XBMC is great but what else is there?

I'm in the exact same boat. I love XBMC to death but the lack of HD is getting annoying. I just picked up a Tvix M-4100SH and I'm in the process of getting to know it. It's similiar to XBMC, but without the fancy interface (and minus games and scripts). It can play just about anything you can throw at it (x264, MKV, WMV, and Xvid included) all the way up to 1080p. The firmware is kind of a work-in-progress, but there's supposed to be an update coming in the next few weeks that resolves a number of quirks the box has. Also, it has a poor implementation of SMB, so you'll need to use NFS to stream; there's a utility on their website you can download for your PC to get this functionality if you need it. I have mixed feelings about it; the remote doesn't quite offer as much control as an Xbox controller does, but then what does?

For getting content on it, you have several options. First, you can stick a 3.5" SATA drive inside, all the way up to 1TB. Second, you can use USB drives (it has a couple USB ports). Third, you can stream over the network using NFS (only light SD content can stream over SMB). You can use any combination of these - a bare network streaming box or a streaming box with a hard drive inside, for example. To get content onto the internal or USB hard drives, you can either FTP the files over (I think people said it gets about 4 MB/sec) or just hook the box up to your computer directly with a USB cable and dump them on yourself. For video output, you have everything you could ask for: Composite, S-video, Component, HDMI (with audio). For audio output you have digital coaxial, digital optical, and stereo RCA. It comes with a nice glow-in-the-dark remote control as well.

The interface leaves something to be desired, but it is easy and functional. It's easy enough that I would say my grandma could use it without any problems. It simply lists file names for you to click on, no album artwork or DVD covers. Very basic GUI. Like anything else, there are a number of quirks, so I would suggest reading through the Tvix thread for more information if you're interested in it:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=825089

Yes, the 4100 is the same as the 5100, it's just box-shaped instead of cylinder-shaped. Tvix actually recommends the 4100 because of heat issues in the 5100, I believe. And yeah, I love SMB, so I'm pretty bummed that the Tvix doesn't do it well. I'm trying to set up my FreeNAS box with NFS but I've been having some streaming issues...it's not quite as easy as SMB

would wait about a month if I were you.

New products coming out very shortly. There are discussions of this in other threads.

Better processor chip and some with lesser price tag.

New product but what about new firmware? These manufacturers seem to lag on making a stable product that supports the latest codecs. Hope the new stuff is good!

I know and I've been there.

Waiting for something called Popcorn Hour. It supposed to be out on 15th of this month for $179. Look at this post: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=916504

There seem to be some hype about is. Just curious to see what it really is.

Also, the latest units (tvix and tomacro) that are out on the market now uses SigmaDesign 8623 chipset which I have heard is very buggy to start. That is probably why the makers are having such a hard time with firmware. Anyway, from the posts in this forum it seems to be the consensus that I should wait for 8634 if I want to be on the bleeding edge of media streamer trend.

XBMC is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have 2 but they can't play my high def videos. Well, we must move on hoping that some one will get it right some day.

$179 is ridiculous! If they really work, I'll sell my Tvix 4100 and buy a few of those instead, lol.

We'll see my friend, we will see.

I plan to wait about 2 weeks after it hits the street. I'm patiently impatient. I'm sure there will be some interesting feedbacks.

$179 ??? You get what you paid for. If its too good to be true then it is. OK, enough with the adage.

Could there be a catch? Your first born? Maybe your left tactical.

Sent you a PM

I am in the same boat. I love my XBMC but it won't play the latest H.264 (1280x720) format. I had a $100 credit with Apple and decided to get an AppleTV and hack it. What a freakin hassle it was since I don't own a Mac to hack that thing. The end result is a nice little silent box that is NO better at H.264 than my old XBOX. It's great for playing music but videos with the nitoTV is a disappointment.

I am praying they get a workable XBMC Linux port in the next few months. I'm dying waiting for HD and I actually think my v1.0 Xbox may be beginning to fail on me as I've had some odd crashes lately.

I'm waiting for a port of XBMC on the 360, now that would be heaven. For now i'm going to get a popcorn hour a100. If it can do what it says i'll be happy with that.

It's not going to happen in the foreseeable, the writers aren't interested. The only way will probably to run it through Linux, which is a painful process currently (Old Kernel, Flashed DVD Drive, DVD swapping etc).

How good of the output of HDMI from an HTPC depends very much on a few factors, especially the video card you are using and what software. I think the HTPC forum area can help you much better in this area.

Yeah they're going the Linux route right now, which should be even more awesome because then we can have XBMC with HD-DVD/Blu-ray combo drives