As soon as I got my new tv (see here), my immediate concern was how I was going to stream all of the content from my home server, to the TV.
In my last post, I mentioned that the TV can stream stuff out of the box (using UPnP) although the interface is extremely clunky, and the whole process is slow, not to mention that it has trouble with HD content, so I started looking for some alternatives.
First, I looked at the Western Digital TV Live. This is a tiny little device that is far more powerful than it lets on. It plays full HD (high bitrate stuff) without a problem and only costs around £80. Immediately though, I got annoyed with the interface. It is a little slow to respond to the remote, and finding files is cumbersome. I sold this pretty quickly and looked elsewhere.
At around the same time, I bought an Apple TV (the original one, with a 160GB HDD), but I actually got this to use for my final year project. I soon realised it wouldn’t do what I wanted, so I thought about using it to stream files with.
The interface was much better, and it was really simple to get other things running on it (such as XBMC. Boxee too, but I’m not a fan). I also liked that you could sync it with itunes, and then use the remote app on the iPhone to control music playback. Standard definition stuff played back perfectly too, but that was where the goodness finished. As soon as you even thought about HD, it would start to stutter. 
To be fair, the files I was trying to play weren’t encoded in the optimal way, and the hardware is quite old. By this point, I decided that XBMC was the best interface, and I’d read that you could get an extra card (Broadcom Crystal HD) for the Apple TV to enable flawless HD playback. I bought it, and it installed fine. Now I could get 720p videos to play (with one exception), but 1080p was still not happening. So I sold both the Apple TV and the extra card.
The problem is that 720p and 1080p are used to describe video files, when actually, the resolution is possibly less important than the bitrate. For example, you could have a 720p video with a high bitrate and a 1080p file with a low bitrate. The resolution of the 1080p file is still much higher, but it is easier for hardware to decode the 1080p file because there is physically less data per second. This is something that people always tend to forget.. but anyway..
After looking around and chatting with a few people, I then decided to buy an ASRock IONSTAR 330PRO.
When I first saw this system, I was sceptical. Very sceptical. It has a dual core atom processor (1.6GHz) and 2GB of RAM. How the hell can it play any video, let alone HD.. Well it has clever graphics. They can’t be that clever. Oh but they are.
Any yes, the graphics are indeed extremely bright! It uses an Nvidia ION graphics chip (the same as is used in a lot of Acer Nettops). As it is a full system, the choice of operating system is left to you. This doesn’t necessarily cost anything extra though. For example, I went with XBMC Live. This is actually a stripped down version of Linux (Ubuntu) with the Xbox Media Centre frontend. It’s was quick to install, and it quick to load, even from a cold boot. So far, I’ve had one file pause during playback while it buffered (a film with a particularly high bitrate), but I shut the system down, looked in the bios, and assigned more memory to the graphics, and since then, absolute perfection (I tested the same file again).
In summary, if anyone is looking for an elegant HTPC or home theatre solution, and you require HD playback, you simply can’t skimp and go for the cheapest option. I tried this twice, and both times ended up being frustrated. This time, I spent £240 and got a system that doesn’t ‘just about’ play files, it really plays them! It’ll also last me a long time (although, I did have to send the first one back. Admittedly, I may have shorted something when I took it apart…but it was VERY kindly replaced!), and can be easily updated as the XBMC platform is improved. I’d even recommend this system for those who just wanted a low cost computer! (Apparently, it plays well with Windows 7).
Briefly, for anyone that is interested, the specs of it are: