Advice wanted - MicroClient Sr - good for a slient media PC?

[diazamet]

Hi,

Just wanted to tap the collective knowledge of the board. I want to replace my aging Xbox that I am using for a media center.
My criteria would be,
* something small that can be hidden from view
* fanless, as near to silent as possible
* be able to output 1920x1080 via VGA
* built in ethernet, usb port
* have enough grunt to play a video stream at 720p (1080p would be a bonus)
* must be open, I want to be able to put linux on it to allow web-browsing, email, etc
* minimal storage for the OS (maybe CF or something)

The device that seems to fit the bill so far is the Nortech MicroClient Sr (http://www.norhtec.com/products/mcsr/index.html). Anybody got any experience with this device? Will it be upto the job?

[davijordan]

If you live in or near a big city, you might see if there are any computer resellers. you can get some pretty nice thin clients without have to get all the extras for about half of what those units are or you might be able to get something even better for the same price. It never hurts to look, unless you have heart dead set on that one.

[Patrick]

That looks like an interesting device. I've been reading up on possible thin clients for MythTV that can do HD. A good place to read up on what people are using are the MythTV mailing lists. Regarding the Northtec device, what speed is the wireless card? 802.11g will not cut it for streaming HD video and 802.11n support in Linux is still a bit spotty. Another issue is the video accelerator they list in the specs. How well it works in Linux is the big question. I've played around with the Hauppauge MediaMVP as a SD MythTV thin client front end. Some people have used Epia based frontends. For HD thin clients some people have hacked AppleTV boxes.

Please keep us in the loop on your progress and experiences.

[allix]

you could buy a playstation 3, its open to linux out-the-box.

[greggh]

If you can live with 1600x1200 I would go with an eee PC 2G. You can get that for as cheap as $289 shipped. The MicroClient Sr is going to run you about $240-250 since they charge around $50 for shipping. For an extra $50 you can have a sub-notebook that's not terribly bigger than the MicroClient and you can plug into a monitor and take it with you when you travel. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

[allix]

I doubt very much the eee PC is going to play smoothly video up to 1600x1200, its not a very beefy cpu.

[greggh]

I doubt very much the eee PC is going to play smoothly video up to 1600x1200, its not a very beefy cpu.

Well the Intel CPU in the eee is a hell of a lot better than the 500 Mhz VIA C7 in the MicroClient Sr.

[diazamet]

But the MicroClient Sr has hardware acceleration for MPEG2/MPEG4.

[Patrick]

But the MicroClient Sr has hardware acceleration for MPEG2/MPEG4.

Has anyone else reported performance results under Linux?