After years of hearing "I want a myth box for upstairs" I have gotten the s***s up with him and said we are going to buy a pre-built cookie cutter one, rather than waiting for him to make it and find a remote to work and yada yada yada.

So, what's a good, reliable, and at the cheaper end of the scale media unit that is compact and comes with a remote? and where do you buy them?

Mainly for dvd and avi watching.

you have the screen and speakers already? or would something like an all-in-one mac be suitable :P

Yeah, just after the box. Plus I don't think I would call an imac at the cheaper end of the scale :p

http://aldi.com.au/au/html/offers_medion_20071213.htm

My FusionHDTV remote can control windows media center, but I guess that's not what you want to hear :)

My mate bought a HP media centre pc from WoW. f***ing great machine.

just get one of these http://www.mediagateusa.com/html/mg350.html

or given that ps3 and xbox 360 do divx now and the ps3 can do blu-ray and xbox hd-dvd with an add on, both are pretty cheap media players and you can get remotes for them.

mod chipped xbox!

otherwise, myth-TV is simple as s*** to set up ... hell there's liveCDs galore floating around ... tell him to man up already and build one.

xboxmediacentre on a classic xbox is the go. unless you wish to stream high-def contect, which the xbox chokes on unfortunately :(

one of the boys at work bought some kind of hd tv receiver/divx player from Aldi for his missus.

it does tv playing/recording/has a hdd/etc. dunno if it has an ethernet port. it comes with a remote.

dunno if it networks or whether it's just a usb-plugin jobby though.

it was less than $300 from memory. you'd prolly get what you pay for

http://popcornhour.com/

was reading about this from another site... although it does seem to good to be true...

Popcorn Hour A-100 allows you to pull in digital video, audio and photos from various sources for your enjoyment on your HDTV or Home Theater setup.

You can stream or playback your digital media content from a variety of sources, such as your PC, NAS, digital camera, USB mass storage devices (Flash drive, HDD, DVD drive) , internal HDD* and even directly from the Internet via the Media Service Portal.

It also serves as a NAS and a BitTorrent peer-to-peer downloader** to eliminate the need to switch on a PC or other device for this purpose.

The Popcorn Hour A-100 supports the latest high bitrate video formats (MPEG2 MP@HL, H.264 HP@L4.1, VC-1 AP@L3 in TS of at least 40Mbps) to give you up to 1080p high-definition videos.

In recognition of advances in Internet TV, the A-100 supports peer-to-peer Internet TV streaming technology from SayaTV, as well as popular unicast internet TV such as YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe via the Media Service Portal.

The A-100 firmware is upgradeable to support future media containers, codecs and features.

* HDD not included
** An internal HDD is required for these functions.

and specs

Specification :

Connectivity

* Bonjour
* UPnP SSDP
* DLNA
* Windows Media Connect
* Windows Media Player NSS
* SMB
* NFS
* HTTP servers: myiHome, WizD, SwissCenter, MSP Portal
* BitTorrent P2P
* NAS access : SMB, NFS, FTP

Web services

* Video : YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, VideoCast, DL.TV, Cranky Geeks
* Audio : iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, Jamendo
* Photo : Flickr, Picasa
* RSS feed : Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Traffic alerts, Yahoo! Stock, Cinecast, Traffic Conditions.
* Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV
* Internet Radio : Shoutcast

Media files supported

* Video containers:
o MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
o MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
o MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
o VOB
o AVI, ASF, WMV
o Matroska (MKV)
o MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4
* Video codecs:
o XVID SD/HD
o MPEG-1
o MPEG-2
+ MP@HL
o MPEG-4.2
+ ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
o WMV9
+ MP@HL
o H.264
+ BP@L3
+ MP@L4.0
+ HP@L4.0
+ HP@L4.1
o VC-1
+ MP@HL
+ AP@L3
* Audio containers:
o AAC, M4A
o MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
o WAV
o WMA
* Audio codecs:
o WMA, WMA Pro
o AAC
o MP1, MP2, MP3
o LPCM
* Audio pass through : DTS, AC3
* Photo formats : JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
* Other formats: ISO, IFO
* Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA

DRM

* Cardea DRM (WMDRM-ND)

Chipset

* Sigma Designs SMP8635

Memory

* 256MB DDR SDRAM, 32MB Flash

Audio/Video outputs

* HDMI v1.1 (up to 1080p)
* Component Video (up to 1080p)
* S-Video
* Composite Video
* Stereo Analog Audio
* S/PDIF Coax Digital Audio

Interface

* 2x USB 2.0 host
* Parallel ATA

Network

* Ethernet 10/100

Power

* 12V DC, 3A

Dimension

* Width 10.5"(270mm) x Depth 5.25" (132mm) x Height 1.25" (32mm)

Weight

* 2.2 lbs (1Kg)

Package Content

* NMT A-100 (HDD not included)
* 100~240V Power Adapter and 3 Prong Flat US Power Cord
* 1.5M length HDMI cable
* Remote Control with 2 "AAA" batteries
* Quick start guide

All for $179 USD - seems to good...

last edited by HeardY at 22:19:38 27/Dec/07

No dvb-t

We ended up biting the bullet and just buying a decent case and a LIRC compatible remote control and migrating our crappy mythbox to a lounge room friendly one.

Of course, after several hours mucking around with Mythbuntu it still won't work.

elvis may preach linux all he wants but there is a lot to be said for the simple install and away you go ease of windows s***.

if you really want windows, you can go for winxp with media portal installed
it's a MCE rip-off that is almost as good, if not better :)

elvis may preach linux all he wants but there is a lot to be said for the simple install and away you go ease of windows s***.

Tell me about it, I tried to install ubuntu once and oh what a nightmare. I had to disable every advanced option in the BIOS to do with ACPI and PNP OS just to stop it from freezing at boot. I dunno wtf. Boot live and I believe it was fine yet try to install it to the hdd and NO UBUNTU FOR YOU.

if you really want windows, you can go for winxp with media portal installed

Or just get vista + mediacenter

tell me how it all works out as i'm needing this shizzle soon

Or just get vista + mediacenter

whoop, a good suggestion, but it sounds like he's going to try to do it with a bunch of rag-tag old parts thrown together, in which case older machines don't run Vista too goodly.

otherwise, yeah, go with the real deal :)