[PCWorld]

Post your comments for How we built a tiny home theater PC with Intel's NUC here

[exterm]

Why bother building this ? Zotak Nano almost same specs better price

[boomer1204]

Because he get's paid to find new products and solutions to different peoples problems.

Yes the Zotak Nano is a excellent choice and If I were building something like this I would go that route too.

Some people will want "more ram" or bet GPU or whatever. He isn't saying this is the best just another alternative for someon

Thanks for the advice on the Zotak though!!

[javipas]

There's one important caveat on this solution: no GbE. I've got a NAS with several movies in mkv format (big size when they're 1080p) that don't work that well over wireless. That's a pity.

[MLStrand56]

"Home Theater" in a tiny box, with BIG RED LETTERS, that say, "HOME THEATER" There's one born every minute!!!

You can't defy Physics!!!! It's impossible to produce "Theater Sound" with tiny equip. & tiny speakers.

Go ahead & buy the tiny + tiny & your wife will be happy because she can't see where the Bad sound is coming from. Just don't call it Home "THEATER", because that's just insulting!!!

MLStrand56
Audiophile

[colsanders83]

Quote

"Home Theater" in a tiny box, with BIG RED LETTERS, that say, "HOME THEATER" There's one born every minute!!! You can't defy Physics!!!! It's impossible to produce "Theater Sound" with tiny equip. & tiny speakers. Go ahead & buy the tiny + tiny & your wife will be happy because she can't see where the Bad sound is coming from. Just don't call it Home "THEATER", because that's just insulting!!! MLStrand56 Audiophile

It's a digital signal, the same signal from your cable box or blue-ray player. The size of the PC has nothing to do with it. The equipment you use to decode the signal and reproduce the sound is what will determines the quality of the audio, which this article doesn't go into.

This would be a nice little box to hide behind a good receiver and control with a smart phone. The real downside to this is no hard NIC, only Wi-Fi which really can't handle Hi Def video/audio consistently well.

[PCWRegoBJ]

Nice article and very clear on what to do. The NUC gives a new aspect on putting computing power where it's needed.

For thise interest in putting together a VERY low cost yet powerful media centre/streamer (inc LAN, HDMI, WiFi, CEC, 2xUSB, etc etc) you can't go past the Raspberry Pi. This will set you back $35 + cables, SD card. Software is FREE.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
http://wiki.openelec...on_Raspberry_Pi

Cheers

[smelton]

Quote

"Home Theater" in a tiny box, with BIG RED LETTERS, that say, "HOME THEATER" There's one born every minute!!! You can't defy Physics!!!! It's impossible to produce "Theater Sound" with tiny equip. & tiny speakers. Go ahead & buy the tiny + tiny & your wife will be happy because she can't see where the Bad sound is coming from. Just don't call it Home "THEATER", because that's just insulting!!! MLStrand56 Audiophile

Uh, what? This isn't an amp, and doesn't contain speakers. It is a component you connect to an A/V receiver (or separates, if you go that route), just like you do your BD player or any other component. And I didn't see "HOME THEATER" written on the device in BIG RED LETTERS anywhere.

I have to question whether or not you even read the article.

[Leinad1]

Quote

I guess you can, it says in the third paragraph under "Other Hardware Considerations", that you can use a USB to ethernet dongle if you don't have a good wi-fi connection.
"Home Theater" in a tiny box, with BIG RED LETTERS, that say, "HOME THEATER" There's one born every minute!!! You can't defy Physics!!!! It's impossible to produce "Theater Sound" with tiny equip. & tiny speakers. Go ahead & buy the tiny + tiny & your wife will be happy because she can't see where the Bad sound is coming from. Just don't call it Home "THEATER", because that's just insulting!!! MLStrand56 Audiophile

It's a digital signal, the same signal from your cable box or blue-ray player. The size of the PC has nothing to do with it. The equipment you use to decode the signal and reproduce the sound is what will determines the quality of the audio, which this article doesn't go into.
This would be a nice little box to hide behind a good receiver and control with a smart phone. The real downside to this is no hard NIC, only Wi-Fi which really can't handle Hi Def video/audio consistently well.

[milliganp]

A couple of points, there is an alternate version with 2xHDMI and GBe for those who don't want thunderbolt. However Apple sell a Thunderbolt to GBe adaptor for $29, so it's not that difficult to do.

[lars690]

Quote

Why bother building this ? Zotak Nano almost same specs better price

Not true. I have a Zotak Nano and a just bought a Intel NUC. The latter is MUCH faster. The Zotak Nano is a very nice piece of hardware but it is really slow campared to this one.

