• Hardware

  • Multimedia box that supports MKV

Patriot PCMPBO25 Box Office, available from pcandparts for $125.
Patriot PCMPBO25 is a good device, but it has a lot more functions and specs that i don t need and is quite expensive.
The device should only have an input for an 2.5 usb HDD and be able to play media files. Trying to buy this for a friend.

Thanks for your reply.
Raspberry Pi is a good idea since it supports 1080p 30FPS high profile h.264 decode, which is pretty good nowadays.

You get the added advantage of not paying much for a 1080p output device so that you can upgrade when 4K and higher FPS movies become the norm (going to be some years).

I've found that with video players, you might want to mess around with subtitles, post-processing, outputting different resolutions, using different refresh rates (to avoid 3:2 pulldown while running 24FPS movies at 60Hz), so a flexible device is always a good idea.

I'd say that the next best thing to a full-fledged media PC with a Blu-ray drive, HDD, soundcard, TV tuner, and a low-end power efficient GPU would be a Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry pi seems a fun little device that i will get for myself. I like to tinker with stuff. but i am getting this as a gift and i checked reviews for Raspbmc. It seems slow , for booting, navigating the interface, and playing 1080p media files.
Last I read it was running at ~60FPS, are you sure it's slow?

You could always set it up, software-wise, and place it in a case, if you were to gift it to someone else.
MasterBatata wroteWhere can i find the Raspberry pi with its case ?
Katranji has the Rpi, albeit overpriced. Element14, Farnell UK, etc... ship to Lebanon if you like.