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First Impression: Acer Aspire Revo

I am a huge fan of XBMC which I believe is the best media playing software out there. I first started using it on my original xbox, then I installed it on the AppleTV and now I just moved over onto the Acer AspireRevo. XBMC on AppleTV was great except for the fact it couldn’t play 720p and 1080p videos.

Two weeks back I found an article on Gizmodo about how XBMC installed on an AspireRevo could handle 720p and 1080p video files with great ease and best of all it cost only $199. So after failing to find one for sale in Kuwait I placed an order for one on Amazon and got it via Aramex.

Installing XBMC was super easy and after I set it up I copied all my settings from my AppleTV and started experimenting. I can’t believe how easily this thing plays HD files! I have trouble playing HD files on my Apple G5 yet this little thing which is slightly smaller than an AppleTV can play it without a hitch. It has HDMI out, its small, its super silent and streams HD movies from my server with great ease, I love it.

I ordered a remote control for it but it hasn’t arrived yet so I am using my browser or iPhone to control it. Shipping with Aramex cost me KD18, no tax since computers no longer get taxed.

If you want to get one here is the [Amazon Link]
If you don’t know what XBMC is click [Here]
Here is a guide to install XBMC on the Revo [Link]

Update: This is the remote control I bought for it [Amazon Link]

32 replies on “First Impression: Acer Aspire Revo”

coincidentally i happen to read this article earlier today and was encouraged to order the revo and install the XBMC.

i currently have the PCH A-110 and im satisfied with it however the only thing i have against it is its inability to support arabic subtitles (they have a new device C-200 which they claim supports arabic subs)

so can you confirm if this xbmc supports arabic subs.

also i tried to install the XMBC plugin on the PCH A110 with no much success. but it seems the live cd way is noobie proof.

Well you are right but why i have to buy that device i can use the XBMC with Linux Os ( Ubuntu 9.04 or 9.10 ) you have to install ubuntu Tweak and you can get the program for free 🙂

https://xbmc.org

Description: XBMC is a free and open source software media player and entertainment hub

Good Luck enjoy it! 😉

HUGE difference, basically the Revo comes with an NVIDIA ION vga card which takes care of all the HD encoding. The eee Box doesn’t which means the processor would have to do the encoding and its not fast enough to do so.

This sounds very interesting.

Instead of streaming content from a server, would it work if I connected a portable HD to it, sort of like the WDTV? If so, how would it compare to the WDTV?

Also, what are the options for audio out on this device?

WDTV ftw, nuff said 😛 Congrats on the new media center thing mark, but I just can’t stop falling inlove with my WDTV, runs everything I throw at it!

WDTV is cool if you have a small collection of videos. When you have hundreds of tv shows and movies the WDTV is really not practical.

XBMC manages all your stuff. It will organize all your tv shows, load them up with proper graphics and episode details taken from thetvdb.com, all your movies will also get proper albums covers, cast details, synopsis and ratings from imdb.com

And most importantly once you are done watching something it will mark it for you as watched so you could keep track of what you’ve watched.

WDTV costs KD30 which is a really good deal but you can’t compare it to XBMC, its apple’s and oranges…

and whats wrong with the the lenovo laptops I can run HD like SMOOTH criminal 😛
but seriously 200 $ its not bad at all

Doesn’t the new WDTV stream your content from your PC or media server? Last time i checked it was $110 on amazon.

I use my 42 inch plasma as my 4th computer screen and drag/drop 720p content into it. Also using a wireless keyboard/touch pad to control it from far away [Logitech mini dinovo would be perfect though].

This setup is not practical to everyone specifically the ones who don’t have a PC near their TV but, to me its the best for years to come, i wont have to worry about new formats or some compatibility issues [WDTV doesn’t play 1080p running at over 24 frames per second].

I love XBMC. I use a port of it (Plex) on the livingroom mac I have. Works like magic.

Check it out. It is visually stunning:

I’m envious, I have been trying to get this baby in my hands for quite some time now. I’ll have to wait a few more months 🙁

WDTV is different from XBMC. XBMC is a user interface, it’s a software for managing and playing your videos. WDTV is a hardware, the GUI that WDTV uses is very basic and lacks nearly everything xbmc has.

