New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

ASROCK Vision X

post #1 of 5
3/10/13 at 5:00am
Thread Starter 
Any thoughts on this media player? I decided to buy this online yesterday since I was getting tired of my buggy Xtreamer Prodigy not playing some of my movies the way Total media was playing them on my PC. I noticed that I need to install the os on the Asrock, but the specs and small form factor caught my eye. I know they're a lot of experts on here and would really want to know your honest thoughts on the Asrock Vision X and if you think I should upgrade it in any way, like an SSD drive, etc... Also, which os should I install on it. I was told Windows 7 with media center??? Thanks in advance.
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 5
3/10/13 at 5:29am
That is not a media player that's a PC. You could install XBMCbuntu or Openelec on it to to make it more media player appliance like which will give you XBMC as the front end and only app on the OS.

It doesn't really need to be upgraded, you could put an SSD drive into it but that wouldn't make any major difference other than less noise & maybe less heat. Speed of an SSD is wasted on a system like this and your likely to be leaving the PC on 24/7 in sleep mode when idle rather than shutting down and booting it each time so fast boot times of an SSD aren't much use either.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 5
3/10/13 at 5:38am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alx330 View Post

That is not a media player that's a PC. You could install XBMCbuntu or Openelec on it to to make it more media player appliance like which will give you XBMC as the front end and only app on the OS.

It doesn't really need to be upgraded, you could put an SSD drive into it but that wouldn't make any major difference other than less noise & maybe less heat. Speed of an SSD is wasted on a system like this and your likely to be leaving the PC on 24/7 in sleep mode when idle rather than shutting down and booting it each time so fast boot times of an SSD aren't much use either.
Thanks Alx 330! I have some researching to do because I'm totally lost when you mention XBMC/Openelec... Also, I'm just reading on this Cinavia thing. So if I buy a blu ray disc, I'm not allowed to download my own disc to a hard drive??? Will I be able to play it since Cinavia is supposed to block the sound??? Thanks for the advice on the SDD drive.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 5
3/11/13 at 8:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by willrod29 View Post

Thanks Alx 330! I have some researching to do because I'm totally lost when you mention XBMC/Openelec... Also, I'm just reading on this Cinavia thing. So if I buy a blu ray disc, I'm not allowed to download my own disc to a hard drive??? Will I be able to play it since Cinavia is supposed to block the sound??? Thanks for the advice on the SDD drive.

XBMCbuntu and Openelec are linux based operating systems for PC's, however they do not have a desktop like Windows and only run XBMC, so after installing it on the PC when it boots it goes straight to XBMC.

XBMC cannot play Blu-ray discs, you can decrypt a disc to a HDD by ripping as an ISO image and it will play that, Blu-ray menu support is experimental and only available in cutting edge versions of XBMC (called nightlies) and it will likely be some time before menu support is truly usable.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 5
3/14/13 at 2:00pm
I run XBMC on an Intel NUC. Very small i3 based unit ( comparable in size to a Roku or Apple TV). You could use a Linux based XBMC on it but I went with win8 for two reasons. Hulu(+) runs great with XBMC and there is a native Netflix app for win8. The lack of Silverlight under Linux may be a factor in not going the Linux route as I believe it has to run under Wine to get Netflix to work. Not sure how that would affect playback. Might be fine in which case the Linux distributions would be appealing.

The NUC is totally silent which was a factor in choosing it. It also uses an i3 processor and everything is very fast. There is also a Celeron version of the NUC that works great with XBMC and costs a third less than the i3 version.

I was running XBMC on an Ion based system before, and a Pivos XIOS player, but you get spoiled with the i3.

My NUC is controlled using an MCE receiver (HP) and a Harmony remote. It has 4 gigs ram and an 80 gig msata drive from Kingston.

philip
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home

AVS Top Picks