# FreeBSD and media/music



## Crooksey (Aug 12, 2010)

I have used freeBSD for a long time on servers and development machines, but never used one of these machines to play sound, let alone a dvd / movie file or playlist.

Now I could be being very naive, but whats freeBSD like as a multi media media machine?

I have just re-wired my house with cat6 and setup a media room, I was looking at building a Linux media box, with all my music, videos, pictures and DVD stored on. But I was thinking, why not use freeBSD?

Are there any disadvantages, for some reason I just thought that freeBSD lacked alot of codec support, no idea why.

Also I will be running an nvidia video card, with a HDMI connection to my TV for my video display and probably use a sound card I can link to a surround sound system, or can I do this all via hdmi?

If someone could clear this up for me I would be very grateful.


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## Crooksey (Aug 12, 2010)

After seeing this thread http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=9907

I think I know the answer to my question. Linux front end + freeBSD server.


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## Crooksey (Aug 12, 2010)

Im being a total idiot here and cant see the edit, button, so sorry for the third reply!

Would a small machine such as this....

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200537

Cause problems when trying to play high quality files? E.g. if I have a really high quality DVD ripped to my server, then when I go to play it, the small amounts of power in this machine cause it to "lag" when playing?


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## SirDice (Aug 12, 2010)

DVD (which is MPEG2) probably won't be a problem. However, getting HD (720p, 1080p) compressed with h.264 to run smoothly will require quite some horsepower.


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## Crooksey (Aug 12, 2010)

Yea, I think ill build a micro ATX custom core2duo with 4gb ram.

Won't be the quietest machine ever, but should render movies nicely.


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## SirDice (Aug 12, 2010)

Crooksey said:
			
		

> Yea, I think ill build a micro ATX custom core2duo with 4gb ram.
> 
> Won't be the quietest machine ever, but should render movies nicely.



That will probably do very nicely indeed.


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## rabfulton (Aug 12, 2010)

Its worth checking to see if you nvidia card supports VDPAU. This will allow playback of HD stuff on a slower cpu.


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## phoenix (Aug 12, 2010)

http://www.cdw.ca/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1936768]Acer Aspire Revo is only $450 CDN, has 2 GB of RAM, a dual-core Atom CPU, an nVidia ION chipset, a 160 GB SATA harddrive, and wireless-N/gigabit networking.

Plenty of horsepower for 1080p playback (via the ION), and minimal power usage.  Comes with Windows 7 pre-installed (includes Media Centre), but Linux should work fine on it.

Plus, it's only 8" square and 2" thick, comes with VESA mount for attaching to back of TV, and has HDMI output.

Basically, it's the perfect HTPC.    Even comes with a wonky 3D joystick/mouse thingy.


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