A short time ago Handbrake began to ship with default encoding settings for the “Normal” profile using 2-pass h264 encoding. Sadly my XBox and XBMC just weren’t up to the task of decoding all those fancy h264 bits in software anymore.
Naturally instead of adjusting the encoding parameters, I decided to begin the hunt for a new video player… oh and it has to be cheaper than that AppleTV thing since it does h264. It also has to be similarly quiet, power efficient, and small.
Not quite an Apple TV
Well this is the result. It’s a bit bigger than an AppleTV but it’s certainly quiet and power efficient. And I actually quite like the look of it.
Hardware
The beginnings of a mediacenter pc
D201GLY2TA MiniITX board, 1GB Kingston DDR2 667MHz, picoPSU 120W, Transcend 4GB x266 CF, and SAT2CF by startech.com. Board, PSU/AC-DC converter came from mini-box.com, the memory and CF card from canadacomputers.com and the CF-SATA adaptor from ncix.com. Cost breakdown:
| Item | Cost | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| D201GLY2TA | $75.00 | crappy frackin BIOS, not very Linux friendly… but it’s CHEAP! |
| picoPSU-120 power kit | $54.95 | small, efficient, awesome… nuff said |
| CF200 IDE to CF adaptor | $9.50 | BIOS is garbage, or the adaptor sucks… needless to say $10 down the crap shoot |
| 1GB Memory | $29.99 | it works |
| Trancend 4GB CF | $51.99 | also, just works |
| SAT2CF | $38.04 | slooooooow, as frack! but so far not much of an issue |
Grand total including taxes, shipping and brokerage fees… aprox. $370 CDN. Mother, %$*#! That’s way more than the AppleTV. Oh well, at least I didn’t have to give Apple Inc. any more of my hard earned money and this thing should be much more customizable… right? Read on for details of the software.
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