• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Chromebox

A

ashman

Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2011
Messages
811
I have long been an advocate of the Boxee box, I've been using them since they came out and still use them, however I have had a few die on me and I've been fortunate enough to find used ones cheap.I recently became aware of the Chrome box (Asus or HP) as a HTPC and bought one to try out. I had dabbled with XBMC in the past on a jailbroken Apple TV2 but it didn't have enough horsepower and the experience left me disappointed. However on the Chroeme box its a completely different experience running Kodi via OpeElec, its really matured and is very usable. I had some issues scanning my stupidly huge movie collection and wound up having to have it scan each folder (Action, SciFi, Drama) but it found my TV shows no problem.

The Wiki for this project is very straightforward and I was up in running in about a half an hour. Fortunately I had an old PS3 remote lying around and I am able to use that as a remote, once I figured out what buttons did what, lol, basic navigation was easy to figure out.

If you are interested in a low cost HTPC I think its a good alternative, unfortunately the Chrome Box's are more expensive north of the border, up here in Toronto I paid just over $200 for it but I think its worth it, I know they are quite a bit cheaper for you folks in the US.

Here is a link to the Wiki: http://kodi.wiki/view/Chromebox#Troubleshooting
 
I use MPC-HC as an external player for XBMC, so this is a no-go for me.
 
tripex said:
What is this?

I only know of Chromebook.
Click to expand...
They are PC's roughly the size of a Intel NUC or smaller. Say the size of a large Deli Ham Sandwich. The are more complete than a NUC and have decent video output and acceptable for most audio output. There are ways of getting Linux and/or XBMC variants to run on them including firmware hacks that allow a PC like install of Linux or Windows. They can be had here easily for $150 and less if you catch a deal.
 
The Asus Chromebox is 5x5x1.5 inches, and comes with 2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD.

That Zotac is 17x7x1.5 inches (much larger) and you need to buy RAM and storage. It will take a 2.5" SSD while the Chromebox needs a M.2.

At the same price I'd get the Chromebox any day of the week. At $90 that Zotac is pretty attractive. I haven't seen the Chromebox go below $115. But then you're looking at $20 for 2GB RAM and $30 or so for a 32GB SSD or USB3 flash drive for openELEC and it's more money anyway.
 
schizo said:
The Asus Chromebox is 5x5x1.5 inches, and comes with 2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD.

That Zotac is 17x7x1.5 inches (much larger) and you need to buy RAM and storage. It will take a 2.5" SSD while the Chromebox needs a M.2.

At the same price I'd get the Chromebox any day of the week. At $90 that Zotac is pretty attractive. I haven't seen the Chromebox go below $115. But then you're looking at $20 for 2GB RAM and $30 or so for a 32GB SSD or USB3 flash drive for openELEC and it's more money anyway.
Click to expand...

I don't agree...at the same price it makes much more sense to get the more versatile box. I looked at Chromeboxes, but when the Zotac went on sale, I picked that up instead. You can do more with it and it's much easier to upgrade.
 
Btw

When it comes to streaming games (via Steam), what kind of performance can we expect from these kind of boxes (Zotac, Intel NUC, etc) that run with a Celeron processor ?
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't agree...at the same price it makes much more sense to get the more versatile box. I looked at Chromeboxes, but when the Zotac went on sale, I picked that up instead. You can do more with it and it's much easier to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that. There was a thread from a few months ago on using these Chromeboxes with OpenElec. I prefer XBMC, and looking at populating two more rooms with XBMC boxes. I think this Zotac box is a better option for me.

How is fan noise for normal usage? (i.e., watching a movie)
 
It's basically a laptop blower fan. It hasn't struck me as being noisy.
 
I love the Asus Chromebox, and actually just replaced my 'HTPC' in the living room with one (moving the HTPC to the office as an actual desktop PC). It runs OpenELEC/Plex, Plex server runs on the 'HTPC' in the office, and I've got an unRAID media server that stores all my data. The Chromebox w/ OpenELEC/Plex requires zero configuration/fuss once setup, is damn near silent, and will play anything I throw at it without issue.
 
