So, I've been thinking of getting some sort of media player device. Primarily, to stream music from the home server to the stereo in the living room, but it would be nice to play other stuff as well (movies, etc).
My top two choices so far are the popcorn hour (
Welcome To Popcorn Hour - the new one coming out soon), or a small form-factor PC with XBMC (
XBMC Media Center for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux). From my POV, the pros/cons line up like this:
PCH:
o Already set up and ready to go, no configuration, assembly, or tweaking needed.
o Fanless and silent.
o Somewhat cheaper (about $300 vs. estimated $400 to build an XBMC pc)
o Proprietary and harder to upgrade.
o Doesn't play Hulu (yet - though there's some software that's supposed to do it)
XBMC:
o Get to spec it out and build it myself.
o Probably not fanless and silent.
o Useful for more than just media - internet browsing, games, etc.
o Upgradeable, and leaves me 'in control'
o Have to futz with it, etc.
Anybody have experience with these? Advice?