INTERACT FORUM

Devices => PC's and Other Hardware => Topic started by: fleetz on July 28, 2020, 06:27:53 pm

Title: Lightweight MC hardware for man cave?
Post by: fleetz on July 28, 2020, 06:27:53 pm
In the process of building a man cave (family cave) and looking at how best we can incorporate our MC26 music. Looking for recommendations as to a lightweight hardware I should consider?

I do not want to have typical PC tower system running to act as the server so wondering what you folks might be running as server? Low profile, low power, low noise that allows MC run it’s magic.

Are there Raspberry Pi solutions now with the Pi 4 out that offer up interesting possibilities?

Ideally looking for something that can just autoboot from power up and be ready to play music with JRemote or any other remote that ideally is iOS compatible were are a Apple family.

Even thinking of jukebox theme in the cave using a dedicated iPad as the UI where MC library can be searched and played, also maybe Spotify, Premium You Tube etc be able to be played out.

Appreciate thoughts and suggestions as to possibilities.

Cheers,
Ian

Title: Re: Lightweight MC hardware for man cave?
Post by: lanwanman1956 on August 22, 2020, 10:06:35 pm
The Intel NUC platform is very capable and, if you opt for an i3, not at all a major expenditure. There are also a lot of capable Mini PC platforms on the market running Atom and Celeron processors that will do the trick as well. I have an i3 NUC that I am using to experiment with Plex and JRiver and an ACEPC T11 that runs JRiver as a server/media library for multiple Raspberry Pi Volumio music players around the house. Works just fine with a 1 TB SSD installed in the chassis as storage for music files, all FLAC or DSD/DSF.
Title: Re: Lightweight MC hardware for man cave?
Post by: BryanC on August 23, 2020, 08:43:46 am
Check out the RockPro64. You can even slot in a discrete GPU in the future to keep up-to-date with modern hardware video acceleration (AV1, EVC, etc.).
Title: Re: Lightweight MC hardware for man cave?
Post by: badger on August 26, 2020, 06:05:27 pm
I have one of these:

Beelink BT3 Pro II Mini PC RAM 4GB ROM 64GB Extended Memory 128GB,Intel Atom x5-Z8350 HD Graphics 400,Mini Computer Dual Screen Display 1000Mbps LAN 2.4/5.8G WiFi

About $140US on Amazon.  Maybe a newer version now.  Windows 10.  Totally silent.  Very little power.  No problems at all for my MC content... which are MP3s and BluRay rips (shrunk to 720p) with full multichannel audio.  Otherwise it's not a good performing PC.  Web browsing kinda slow.  The unit sometimes get a bit warm/hot but so far so good (after a year and a half).
Title: Re: Lightweight MC hardware for man cave?
Post by: zybex on August 27, 2020, 03:14:21 am
Here's my current solution, a Gigabyte BRIX:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,126065.msg873605.html#msg873605