XBMC box with HD-Audio suggestions please

[churchwa]

Hi,

I have a synology nas drive with all my media on it and am looking to get a small box to run XBMC on it. I have been looking at Openelec and it looks ideal however it seems that unless you are running an Nvidia ion 2 chipset then you are not going to get any HD-Audio through HDMI. Given I have a 7.1 setup this is a must for me.

The issue I have is that the Nvidia ion 2 is very old (3 years) and I am reluctant to go and by old hardware, it goes against my nature .

Do any of you guys have any suggestions/recommendations for me? Must be quite and have a low power consumption, so that rules out an i7 . Ideally under £300.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Cosmic phil]

I like what I've been reading about the Intel nuc and xbmc might be worth a look.

 

[churchwa]

Yes, I have been looking at that, looks like a strong option.

I will have to do some research into adding an IR usb adaptor which works with openelec. Other than that it is £10 for 1gb of ram and we are away.

Some of these android boxes look tempting though. They claim to be able to do everything and they cost <£100. Does anyone have any experience with them?

 

[next010]

The Android boxes dont support HD audio so you can rule them out.

The Pivos XIOS DS which is the official XBMC Android box does have an alternate firmware that is linux based, behaves similar to Openelec and HD audio is pencilled in for the future but there is no ETA (not any time soon), at the moment Dolby, DTS, LPCM/Flac pass-through will work but not DTS-MA/TrueHD.

 

[boomboomboom]

5.1 audio (DTS / Dolby Digital) works for both passthrough and downmix on all the MyGica boxes. M3 and M6 chipset.

 

[churchwa]

@next010 Thank you for your advice. I was coming to that conclusion from all my research. Seems bitstream audio is the domain of Windows and specifically configures Linux boxes.

@boomboomboom Yes DTS and DD but not DTS-MA and DD True HD

I like the look of the Cleeron Intel Nuc and putting Openelec on it but it seems the HD4000 graphics card cant do 24fps. (Is this a Windows only problem?)

 

[churchwa]

Just got this from Pivos whan asking about their HD audio

"Thanks for writing to us.

The box fully supports HD audio passthrough, simply have your setting set to raw should do the trick.

Hope this answers your questions. Should you have any other questions, feel free to contact us at any time.

Warm Regards

Pivos Marketing"

Was regarding this box: Pivos Technology - Product - XIOS DS Media Play Smart TV Companion

I smell a fish!

 

[boomboomboom]

The information Pivos have given you is incorrect.

The Pivos XIOS is available in either M1 or M3 chipset versions, with both being capable of 5.1 passthrough/downmix but not 7.1. Exactly as the other ideentical casing Geniatech manufactured boxes (MyGica / Sumvision).