HTPC On Old Computer

[nishangoswami]

I have an old acer aspire 5570z laptop with the following specs

dual core t2080 @1.73ghz

2gb ddr2 533mhz ram

320 gb hdd

GMA 950

DVI out

I am looking to convert this into a htpc

i have already tested that even hi10p 1080p videos play smoothly on vlc version 2.0.1 but not on xmbc. Are there any other software i can use or is the laptop just too old

[Dae314]

It's just an HTPC ._. You can't really be "too old" with that unless you want something like Blu-ray capability. You might want to invest in a wireless keyboard/mouse or something like this so that you can control the computer from your couch. If you want to add the HTPC into your home network you're also going to want the laptop to either have wi-fi connectivity or an ethernet cable. Of course you need the cables to attach the thing to your TV along with any connections you may need (don't forget you need a separate audio cable since DVI doesn't support sound like HDMI and DP do).

The final thing I would say is to not use VLC. Get MPC:HC, PotPlayer, or some other media player that's on the same level as those 2.

[† L4ugh]

The reason XBMC won't play the files correctly is because it doesn't support 10bit video yet. You could try replacing the default player with DSPlayer, it's an alternative player for XBMC. You can also use external players, but I don't think they work seamlessly with the XBMC interface. Another media center program you could try is MediaPortal. I believe it's suppose to support codec packs like CCCP, but I've never tried it myself.

[G Bass]

Just use whatever OS you have right now unless you absolutely need the TV streaming or other features XBMC has. Personally, if you have Windows, I would shrink the partition and put Xubuntu on it. The XFCE desktop is lightweight, and I like the shortcut panels it has.

[RikuoAmero]

(don't forget you need a separate audio cable since DVI doesn't support sound like HDMI and DP do).

The final thing I would say is to not use VLC. Get MPC:HC, PotPlayer, or some other media player that's on the same level as those 2.

Actually, DVI DOES support audio...just get a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor and you get sound; although I think this is mainly because of the graphics card supporting HD audio. I don't know whether a laptop using Intel GMA would be able to do that.

I agree with the choice of media player, don't use VLC.

[nishangoswami]

actually for some reason all codec based players are struggling to play video on my system but on my desktop they work fine i don't know but the only players that can play video smoothly on the laptop are vlc and the metro style media player with windows 8 consumer preview which also looks pretty good on the big screen . Codec based players such as mpc-hc run awsome on my 17 desktop but not on the laptop i even tried many possible decoder combinations such as madvr , lav cccp etc but again the only ones that play stutter free 10bit are vlc and windows 8 metro style media player even the default wmp does not play the video

The features of a media centre are somewhat essential to me but i am free to any alternatives of xmbc as long as it can play everything and can be controlled with a xbox controller

sorry for being a student and being poor but i cannot absolutely spend more on the laptop

[Dae314]

Then I think you're fine fine . None of the stuff that's come up seems to be of extreme importance.

[† L4ugh]

I just updated to Eden 11.0, and while I was there I checked on the 10bit issue. It seems they have added 10bit support to the nightly builds, so you may be able to try that as well. Should be noted that nightly builds will be unstable.

[nishangoswami]

Yeah i just tried the nightly along with the ones for dvr support on xmbcbuntu it works great now maybe there was a problemn with windows