[lars690]

Quote

Because he get's paid to find new products and solutions to different peoples problems. Yes the Zotak Nano is a excellent choice and If I were building something like this I would go that route too. Some people will want "more ram" or bet GPU or whatever. He isn't saying this is the best just another alternative for someon Thanks for the advice on the Zotak though!!

I would recommend the Intel NUC before the Zotak Nano bacause the Intel NUC is so much faster (it is well worth the extra cost).

[Gatewaygeek]

Hey, You forgot about XBMC being a great Media Center alternative. http://xbmc.org/
I find a lot of use for it and the plugins, Don't have a feature you want, just find the plugin that suits you.

I remember back when I hacked my old Xbox Classic and the first thing I put on it was XBMC, I could stream a whopping 480p video on that thing.

[TheWatcher00]

Quote

There's one important caveat on this solution: no GbE. I've got a NAS with several movies in mkv format (big size when they're 1080p) that don't work that well over wireless. That's a pity.

the base version of the NUC (the all black model) has ethernet only and no thunderbolt.. the version used in this build is the more expensive version with wireless only + thunderbolt. so if thunderbolt isn't something you want/care for then save $50-$100 and get the base version of the NUC if you want to buy one as it'll have the port for wired networking.

[ppehrson]

Quote

Nice article and very clear on what to do. The NUC gives a new aspect on putting computing power where it's needed. For thise interest in putting together a VERY low cost yet powerful media centre/streamer (inc LAN, HDMI, WiFi, CEC, 2xUSB, etc etc) you can't go past the Raspberry Pi. This will set you back $35 + cables, SD card. Software is FREE. http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://wiki.openelec...on_Raspberry_Pi Cheers

You can easily go past the Raspberry Pi. It is far from powerful enough to run any media center. It will play the videos, etc, but it is not powerful enough to actually run the software like OpenELEC. It is SOOOOOOO slow.

[notjoe]

Quote

"Home Theater" in a tiny box, with BIG RED LETTERS, that say, "HOME THEATER" There's one born every minute!!! You can't defy Physics!!!! It's impossible to produce "Theater Sound" with tiny equip. & tiny speakers. Go ahead & buy the tiny + tiny & your wife will be happy because she can't see where the Bad sound is coming from. Just don't call it Home "THEATER", because that's just insulting!!! MLStrand56 Audiophile

I couldn't agree more. I think, for the normal every day person this would fill the void though. Personally, for me, if it won't bitstream DTSHD-MA/TrueHD to my receiver I wouldn't even bother with it for my HT setup...however, it would definitely fill the void for the TVs in the bedroom.

[notjoe]

Quote

Nice article and very clear on what to do. The NUC gives a new aspect on putting computing power where it's needed. For thise interest in putting together a VERY low cost yet powerful media centre/streamer (inc LAN, HDMI, WiFi, CEC, 2xUSB, etc etc) you can't go past the Raspberry Pi. This will set you back $35 + cables, SD card. Software is FREE. http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://wiki.openelec...on_Raspberry_Pi Cheers You can easily go past the Raspberry Pi. It is far from powerful enough to run any media center. It will play the videos, etc, but it is not powerful enough to actually run the software like OpenELEC. It is SOOOOOOO slow.

I agree completely. The theory behind the PI is nice the usability is anything but. The system is overall very slow and makes for a bad user experience when running as a HTPC.

[notjoe]

Quote

I guess you can, it says in the third paragraph under "Other Hardware Considerations", that you can use a USB to ethernet dongle if you don't have a good wi-fi connection. "Home Theater" in a tiny box, with BIG RED LETTERS, that say, "HOME THEATER" There's one born every minute!!! You can't defy Physics!!!! It's impossible to produce "Theater Sound" with tiny equip. & tiny speakers. Go ahead & buy the tiny + tiny & your wife will be happy because she can't see where the Bad sound is coming from. Just don't call it Home "THEATER", because that's just insulting!!! MLStrand56 Audiophile It's a digital signal, the same signal from your cable box or blue-ray player. The size of the PC has nothing to do with it. The equipment you use to decode the signal and reproduce the sound is what will determines the quality of the audio, which this article doesn't go into. This would be a nice little box to hide behind a good receiver and control with a smart phone. The real downside to this is no hard NIC, only Wi-Fi which really can't handle Hi Def video/audio consistently well.

This device won't even do passthrough DTSHD/TrueHD.