Extender recommendation for NZ Freeview TV?

[sheppy99]

I want an extender for use in the Bedroom to watch NZ Freeview TV (H264 HD/AAC-HE) from my downstairs Media Center.
Can anyone recommend anything?
I'm put off XBOX's due to the fan noise and the Ceton Echo due to the lack of support and patchy hardware reliability.
I've tried using another networked PC running another copy of Media Center however I often have to wait for it to repopulate its recorded TV listings from the main machine, and the main machine is working flawlessly so I don't really want to replace it with something else.

[mark1234]

I think an Xbox 360 is your best option. The modern ones really don't have noisy fans - I've had both an old white one (that did sound like a jet engine) and a new 360E, and they are completely different.

[sheppy99]

As I know nothing about the xbox's do you know of a reference to which to go for? I have no interest in gaming so I guess the minimum spec is the one I want? I'll have a look on trademe (NZ version if eBay) to see what I can find or should I get new?

[mark1234]

The 360E is the latest revision. It's styled to look a bit like the Xbox One, and is quiet. I believe the previous version, 360S, is also quiet, but I have no first hand experience of that.

You don't need a hard disk version to just use as an extender. The 360E comes with 4Gb of flash storage, and that's more than enough.

Over here there are often refurbished 360s in game and electrical pawn shops for around £70. Though even new, they aren't that much more expensive. I paid £100 off Amazon for a new 360E last year.

[sheppy99]

Thanks very much for that - I have relatives over in the UK so I'll include eBay UK in my searches

[sheppy99]

One other thing - do you need to subscribe to Xbox live or anything like that to use the media center extender bits?

[mark1234]

Postage cost from the UK would be a killer!

You need a free Xbox Silver account to download codecs that the extender software wants, but otherwise, no you don't need a paid account.

[sheppy99]

Thanks!

[barnabas1969]

The 360E is the latest revision. It's styled to look a bit like the Xbox One, and is quiet. I believe the previous version, 360S, is also quiet, but I have no first hand experience of that.

I have both a 360E and a 360S. There is no noticeable difference between them in regards to fan noise. I decided to buy new ones, and have found decent deals on e-bay here in the US. I paid $136 USD for the last one I bought.

[sheppy99]

I for a cheap 360S with a dead DVD drive from trademe (the NZ version of eBay) and it works well without making much noise. Only thing it won't play is some AVI's and that's likely down to using an alternative audio decoder on the main machine to get around a lip sync problem.
Thanks for all the help everyone