Details of your boxee TV setup?

[drstein]

I would like to hear how other people have Boxee set up and how you're running it. Not just "I watch boxee on my Dell laptop" but for folks that have taken a HTPC setup and added Boxee, or are using a Mac Mini for Boxee, etc.

Photos would be great. I think it's informative for the rest of the class. :)

I only have an Apple TV plugged into a Sony 48" DLP HDTV via HDMI. That's it. But I know other folks have more interesting setups... :)

[tonyscha]

I have a HTPC
AMD 4200+ X2
1 Gig of Ram
1TB HD
MCE Remotes
32inch LCD TV


I normally run Mediaportal, and have that setup to open boxee.

[richbutler1]

This is a copy/paste from another thread with a few additions,so please forgive the cross post to help others build a nice, affordable Boxee + HTPC. This is after a great deal of reading through sometimes hundreds of product reviews for each component...


Power consumption....go with a 45watt CPU like the AMD 4850e (check out the 5050e also) You may have this HTPC on 24/7 for torrents/TV recording so a power hungry CPU and motherboard design will cost you more in the long run. If you're not going to do video processing, heavy photo editing or high end gaming the combo below will serve you well.

Cost ....AMD has lower total cost, been rock solid

Motherboard...Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-2SHP (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2950) below is ready for Blu-Ray, 7.1 Audio Optical out, HDMI, gigabit ethernet, nice expandability, best in class, cheap. PS: It does support the newest 140W Phenoms for some superjuice down the road if you re-purpose. The AMD 780 chipset (http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_15532,00.html) on a mini ATX MB is a must fro HTPC and integrated Blu-Ray playback, thus no need to drop $$ on a discrete graphics card.

Flexibility....Blu-Ray drive, got most common sold for support and info
Drive Space....cheap, get 500Gb or better, you might keep an eye on quiet HD tech. specs.; if you record TV or torrents you'll want a beefy local HD

Case...get decent power output 450 watts+ for now and future; you can always pay more for a high efficiency 80 PLUS PS (http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_join.aspx)

O/S...I went Win Vista Ultimate for MCE to be my DVR (trying to figure out how to get Boxee to recognize the TV shows natively or with some minor filename morphing) There are many fans of MythTV and other DVR solutions, so take a look at them.

Here's my under $500 HTPC with Blu-Ray and HD Audio (look for the Realtek ALC889 audio chip for solid sound for the $) not listed below is a scavenged 500Gb drive, TV tuner card(your call) and 2Gb Memory(DDR2800 would serve you well, MB below supports 1066 depending on CPU tho, read the specs on Gigabyte site)...all purchased from Newegg.com

HT CASE APEVIA(ASP)|X-MASTER-BK/500 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144231) $74.99
MB GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2HP 780G RTL (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128360) $79.99
CPU AMD|A64 X2 4850E 2.5G AM2 R (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103255) $53.99
BD/HD-ROM COMBO LG|GGC-H20L SATA RT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136133) $119.99

Payment Summary: Subtotal:$326.45 Tax:$25.07 S&H:$31.70
Total Amount:$383.22

Conclusion and Results: Blu-ray discs play great, Boxee solid so far, can access my network shares, internet browsing on TV (a 42" 720p philips via hdmi)


Hope this helps the Boxee Windows DIY crowd a little.

[scott314]

HTPC: OS X 10.5.6
Shuttle K45
Intel e2160 CPU
2GB DDR2-667
16GB USB Flash Memory
PicoPSU 90W Power Supply
Creative X-FI USB Audio
MCE IR Receiver
Logitech Harmony 550 Remote Control
Logitech DiNovo Edge Bluetooth Keyboard

NAS: Openfiler 2.3
Dell Poweredge 1750
2x2.4GHz Intel Xeon
4GB ECC DDR-400
2x18GB SCSI RAID-1

SAN: OpenSolaris 2008.11
NORCO-4020
Dual Socket Opteron 242 64-bit CPU's
4GB ECC DDR-400
4GB Compact Flash OS partition
5x500GB WD Green HD in RAIDZ1
5x1TB Samsung HD in RAIDZ1

TV
Samsung 56" DLP 1080P

[lifeless2112]

Is anyone running on ubuntu? if so what is your setup and can you play back 1080i mp4 (if you know)

[drewjacks0n]

i run ubuntu 8.04 on a shuttle xpc with a core2duo 3ghz chip.

it plays everything, all 1080p, killa sample with no dropped frames

[marcel]

richbutler1 nice one..

[wrx1]

Mac Mini
2ghz, 2gb or ram, super drive

Older Athlon 64 system running windows home server
3.8TB of storage

Gigabit wire though out the whole house

Sony 40" xbr3 TV



Russ

[nalthien]

See my sig for my HTPC specs. Plays Blu Ray great; and Boxee works great as well.

Now, if I could just get the two to play nicely together....

I still maintain that it should be possible with AnyDVD. So long as Boxee knows how to access the files on the disc once its been decrypted.

[pahtz]

I was going to build a HTPC for a friend and based on my research the new NVidia GeForce 9300 integrated video chipset with an Intel Dual-Core E5200 2.5GHz cpu gives you a good bang for the buck with plenty of power for HD Blu-ray playback.

Asus P5N7A-VM Motherboard US$120
Dual Core E5200 CPU US$60

Motherboard Review: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2333126,00.asp

[subvertbeats]

2 setups.

