Yet another "Death to HTPC" thread - Page 6

I figured at the five year mark, that's about time the hardware starts going on and the machine is getting dated for software such as games or other demanding stuff. Not all hardware goes out, but the cheap stuff used to build it, it's a matter of time. I run my PCs 24/7. I've had everything from HDD to floppy controllers, to GPUs fail. Some of it, it's cheap to replace such as same size HDD. Other stuff, may be cheap if you can find it.

On the same token, I've had machines under three years old have stuff go out as well such as optical drives and HDDs. This usually occurs right because I need to use that equipment and on a holiday.

With old PCs, you have to act, can I find the parts, how much are parts (new or used), and does the machine still able to fit my needs and wants the way I want. A ten year old machine, you can buy the industry of it for in the five hundred to thousand dollar range and end up with a significantly more powerful machine. I speak from experience since I have two desktops and laptop in that area. Another laptop in the eight year range.

While I understand what you are saying I don't game and cannot see anything more demanding than I am using right now until maybe 60" 4k displays are under $2k so I have a ways to go. My HTPC is nearly 2 years old and just works.

The Pivos XIOS DS which is available for around $100 is running XBMC 12 Frodo RC3. It currently supports hardware decoding, DTS-MA and Dolby True-HD. The only big issues are it currently does not support 24p, and it struggles with full sized MKV rips do to a SMB networking issue.

My old machine works just fine too. You don't need a lot power to browse the web, email, IM and so forth. The machines I use for HTPC functions are both late 2009 Mac Mins. I got them refurbished from Apple. One had a HDD go out. Other than that, trouble free; I'm not counting software issues I've dealt with because of drivers not being updated. Sure I would like to update them, but it's not priority because they fulfill my needs and wants. Thus, the last part of my "ask yourself" scenario. Just because it's old, doesn't mean it has to go.

I was more pointing, in general, when it comes to old PCs that age can make a difference. And if you do have to have something go out, sometimes it makes since to replace the part. Other times, it's better to get a more current machine.

I thought the networking issue is related to HW decoding

The default Android playback usually supports H/W decoding, but not for network shares

I feel like they can handle it with time.

The pivos look a little more like the ATV which a lot of people seem to really like, but for the price increase it's not really a better SoC

The Pivos does support H/W decoding for network shares, it's just is not working as well as attached hard drives. It’s actually getting better, on full rips, there are usually only a couple times per movie where playback stops do to buffering. When XBMC for andriod first came out full rips did not work at all.

The Pivos XIOS DS is more expensive than the other (hardware comparable) units because they are the official XBMC developers for android. They are the ones actually porting XBMC to android and the XIOS DS is the 1st officially targeted android hardware. Because of this the android XBMC.org code/release are always several weeks to several months behind what is available on the Pivos website. Additionally, the Pivos provides legal DTS, DTS-HD and Dolby Digital audio licenses for their hardware.

No doubt. I'm not like the movie Cetlic Pride:

If you're into really into a sport or some local team, sports can be had. There are only a few, and not many, that you're really tied to cable/satellite because there is no online means of getting it. Like I mentioned, since going to limited basic cable (local OTA channels provided by the cable company), I actually watch more sports than I did prior. Heck, now I run into an issue, how can I watch it all all the content? Do I split screen, TV and tablet, TV and another TV. It's just not fair, LOL:



technically speaking, this is still using the tablet, but i'm using the HDMI out on the tablet to use the smaller TV for it's display, ie mirroring. You can kind of see the tablet laying next to the small TV on the TV stand.

And the dolls staring back at me while I'm trying to enjoy the game.. LOL!

I think this thread topic is all relative to how the viewer wants to experience their content. Many posters here must have the full HD experience, with 100% picture and audio quality on all content. Others, myself included, just want to be able to watch what I want to watch in a less expensive way while still keeping the content "watchable" in my eyes. My family is in the process of attempting to cut the cable. With that I know will come sacrifices. Sacrifices in picture quality, available content and even time. But if it allows us to shake free from the $145 a month DirecTv bill, it's all worth it. Cutting the cord will also offer less "mindless TV watching" and hopefully encourage other activities within the family, just another added benefit.

I don't use an A/V receiver, as i have no room for the speakers, nor do i get any enjoyment out of hearing bass thumps during a football or basketball game. So for me 2 channel stereo sound is suffice. Which means that for someone like myself a Roku or an Xbox or similar component would do just fine without digging through all of the technical jargon that goes on here most times with regards to HD audio or bit streaming.

I just finished building my second HTPC and am using a separate laptop connected via HDMI in a third room (daughter's room), we have a Roku in my youngest son's room, and my oldest son has the Xbox.... So for some we just want our stuff to work. And most of the stuff we want to work starts at the PC for me. Sure, 1080P looks great, but so did 720P before that, 480P before that and black and white TV before that. For me and mine, so it may only be 720P quality in stereo sound, doesn't matter to me... DOES IT WORK? That's always question number one to me.

About 3-4 years ago, maybe longer, I bought a Bluray player, then I bought another... Why? Because at the time, they were the only devices i knew of that could connect to the internet and stream Netflix for my kids to my TV. I own less than 10 Bluray movies, why do i have three Bluray players? Because at the time, they worked! Now they are old and outdated compared to the Roku or even what the XBOX will eventually become, but they served a great purpose at the time. Easy set up, easy navigation and "good enough" picture quality while streaming. That's what i needed, and I'd venture to say that is what most Roku owners and the like want too. They want to plug it in and have it work. 95% of them will never use Plex, or even understand how it works and what it can do. The 5% who do use it though will have at some point or another been an HTPC enthusiast and loves it.

To answer the original question finally, NO, the HTPC isn't dead in my mind. In fact most reports i've read show it growing. I just don't know if it's growing in the same framework of what we use them for. Do they consider Roku's to be a form of HTPC? The Boxee Box? What their definition of HTPC is, I don't know. But like many others have said, we're moving towards 100% streamed content, which can pretty much already be purchased a la carte, who can complain about that? Oh, wait.....