Hi all,

I'm moving into a new flat and will hopefully be getting a TV (finally ).
At the moment all of my media is stored on my OpenSolaris server and served over a gigabit network using NFS and I use either of the Macs to access the media and play it.

With a new TV, I'll not want to be hooking up the Macs any more. So what can I do?

I'd rather not spend too much money (£100 tops really). I do have this computer available to me already:
Gigabyte GA-GC230D 945GC ATOM 1.6GHz MINI-ITX
2GB RAM
80GB SATA hard drive

I posted a topic here when I built it last year: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1140&p=24102
Can I use that? What do I stick on it? Some sort of media centre linux?

These are the things I'd like it to do:
Mount NFS and play the media (mainly m4v files from Handbrake)
Record some TV (doesn't matter if it doesn't, one of the Macs can do this)
Use a "Front Row" like interface

Thanks for any advice anyone can give

Ben

You could, but you could sell the 945 based system for a higher end ION system, then use it in a full media centre (so you get graphical acceleration)

My current HTPC is the entry level Asus ION mobo (with the 330, no wifi), 2gb ram and a DVB-S card for getting satellite channels inc high def ones (BBC HD, ITV HD and a few others) the mobo was about £100, hook it up to the network if you have a home server and send the recordings there so any machine can access them

Handles the HDTV no problem, the mobo you have might.... not sure though (and if it's 945 wont have hdcp for Blu Ray etc if you choose to upgrade)

Thanks Fin,

I'll see what the current hardware can do, I don't have any Blu-Ray or HD content at the moment, so it should hopefully be OK for the time being.
At the moment, TV recording/playing is really not essential as the TV would play TV (one would hope ) and my Mac can record it when necessary.

Currently, I'm looking at these pieces of software to run on it:
Linux MCE
Oxine
XBMC

Would anyone suggest anything else? Or perhaps backup one of those suggestions?
I've read a lot about MythTV, but it seems complex to set up and doesn't appear to just grab stuff over the network...

Thanks again,
Ben

XBMC is nice, only reason i dont use it is no live tv/ tv recording support

I tested XMBC out on a virtualbox install with Ubuntu, 2GB RAM and 128 GFX memory, and it was really stuttery...

I've also been looking at this board: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/220411
I presume the dual-coreness, pluss the better graphics would make everything a fair bit better?

Any reason for that over the Asus I suggested? The asus is cheaper if you get free Scan postage and has a PCI slot as well as optical out

I didn't notice a problem with the live CD I tested it with with 2gb ram and the onboard gfx, might be offloading some work to the onboard 9400 though.

realised I forgot to link it.... fail
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-AT3 ... -s-ITX-VGA

Only that when I went back I skimmed your post and the one I posted was cheapest on Ebuyer
I'll look at getting the board from scan. Do I recall I need to do something special to get free delivery from scan?

Be a poster on avforums or hexus (possibly bit tech, possibly even from the CPC magazine days)

I've only had a quick blitz through yours and Fin's chatter but have you thought about getting something like a Popcorn Hour instead?

Popcorn Hour looks good, I might look into it in the future, but at the moment it's just a little too expensive for me.