the screensaver comes up and then I can go back whenever). Also Plex tells me where I stopped watching a video and asks if I want to resume from there - the eyeball icon tells me which episodes I've watched or not.

I'd try to solve your software problems with a software solution first - maybe try upgrading whatever version of Plex player you are using (I imagine the server is up-to-date as that's on a PC somewhere - if not, do that to).

New hardware is always cool though :)
Click to expand...

The plex app refuses to work on our TV, and no matter what we try it just acts like a toddler. So it actually picks up the plex server on my pc as a "media source" basically, like it would a USB drive, and then we just browse through the stuff like that.
I suspect that it is because my hdd goes to "sleep" and then needs to be woken up again. Its incredibly frustrating though :P
 
Pheerme said:
The plex app refuses to work on our TV, and no matter what we try it just acts like a toddler. So it actually picks up the plex server on my pc as a "media source" basically, like it would a USB drive, and then we just browse through the stuff like that.
I suspect that it is because my hdd goes to "sleep" and then needs to be woken up again. Its incredibly frustrating though :P
Click to expand...

TV make and model?
How does the app refuse to work?
The way you are describing the server being seen as "media source" means it's using DLNA and not the normal Plex goodness.
 
Soul Assassin said:
TV make and model?
How does the app refuse to work?
The way you are describing the server being seen as "media source" means it's using DLNA and not the normal Plex goodness.
Click to expand...

its a Samsung TV, not sure which range, but i think its the 4 series (46" smart), when we try go into the app it just doesnt load, then sometimes it takes days (yes... we left it running for almost a full day) to update, and when it goes into the loading screen and then just crashes again. so needless to say I am not the biggest Plex fan. It also disconnects form the Tv and we have to re sync it, and its just giving me grey hairs :P

So I think this will be a decent alternative then, I think you guys have me convinced that its a decent option :)
 
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