I've decided to bite the bullet and have a 3rd crack at building a simple HTPC. Given I first tried this a decade ago, with another stab at it about 5 years later. I never really found a solution I was truly happy with. So, given it's now 2013, I think technology has moved on sufficiently to allow me have a 3rd crack at it. It needs to do three things: I want something that will run MythTV and/or XBMC, allow me to access Netflix and run Skype.

Originally I wanted use a Raspberry Pi, which ticked only the XBMC box. MythTV doesn't currently take advantage of the GPU acceleration, which leaves only CPU decoding, which won't really pass muster. There's also no ARM binaries for Skype Desktop and the Netflix on linux hack needs Wine, so it's therefore x86 only.

I've settled on a SFF barebones box from Zotac and found two boxes that seem to fit. However, I'm unsure which is going to suit me best. I'm looking at their ID41 and 84 boxes. Both have Intel Atom CPU's at ~ 1.8GHz, but one has an ION2 graphics chipset and the other has a GeForce 520M. The prices are within £15 of each other.

I'm so out of date when it comes to stuff like this, so, given 3D performance is largely irrelevant, but decoding 1080p MPEG2 and H.264 content is crucial. Which one would you buy?

MythTV supports GPU acceleration. What is missing?

Those bottom end chipsets are close to the limit for 1080p 60Hz decoding. Trying to think where I saw the comparisons - maybe the generally outdated MythTV wiki. For a full size machine I went with a slightly older GT440 since some of the newer devices somewhat went backwards

Specific support for the GPU that's in the Raspberry Pi. It's in the MythTV wiki.

The more I read about it, the more I think the ION-equipped one is the one to go for, unless anybody else knows otherwise.

I recommend, and equip my family and friends with, the Zotac HD-ID41U mini-PCs, running Mythtv software. The same boxes can also run XBMC perfectly.

Ion2.

Cheers

..and more on this: I have heavily patched mythtv-0.24 for "usability", and heavily hacked a Mythbuntu-12.04 base system for use as a dedicated Mythtv system on the HD-ID41U box, using Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB2 tuner sticks. Similar sticks are available for DVB broadcast standards.

I also use this exact remote control for all of the Mythtv systems I use and/or set up for others: http://rtr.ca/sapphire_remote/

Cheers

The ID84 looks like a step backwards for video playback compared (on paper) with the ID41. Probably not as good for Mythtv, though I don't know of any proper head-to-head real-life comparisons.

I also have an AMD E-450 based system, and it is nowhere near the ID41 for video playback.

Note that the vast majority of video content we watch here comes from the UK. We do have stuff from other sources too, though, and the ID41 plays it all.

On the downside, about half of the ID41 systems I've handled had very weakly powered USB ports -- nowhere near the 0.5amp/port that the USB spec requires. I've seen three different revisions of the ID41 motherboard, but don't have any reliable way to predict which one might be inside a retail package.

There was an earlier version of the ID41, called the ID11. I had two of those at one point: the USB on both was excellent, and the video playback was identical to that of the ID41. The major design difference is that the ID11 has only USB2, whereas the ID41 also has (non-bootable) USB3 ports. Both boxes have a single external SATA port (as well as one internal SATA port), but _without_ port-multiplier support.

The built-in WiFi for either version works fine at "G" speeds, but has poor range.

Zotac has just relased a couple of new models and updated some of their existing models. They presented them at CES. Maybe it's a good idea to wait just a little bit longer until those are available. The USB port voltage problem Mark mentions may be fixed with those new models?

It'll be months, maybe until the summer, before anyone knows for sure about the playback capabilities of those newly announced systems.

I do know that the ID41 boxes have higher performance video playback under Mythtv than some GT610 PCIe cards out there today, and the new Zotac boxes claim to be based on GT610.

Cheers

I bought the 41 in the end, seemed like a bit of a no brainer. With 4GB of memory and an SSD this thing really flies considering it's just an Atom. Think I'll stick with Lubuntu 12.04 and build MythTV from source, it's more fun that way.

Excellent! An SSD is a perfect pairing to these ZBOX things.. mechanical drives tend to run very VERY warm inside; SSDs are far more tolerant of such temperatures.

Cheers!