My parents are looking for something to stick under the telly to act as a media centre, and my Dad is looking for something to get sports on that isn't shown in the UK (hence the need for XBMC). I was toying with the idea of getting them a Lenovo Q190 for Christmas, which is a tiny Windows PC designed to be mounted on the back of a flatscreen and work as a media centre.

However, one of my uncles has told us he's been able to do this sort of thing with an Android-powered set top box like a Droidplayer. They're a fraction of the price of the Q190, but I can't tell if they're manufactured by 'shady' characters, given most of them seem to get used to pirate films and use illegal Sky streams. I'm also thinking that they could get more out of a fully-functioning Windows machine, but it's considerably more expensive than the Android boxes.

Has anybody had experiences with Droidplayers or Droidboxes, and would anybody recommend them?

I have an Android MX box under the TV right now. I also have a media PC. Both run XBMC..

The Media PC does more, and gives slightly smoother playback because the graphics card has more options. I also use it for ripping. But most of my (and the family's) playback is done with the MX box. I run it wireless and have my 300+ DVDs ripped to a NAS in the office in MKV format at 1:1 quality. Blu-rays get played locally from a standalone player. I have about 15,000 music tracks on the NAS too if you count the karaoke stuff. The PC is faster for navigating menus with thousands of track listings, but the MX box does fine too.

MX boxes can be made to run all sorts of dodgy stuff, or you can keep them vanilla. It's basically the same as an Android tablet but with more horsepower. XBMC is a downloaded app. The add-ons within XBMC are accessed the same way in the MX as they are with a PC. I use iPlayer occasionally. That works well. I don't bother with 4oD, ITV player or Demand 5 though. That's more because I think the services suck on pretty much any platform I've tried so far (Smart TV, PC, media PC etc).

What I particularly like about the MX box is that it's family-proof. I don't have to worry about Windows updates or learning Linux, crashes etc. It's silent and runs off very little power. The one addition I made was to add a wireless keyboard That makes setup quicker and the family likes using that instead of the supplied remote when web browsing and playing Youtube vids.

MX boxes aren't for everyone. I'm sure that there's better choices if you want to stream 1:1 Blu-ray rips with HD audio through a home cinema system. I have some 720p and 1080p compressed rips and they run fine, but if you want to do the big home cinema thing then a PC with more processing power is probably the thing. But as a simple solution as a low maintenance product for home entertainment the MX box has done everything I've asked of it.

I would go for an Intel NUC or similar. Although it may work out just as cheap going for a plug and play small form factor PC - Zoostorm do a decent one with Windows 8.1 and a choice of hard drive options including 128GB SSD for under £200.

Whatever you decide be prepared for a whole heap of monkeying around in XBMC and such like and that is the main reason I prefer the pc as you have more chance of pretending to know what you are doing ... don't expect anything to "just work" and if it does, fair chance it won't for too long.

Here is a link to the Zoostorm PC that I currently have (it plays everything absolutely flawlessly):
http://www.ebuyer.com/643324-zoostor...bing-7260-8005

just to add to that, most of the 'sport from abroad' and the illegal Sky streams are pretty low bit rate and of poor quality, they wont look bad on a small tablet but will look awful on a large size TV.

Has you Dad or you used and seen XBMC working or are you going of advise from a mate down the pub as it can be a frustrating experience