Acer Aspire Revo R3600 with XBMC

[Bally12345]

Ok guys there has been alot of hype about this and XBMC is one of the best media centres I have ever used.

The unit I have is from ebuyer Acer Aspire Revo Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer

All I had to do is download xbmc live from Download XBMC Media Center from SourceForge.net

Create a bootable usb or sd card and extract the iso to it. Run setup and its as simple as that... Theres a few other tweaks needed but im very impressed...

The next thing I am going to try is dual boot with win7 and xbmc live from another partition.

If you want something a bit more powerful have a look at this Acer Aspire Revo Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer

Overall very quite and will play full HD movies.

 

[Bally12345]

There is a good guide here Build a Silent, Standalone XBMC Media Center On the Cheap - Feature - Lifehacker

 

[edogg]

yes but it is still just another computer and costs 2 to 3 times more than a dedicated media player

edogg

 

[Bally12345]

How does it cost 2/3 times more compared to what? XBMC is probably better than any other dedicated media player with limited hardware. I have owned a Popcorn Hour and some other one I cant even remember what it was called... but I found both of them to be exspensive and very limited.

This can act both as a media centre and a PC at the same price. Much better value for money and more flexible.

 

[Mick]

I have to agree with bally here, that is a decent spec mini PC for £139 quid and as a media player will be much better than anything out there once sorted into media mode.

I been thinking about building my own one but to be honest our PS3 runs media in most content from our pc wireless without any trouble even hd in wireless is pretty decent.

Mickie

 

[Hejira]

I'm with Bally aswell, For what u are getting for the money that setup is a bargain IMHO.

XBMC function & Interface is Top Dollar and constantly developed, I'm so surprised more people here have not shown an interest since it was ported to Windoze, OSX, Apple TV n Linux.

IMHO XBMC has always been the best media player and for £140 n a little setup time your laughing, dual boot as Bally said n you have a fully functioning PC aswell. Every Home should have One.

 

[edogg]

How does it cost 2/3 times more compared to what? XBMC is probably better than any other dedicated media player with limited hardware. I have owned a Popcorn Hour and some other one I cant even remember what it was called... but I found both of them to be exspensive and very limited.

This can act both as a media centre and a PC at the same price. Much better value for money and more flexible.

it costs £139 the medion hd player costs £59.99 and it plays every format video and audio file i have tried it with, connects over the lan and UpNp if a computer is better then i have a quiet laptop but do you get a remote with the acer revo or do you have to buy one and some more software to drive it the revo is a computer by a cheap unreliable and no support company i speak from experience i had two acer aspire ones and both had harddrive problems within weeks and the support was well send us an email for a return label I took them both back to asda instead so good luck with your revo and twelve moths return to base guarantee

edogg

 

[Mick]

I thought Acer was a pretty big company ?

I will take your word for that edogg... and yes you would probably need a remote... but also saying that you could quite easily control it from a laptop or something on the network ?

Mickie

 

[Jooooles]

I have to say I had a lappy rigged to a plasma for over a year streaming media, but bying a independant little WD media player was a breath of fresh air.

easy controlled no messing and plays everything chucked on it also I have 2 TB full of moves attached to it.

If I was more pc aware I might of went the other route wireless lappy streaming etc but for the sake of £80 I saved my self hours of messing aroooooooond.

:Fish:

 

[Hejira]

it costs £139 the medion hd player costs £59.99 and it plays every format video and audio file i have tried it with, connects over the lan and UpNp if a computer is better then i have a quiet laptop but do you get a remote with the acer revo or do you have to buy one and some more software to drive it the revo is a computer by a cheap unreliable and no support company i speak from experience i had two acer aspire ones and both had harddrive problems within weeks and the support was well send us an email for a return label I took them both back to asda instead so good luck with your revo and twelve moths return to base guarantee

Shite m8 acer must have been a real bad experience! I wouldn't argue with regards customer service or cheap but My £150 One from Asda is still going strong, I've also setup another 4 for friends without n issue. I've Upgraded RAM, It dual Boots OSX n XP, Boots Backtrack from USB HDD n XBMC from USB Flash Drive! The AspireOne forum was very helpful. I bought it not because it was n acer but because of the Value for an Intel Atom Chipset n its versatility n Reputation, Not as a media player but it does that as well. My experience couldn't have been more opposite!

If you want just a Media Player then there is a good selection with some very good support but shouldn't be compared to XBMC IMHO.

If you are prepared to roll your sleaves up n want to have a Small Versatile HDMI Media Centre PC then this Little Revo n XBMC is well worth a punt IMHO, for the same reason as my AspireOne Purchase, Value n the Intel Atom Chipset with ION Graphics n Its Reputation.

