XBMC Hardware

[notadouche]

Hi folks,

I've recently built a freenas server with the specs suggested by jgreco:

Supermicro X9SCM
G2020
16Gbs KVR16E11/8I ECC
4 x 3TB RED Drives
Brone 550W PSU

Being that I am buying a house and will repaint everything, I will be digging holes everywhere to pass CAT6 cables (CAT6 was on special. Not looking for cat5e vs cat6 debate). Now I plan on streaming to 3 TVs and a few computers. Assuming I want to stream a 20Gb 1080p MKV movies through gigalan, which hardware would you recommend to be sure that I don't get any stuttering and that is compatible with all types of media?

Presently, I have a WDTV Live, which is fine for the normal stuff but can't read all HD formats and will stutter (though this is on wifi atm). I was also looking into Raspberry Pi but I'm not sure if it can handle 20gig movies without stuttering at all.

If possible, I'm trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible and I don't want to build media servers everywhere.

Thanks,
Pat

 

[dantest69]

Hi Pat,

I'm looking at building a nearly identical build as yours and am wondering if you had to do anything special to get the G2020 working with the X9SCM. I emailed Supermicro support and they said the G2020 was not compatible with the board. I've also read that to use the new generation Xeons you have to update the BIOS but to do so you need to use a Sandy Bridge processor first, update the BIOS then replace the new CPU. Did you have to update the BIOS? What version is your BIOS currently running?

I'd appreciate any input you might have. Sorry I couldn't help with your streaming question.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[pirateghost]

I have been planning on picking up a couple of RPi's to do some testing on, because my 2 HTPCs in the house are over powered and larger than I want them to be

 

[Manuel F. Almeida]

I have the same question as DAN! can you please answer ?

 

[jgreco]

I emailed Supermicro support and they said the G2020 was not compatible with the board.

I think they're probably wrong, as it is pretty easy to find people out on the Internet that have done this. My primary concern would be that if the board was sufficiently old and had an old BIOS, it is possible that a new CPU might not be supported in the old board. I don't know how likely that is ... but I would expect it to be a problem for Ivy users too. So my suggestion: go read every last comment over at NewEgg for every X9S class board to develop an opinion on whether or not this is likely to be an issue.

 

[PrincePaul]

@notadouche: I'm not sure if I understand that correctly, but you would only stream your Movies, Pictures and so... why you don´t use your FreeNAs server with the minidlna plugin for that? That would be the most inexpensive because you already bought everything.

 

[zottelbeyer]

Presently, I have a WDTV Live, which is fine for the normal stuff but can't read all HD formats and will stutter (though this is on wifi atm). I was also looking into Raspberry Pi but I'm not sure if it can handle 20gig movies without stuttering at all.

If possible, I'm trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible and I don't want to build media servers everywhere.

Thanks,
Pat

I'm currently using the RPi with raspbmc (xbmc). The RPi plays everything fine until you hit the 11MB/s Bitrate limit. It only has a 100Mbit port so thats basically the limit. Every 720p content has played fine and most 1080p Scene content will play fine as well. Movies like Samsura which have a very high bitrate will not play though. I will soon go for a small selfbuild htpc with Glan.