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[Vocalpoint]

Over the last long while (6 to 9 months) I have been carefully weighing my options for a device that would satisfy my 2-channel music needs and hopefully serve as a solid video/movie playback platform as well.

After looking and looking and looking - it has now become clear to me that what I really want simply doesn't exist. While some options for music are solid - like say a Squeezebox Touch - the Touch is a non-starter when it comes to movies - my Dune Smart D1 kicks that that department. But the Smart D1 is useless for music (no album art, no proper sorting, no nothing really)

So - what I really need/want is my tried and trusted MC experience up on the big screen in my media room. I have ruled out another PC in the living room simply due to noise, non-portable form factor and general hassle factor. So I am now officially committing to sourcing a notebook that can of course double as an occasional walkaround machine (to take on holiday), as a backyard option (surfing on the back deck) and of course - being the major player for streaming audio/video via MC when plugged into the main rig in our media room.

My overall plan is 95% media and 5% walking around with it. Would like it to be built to last a reasonable amount of time. I am thinking a 13 inch display but again - it's not a huge deal since I won't be using the screen a lot for actual media display. Must be Windows 7 64bit as standard, 4GB+ RAM minimum and probably an i5 minimum CPU. USB 3.0 and really good network performance (1 GB LAN if possible) Since I am planning to stream all media from the server - a huge fast hard drive is not a priority. Would rather have a small solid state drive instead of a noisy standard one.

For Audio - would like to be able to "see" the MC 10 foot view on screen for music (HDMI out) but use the USB (out) to my Music Hall DAC (In)

For video - as long as I connect the laptop to the Pioneer Elite AV amp via HDMI and stream a standard 1080p MKV file to the screen - I am happy. And that I have a Samsung Android - goes without saying that I could control all of this via Gizmo.

Budget: $400-$800 to be conservative. Possible more if the unit warrants it.

So - given the brief overview above - what should I be looking at? Appreciate any and all comments.

Cheers!

VP

[MrC]

Glynor swears by the Mac Mini, running Win 7 via Boot Camp.  He's posted about it here on Interact in a couple of threads.

[JimH]

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Mac

[Vocalpoint]

Glynor swears by the Mac Mini, running Win 7 via Boot Camp.  He's posted about it here on Interact in a couple of threads.

I have read some of his replies - and while it does sound possible...there are so many questions on this....

1. Installation of Windows 7? Or Parallels Or BootCamp
2. Remote Desktop?
3. Can it run headless (no keyboard or monitor)
4. etc etc

My concerns are many - especially after reading a few of those threads that Jim posted. Crashes and stuff won't fly with the wife or me if we just want to watch a movie..I should probably PM him and get more details.

A Mac Mini instantly violates my portability requirement. I will need to take this unit here and there from time to time...so that may be a deal breaker right there....

Thanks!

VP

[DwestSeattle]

What did you end up doing VocalPoint?

 I'm in the same proverbial boat: I want to bring JRiver MC into the living room.  I can build a shuttle PC for $500 to $700, but figure it would be far easier and likely less expensive to just use my rebate and pick up a laptop on sale at the local big box store and use that as my media PC, and then get the side benefit of having a laptop for road trips and the like.

Did you get a laptop?  Is it working well?

[Vocalpoint]

What did you end up doing VocalPoint?

I ended up doing nothing since the laptop/ultrabook market is so vast and changing so quickly (could not decide) - plus - my family simply does not want to deal with anything computer based (and I don't blame them).

So we are using the Dune in the downstairs area and I pulled out our old WDTV Live for upstairs. I tried a few quick nav sessions with MC on a computer here and seems that both my son and my wife would not have the patience for MC at this time when it comes to movies.

The front end on the Dune and WDTV are simple to navigate and have zero issues. Basically - Power up, highlight selection, click Enter on Remote, Enjoy. I am sure that I could get MC to behave like this - but again - sounds like work.

Of bigger concern is any computer would involve logging onto the network and any other crap that is associated with using a machine as a player - that's also a non-starter since my son is too young to know what to do.

My wife is in another sphere - there is no way a bloody keyboard will ever be in the media room...she never wants to be prompted for Windows Update or a new Adobe Flash update or "an error has occurred" or any one of a hundred error messages. Anything like that - at movie time - would get the laptop thrown in the street.

They just want to watch a movie and they want to do it as quickly as possible. So...there ya go.

VP