Mini Wireless keyboard works great as a remote with much more control, Not for all I know but works 4 me.

If I was more pc aware I might of went the other route wireless lappy streaming etc but for the sake of £80 I saved my self hours of messing aroooooooond.

It pains me to say but I'm sure the majority would agree and I see their point, I forget your supose to use a gadget rather than take it apart n make it do something other than what it does outta the box! LOL

 

[edogg]

I have to say I had a lappy rigged to a plasma for over a year streaming media, but bying a independant little WD media player was a breath of fresh air.

easy controlled no messing and plays everything chucked on it also I have 2 TB full of moves attached to it.

If I was more pc aware I might of went the other route wireless lappy streaming etc but for the sake of £80 I saved my self hours of messing aroooooooond.

:Fish:

i am with you 100% a media player is much easier and if the hard drive fails or the media player fails you still have the option to watch your movies by connecting the harddrive to a computer or streaming from the computer if any part of the media pc fails with your movies on it tough
a seperate media player wins hand down

edogg

 

[Bally12345]

Btw this works with the MCE Remote straight out of the box.

PS can we stay on TOPIC this thread is about the R3600. Not media players in gereral.

 

[edogg]

Shite m8 acer must have been a real bad experience! I wouldn't argue with regards customer service or cheap but My £150 One from Asda is still going strong, I've also setup another 4 for friends without n issue. I've Upgraded RAM, It dual Boots OSX n XP, Boots Backtrack from USB HDD n XBMC from USB Flash Drive! The AspireOne forum was very helpful. I bought it not because it was n acer but because of the Value for an Intel Atom Chipset n its versatility n Reputation, Not as a media player but it does that as well. My experience couldn't have been more opposite!

If you want just a Media Player then there is a good selection with some very good support but shouldn't be compared to XBMC IMHO.

If you are prepared to roll your sleaves up n want to have a Small Versatile HDMI Media Centre PC then this Little Revo n XBMC is well worth a punt IMHO, for the same reason as my AspireOne Purchase, Value n the Intel Atom Chipset with ION Graphics n Its Reputation.

Mini Wireless keyboard works great as a remote with much more control, Not for all I know but works 4 me.



It pains me to say but I'm sure the majority would agree and I see their point, I forget your supose to use a gadget rather than take it apart n make it do something other than what it does outta the box! LOL

hi M8 happyh also had his acer0ne fail and i don't know how big a mini wireless key board is but surely it is a keyboard and how much control do you need play pause stop FF FR upto 32 times jump forwards + back programmable , volume and brightness from my dedicated remote.

I had a laptop with HDMI out and a wireless mouse it was a drag to use the media player is far better

edogg

 

[hawkish]

I have the revo 3610 running minilinux / xbmc. 2 days now and going strong just need to tweak the digital audio into working!

I had an xbox a few years ago with xbmc on it and since then had a dvico tvix 4100 and more recently an xtreamer. Standalones just dont have the professionalism or flexibility of a media PC - its quiet as a mouse and efficient too.

Media PC all the way for me - well happy with my revo:Clap:

 

[Bally12345]

I installed Win7 lastnight on my revo and left a 10gb partition for XBMC live... so going to try install that 2nite, so getting best of both really on a single unit which is as quiet as a mouse... Just need to order a MCE remote and hopefully I will be laughing with my HD Media Centre

PS will be creating another guide on how to install Win7 using USB... It wasnt as straight forward as I expected at first but this tutorial will get you going pretty sharpish!

 

[edogg]

the score so far is 2 all 2 for media pc and 2 for media player

edogg
sunday 21
I dont have a revo but got the XBMClive cd and booted it up and i dont see what all the fuss is about it's not that pretty and apart from it picking up my X10 remote straight away everything else required setting up and unless you are knowledgeable about video and audio,network settings it looked very complicated,
On the other hand the Medion media player is plug and play with very little setting up to do unless you want to stream from a computer in which case you just set DHCP to auto and then start watching movies photos or listening to music from the usb hd or memory card

 

[yogie]

hi,

I have Pansonic 46 tv 1080p with HDMI input but no vga input. I was thinking of getting on of these REVO's and connect it up to my TV to stream footy matches to it. How good is wireless streaming on these. Can this be done. I have a 50mb broaband connection so buffering shouldnt be an issue.

cheers

 

[hawkish]

it works well, for streaming 1080p wirelesly you will need a wireless N dongle. The revo is misadvertised in places as having built in N but it is mixed G

 

[yogie]

ok mate cheers.