Budget HTPC reccomendations needed

womble12345

I currently have a first edition Raspberry Pi Model B (256MB) running OSMC (Kodi) and I use it to stream movies/music off my NAS via homeplugs, I am very happy with the Kodi performance it gives. It is a bit slow navigating the menus but this doesnt bother me that much. I am looking to upgrade as I fancy using the TV and a webcam for Skype. My needs are therefore:

Low power usage
Runs Kodi
Runs Skype (I have a USB webcam already)
HDMI out
Budget £50 to £80

I know that is a low budget but I am very happy to buy second hand. I was thinking along the lines of an old Acer R3700 or R3610 which are about £50-£60 on ebay, I realise these are about 3 years old now so am I silly buying this old technology?
Any other options?

Thanks,
Womble

pappa_golf

upgrade the board to the later pi 11b+ , and keep all your peripheral's


not sure about the skype aspect , BUT , aamazon fire TV (box not dongle) @ £79 can be easily modded to self boot directly into kodi , and is wi fi enabled as well as Ethernet


the dongle @ £39 is only wifi ,

womble12345

Thanks I had considered the Pi2 but Skype won't work on any Pi processors.

pappa_golf

ok , then you are going to struggle , kodi runs on Linux , android or windoze , skype needs an interface , look at a droid box type thing , that has kit kat and kodi


https://droidbox.co.uk/choose-your-droidbox.html?utm_source=DroidBOX+Customers+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c9b743e673-BlacFriday_2015_with_AB&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a5ed25302c-c9b743e673-117479853


but they are bad , slow etc


small computer (as you suggested) with TVMC on it , try the free one on your PC


http://www.tvaddons.ag/tvmc-windows/

womble12345

Thanks, you appear to have confirmed my thinking.

Fightsback

Perhaps on of the Z3757F based win TV boxes, you could risk cheapness by buying from China or Hong Kong or search for a UK supplier which will cost you more.

This link is provided as information on available systems and in no way an endorsement of the supplier.

http://www.geekbuying.com/category/Windows-Mini-PCs-1655

I've been looking to get something myself but I'm waiting for a Z8500 or Z8700 to appear with 4GB RAM, see what comes out next year probably.

The positive point about all these is that they are fanless.

womble12345

Did you really mean z3757f as I cannot find anything saying that. Did you mean z3735f as there are some of them?

The z3735f does look good, how do you think the performance will be against a 3 year old Acer revo r3600? I guess it will be much quieter.

Thanks

Fightsback

womble12345 wrote: »

The z3735f does look good, how do you think the performance will be against a 3 year old Acer revo r3600?

The R3600 is 6 years old and not 3.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/04/27/inside-the-acer-revo/

I depends on exactly which Revo you are looking at, the specs vary wildly, such as the CPU and whether it has a nvidia graphics chip or not.

womble12345

Ok how about the emachines er1401 which had this spec.....
AMD Athlon II Neo dual-core processor K325 1.3 GHz
2GB of Memory
250GB Storage
They sell for about £50 on eBay.

I guess the z3735f is faster as it is quad core?

Fightsback

womble12345 wrote: »

Ok how about the emachines er1401 which had this spec.....
AMD Athlon II Neo dual-core processor K325 1.3 GHz
2GB of Memory
250GB Storage
They sell for about £50 on eBay.

I guess the z3735f is faster as it is quad core?

You can check yourself here for relative CPU performance

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

and here for relative 3D GPU performance:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Something to bear in mind are the hardware decoding capabilities of the GPU as this takes the strain off the CPU, I should imagine you want at least x264 1080p hardware decode capabilities, higher if you are planning on getting a 4k TV

It's an old article but it will give you an idea:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/accelerate-x-264-1080p-movies-over-the-gpu-guide,1.html