One on Unbuntu Hardy Heron on a Thinkpad T60p

The main setup is Mac Mini 1.83 Ghz Core 2 Duo base model

A couple of Terrabytes of NAS storage

Hooked up to Optoma HD65 720p projector with a pull down screen on the wall.

Onkyo 606 AV receiver with 5.1 speaker setup

[lizj]

Thanks for the helpful info, folks. I'm really happy with my Mac Mini but I think I'm trying to get it to do too much (not seeing speed issues, just that it's all gerryrigged to get out to the TV and all that). Also, my family doesn't like to use anything they have to "think about" other than turning to a different input on the tv, so I want something where resolution settings, etc. are set and forget.

I'm thinking of putting together a bare bones Windows or Linux box to hook directly to the TV. Likely will go Linux at first, at least because I won't need to worry about the extra cost of Windows.The trade off of going with Linux will be not getting Netflix support for a while.

[tgggd86]

Look in my sig

[Thoku]

My setup:

HTPC
CPU: AMD6000+
RAM: 1GB DDR2 800
HDD: OCZ 30GB SataII SSD
Projector: 720p native widescreen ~70" screen
Speakers: Some Sony crap from the mid 90's - going to be replaced once I start work.
OS: Ubuntu 8.04

NAS
CPU: AMD5000+
RAM: 2GB DDR2
HDD: 6 x 500GB in RAID 5 (one failover) - 2TB total.
OS: Debian Etch.

[Mr. D]

Here is my Boxee HTPC box (running Windows XP). I wanted something very small and quiet.

The motherboard is a Zotac micro-ITX Nvida 8200 with a 45W AMD 4850e dual core. 2Gig memory. 60 gig 2.5 inch hard drive. No other drives. The hard drive is mounted vertically at the left side of the box (next to the smaller heat sink) but is not easy to see in these pictures. I had a network appliance previously and got tired of its lack of upgradability. Although this is more expensive, I think it is powerful enough to last a while and can run any Windows or Linux media software.

It all fits in a modified $37 Geeks.com 8 inch x 10 inch micro-ITX case. The Geeks' case is only 2 inches high, so I had to make a new top cover since this setup requires a height of 3.5 inches. The cover is made from sheet .063 aluminum cut drilled and bent, then brazed at the corners and powder coated. The fan in the original power supply sounded like a jet engine, so I cut it out and replaced it with a super quiet 60 mm fan mounted on an aluminum bracket that spans the power supply where the original fan was mounted. I also removed the OEM heat sink processor fan and replaced it with a slow turning 120 mm fan fastened to the top cover to blow air over both the processor and graphics chipset heat sink (which was getting very hot with no air flow).

I have a USB IR detector and Microsoft USB remote keyboard/mouse receiver plugged into it.

The Zotac motherboard comes with a DVI to HDMI adapter, but it is not shown in these photos.

I am using MediaMall's PlayOn server for Netflix and Hulu access running on the same system. The system boots directly into Boxee. Its only purpose is to play local network and Internet content - the only content on the local drive will be Boxee torrents (when they work in the Windows version). I have a network media server with big drives elsewhere and a separate DVD player.

Total power consumption varies between 40W at idle to up to 82W max.

Currently it is plugged into my old low res plasma and cheap Sony receiver. I have a new media room under construction that will be all HDMI that it will go into.

[Kiggold]

Look at my sig

My TV is a Sharp Aquos 32D40U 720p

[nail]

HTPC:

Gateway GX7022e Desktop
Nvidia FX5600 -> Svideo to TV
2GB DDR1 Memory
80GB HD
Windows 7


Desktop:
Intel Q6850
ATI 4850
3GB DDR2 Memory
250GB HD
Windows XP

Have not had many issues at all even though running Windows 7.

[dsoltesz]

Dell Optiplex 745, ultra-small form factor (purchased specifically to build a roll-our-own-HTPC MythTV box, but now using it for boxee):
Hauppage PVR-150 tuner w/MCE remote control
80GB HD
2GB RAM
Not sure what soundcard (maybe on-board) but sounds good
Ubuntu 8.04

Sony Bravia KDL-46WL135 46" LCD HDTV

Pioneer VSX-D608 5.1 surround sound amp
Boston Micro90x speakers

100Mb/s wired network throughout house, cable broadband
Music, photos, and other media shared from WinXP systems in the house. I end up just listening to my "personal last.fm" most of the time instead of my local music sources.

Photos (posted November 2008):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsoltesz/sets/72157610032837230/

The Optiplex was randomly tinkered with for a few months to come up with the best MythTV configuration (manageable, all the components working, etc.) and saw a half-dozen or so Linux distros in the process. When I got boxee, I wiped the whole system, slapped Ubuntu and boxee on it, and we've been using it regularly since. Eventually, we'll probably get around to putting MythTV on it to do all the recording gee-whiz stuff... maybe. Not sure I can play DVDs on it -- since we have a DVD player already, we didn't spend more than ten seconds on it.

Don't know if I can play back a 1080i mp4. I've been watching a lot of HD content from various podcasts, but haven't looked at the formats... bandwidth from their servers seems to be an occasional issue.

[llf12130]

Now that is a lot of brass air fittings http://www.liangdianup.com/subpages/airfitting_1.htm there is just about every type
of air fitting that you could want. Wholesale prices too. I guess these could be used as small water pipe fitting also. I
used some of the parts to make my babington wvo burner.