Atom XBMC Mediacenter with Full HD Support
Most of my digital video content is being watched on tv using a media center pc I put together a couple of months ago.
The following components were used to create this build:
- Intel D945GSEJT
- 512 MB Ram
- 500 GB Caviar
- 12V ac/dc
- Mini-itx case
- Broadcom crystal chip
- DVI to HDMI convertor
The system is using Windows XP Media Center as an OS. I picked this Operating system because of the support it has for the Microsoft MCE Remote. Vista and 7 were not of my list because they would bring too much load to the system.
On top of the XP OS XBMC was installed. I put the application in the startup folder so that it would startup immediately after the OS was loaded. Unnecessary services were disabled to start up more quickly. I’m still considering to customize the startup logo of Windows, I also need to disable the startup sound.
I also installed VNC so that I can remotely manage the system without having to have the tv on.
The broadcom chip allows me to watch high definition content without having a high performance GPU.
In a next stage I will link my Amahi shares to the XBMC machine.