Hi All,
I have been reading a lot on the type of box to build and so forth for Kodi. So I figured I would share with you what I did. Overall, the total cost of this will vary, but should be anywhere from $60-$200, depending on what you want, and how lucky you are.
So what I discovered is that a Surface Pro 3 makes for a really good HTPC. But a SP3 is expensive you say. It is. But here is the catch. It’s dirt cheap when you can find one with a cracked screen. What you need to do is look for one on eBay under broken or cracked screen. Simple as that.
The going rate for one with Win8.1 or Win 10, i5, 8GB of ram is about $100. A bit cheaper for an i3, a bit more for an i7. I would recommend trying to find one with a keyboard. If not you can always pair it with a wifi device, but it may be a bit difficult to do if the digitizer is not working. Once you get it home, get it to boot (make sure it can with the seller first) and shut off the digitizer (if the seller didn’t already do so).
Now for the best part of using a SP3, especially with Win10:
1- It supports 3D
2- It supports DTS-HD, and it maybe able to support Atmos (I don’t have Atmos setup, so I cannot comment, but I don’t see why it couldn’t)
3- It supports 4K (I am not sure if you require a i7 system for it, I don’t have a 4K TV). Here is a link that touches on this though (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surf…a9bbfcb92b)
4- It may even support HDR, but yet again, I don’t have a HDR TV to comment.
5- It is thin and can fit in any cabinet, and you won’t even know it is there.
6- It is quiet
All that for $100, is not to bad, if your lucky enough to land one.
The reason I did this, is because I have a 3D TV and an older receiver that doesn’t have HDMI 1.4 but still supports the heavenly sounds of the DTS-HD MA. So I used one HDMI cable to go from my docking station (I already have a work issued SP3) to the TV and one to my receiver. Other HTPCs I saw don’t support this. In addition, the docking station has 5 usb ports, which brings me to 6 USB ports in total (with the SP3 1 USB Port). With those other ports, I am hooking up Flirc and 40TBs of external storage. All this for less then $500 (Including the storage).
That’s really not bad. So I wanted to share this with everyone. I was originally going to get an NVidia box for this, but was disappointed by the lack of 3D support. So I hope it helps others on a tight budget looking for a cheap but strong solution.