Kha: Yeah I was using plex before and was waiting for the mac mini to be able to play HD files without a problem.

For mac users: Plex is XBMC but the guy who is working on it changed the name of his software since he was heading a different direction than the xbmc community or something

Mark,

Its great to see how you get these gizmos.
Though for the money, why not have the XBox 360, which can have the same software on it & use that.
You can have a gaming device as well.

Whats say??

Mark ofcourse you can play 1080p HD movies in this thing that thing has a nvidia ION chipset and if it could play Call of duty 4 modernwarfare what stops it from 1080p ?

hi mark
i tootally agree with you … i am xbmc fan myself and use it on my old xbox and it really organises stuff ……. can u plz update the link of teh gizmodo article i cant seem to find it on the net i chked out the procdure that u have posted can u plz post the giz modo link
btw any update on the revo in kuwait … i have heard they have come out with a new revo model with a better processor…

Mark,

After reading your post yesterday, I have bought the Revo 3610 from ebay. Costing me 270 USD but with 250GB HDD & 2 GB RAM.

Hope it gets delivered quickly now.
My next search is to find a good remote for this Revo, which one have you selected for ur use.

keyboard and mouse are in the box. don’t know if it runs windows 7. i didn’t even boot into windows xp on it i just formatted right away and installed xbmc.

Shahim,

Looks like you purchased the older 3600 with Linux from eBay. The 3610 replaces that one and comes with Windows 7 64 bit, 160 gb hd and 2 gb ram.

I ordered my 3610 from newegg and should have it next week or so. Can’t wait to get it set up as I too am making a tranisiton from ATV to this Revo 3610!

Mark, Nice write up on the 1600!

If i knew about this earlier i would`ve canceled the Popcorn Hour i`ve Ordered A-110 just because it can hold a 3.5 Hard Drive i need the biggest capacity available to hold the DVD Collection for my kids but really man NOTHING beats XBMC, to sum it up Popcorn Hour relay on Sigma Chipset it can play specific formats the chipset can handle it won`t be able to play newer formats, BUT with XBMC you can play anything because its a software problem and not a hardware 🙂 that ION Chip really did wonders, am amazed by the price the price is KILLER.

BTW AQ Popcorn Hour just added IDX/Sub support to the A-110/100 on 30 Oct Firmware so its now the same as C-200 except the Blu-Ray Drive addition.

Arabic Subtitle Support is Not a Problem anymore it can be done with a COOL program called AVIAddXSubs anything that Divx Ultra Certified or anything that can play IDX/Sub Subtitles is more enjoyable now, you can Convert the SRT file to either XSub (The Subtitles are Integrated in the Avi file ** not supported for MKV files **) or IDX/Sub this format uses bitmap rendering so its graphical based it doesn`t matter if that device doesn`t support arabic text at all because its NOT Text based, the coolest thing is that you don`t need a Super CPU to do that job it will take around one minute even if you did convert the srt to be integrated into the Video File (XSub) it will take the same time because its just slipstreaming the subtitles into the video file and will output the file as .divx or .avi

FYI it can be done on even PS3 because the PS3 support xSub and IDX/Sub since 2.20 Firmware

Here are some useful links

https://www.calcitapp.com/AVIAddXSubs.php
https://subscene.com/forums/p/5186/6596.aspx
https://r1db.com/board/technology/10333-tutorial-how-mix-subtitles-avi-files-2-minutes.html

it took me 50/52 Secs to Convert the subs of G-Force Movie on Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz PC

Update !!

Guys forget what i wrote !! the things i wrote is for the Old Dvix Players, Popcorn Hour C-200 Can Play Arabic .SRT Subtitles its confirmed, since the latest firmware, they said that they will support the A-110/100 Next 🙂

XBMC on the other hand can play arabic SRT Subtitles smoothly i have an XBOX with XBMC and i can confirm that it works WOW !! in the previous version i was using (outdated build) it was showing the arabic letter spaced, but now am using the latest T3CH SVN Build XBMC Version: 9.11-alpha1-r24238 and it works even on MKV files 🙂

I have had mine for a month or so now and I still love it. It is very quiet and very quick to boot. Not too many complaints really, other than I wish it had come with a remote, but as technically it is not a media centre you can’t necessarily expect it to.

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