_cashel said:
I love the Asus Chromebox, and actually just replaced my 'HTPC' in the living room with one (moving the HTPC to the office as an actual desktop PC). It runs OpenELEC/Plex, Plex server runs on the 'HTPC' in the office, and I've got an unRAID media server that stores all my data. The Chromebox w/ OpenELEC/Plex requires zero configuration/fuss once setup, is damn near silent, and will play anything I throw at it without issue.
Click to expand...
Ha, doing the same. Going to try openelec/xbmc with mysql on the server. If it turns out to be a pita I'll probably go the Plex route.
rhouck said:
Thanks for posting that. There was a thread from a few months ago on using these Chromeboxes with OpenElec. I prefer XBMC, and looking at populating two more rooms with XBMC boxes. I think this Zotac box is a better option for me.

How is fan noise for normal usage? (i.e., watching a movie)
Click to expand...

Not trying to advocate one over the other, but openelec is xbmc to a certain extent. Now if you want windows handsdown go with the zotac box.
 
Last edited:
Silentbob343 said:
Not trying to advocate one over the other, but openelec is xbmc to a certain extent. Now if you want windows handsdown go with the zotac box.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I wasn't really clear -- the fact that it is XBMC is what made me consider it :) But I would rather have Windows just because I'm a Linux-noob :(
 
I personally think chromebox is good for business not for home entertainment.
 
How is it for streaming over network shares?

I need to replace my sh*t Sony BR player that cant stream for crap %99 of the time it seems from Universal Media Server and several other's i have tried.

Something that can just play from network shares or DLNA streams..
 
I have no issues streaming movies and shows off my two NAS's over a wired gigabit network, no buffering, pauses, nothing, it works great. This is over SMB shares.
 
I'll chime in here too.

I just set up a Kodi (formerly XBMC) frontend using an Asus Chromebox.

It plays my video library from my NAS via NFS and also uses the MythTV PVR plugin for live TV and recordings at 1080p without any issues.

For $159 (+tax) shipped with prime from Amazon this is quite the bang for the buck.
  • Haswell Celeron 2955U, Dual Core 1.4Ghz (none of that baytrail atom based garbage)
  • 2 GB of DDR3-1600 RAM (two slots, only one used if you feel like upgrading with DDR3L sodimms, but the 2GB is more than enough for Kodi./XBMC)
  • 16GB M.2 SSD. Can be replaced, but again, the 16GB is more than enough for XBMC/Kodi (unless you want to store media locally)

All in a nice little box with a smaller footprint than a CD case, at about 2" thick. It has a fan in it that goes on if you stress it, but most of the time (including playing both SD and HD content) it is perfectly silent, at least now during winter. Hopefully it will stay that way during the warmer months.

RAM Use in Kodi:
Code: 
~$ free -h
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1.8G       432M       1.4G        69M        25M       210M
-/+ buffers/cache:       195M       1.6G
Swap:         1.9G       2.9M       1.9G

(currently watching one SD live channel, slightly more use with 1080p)

So, 195MB in active use, the rest used for buffers/caching.

Disk use with Kodi:
Code: 
$ df -h
Filesystem                    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1                      13G  2.2G  9.8G  19% /

(An additional 1.9GB partition is assigned for Swap space if needed)

NFS works excellently. I use the wired port as I don't trust Wifi, but it does have an atheros wifi capability as well, if that is your thing.

I use it with a Logitech K400 mouse/keyboard and a WMC Remote.

To hack the chromebox and flash a bios capable of supporting Linux (or Windows if that is your thing,, but you might need more ram/disk space) follow this guide:
http://kodi.wiki/view/Chromebox

To install a barebones Kodi install follow this guide (for 14.04 LTS)
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=165707

Personally I had some issues with 14.04, even with a newer kernel, so I went with 15.04 instead. The additional instructions for 15.04 are here: (but still read the first post as not everything is in the 15.04 guide!)
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=165707&pid=1990182#pid1990182


Some comments from my experience:
1.) Tearing

The Chromebox hacking wiki mentions a tearing issue, and a fix. if you plan on using Kodi, DO NOT use this fix. It enables triple buffering, and triple buffering is bad for Kodi. If you follow the guide above for Kodi install, you won't have a tearing issue.

2.) Limited Color Space

The Linux Intel VAAPI drivers default to limited color space, which is not ideal, unless you are forced into it because of TV compatibility.

The wiki guide has the solution towards the end, but it can be tricky to do properly.

The first post on the forums will tell you how to switch to the full colorspace on boot with 14.04. This is how I solved it in 15.04.


Anyway, fantastic little box at a fantastic price point. I can't help but wonder if Google is subsidizing these things for ChromeOS or something.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top