New XBMC Port Promises ARM-Powered HD In the Palm of Your Hand

Engadget has a recent teaser video promising HD content via XBMC running on a 600MHz Beagleboard. This could mean great things for home theater putterers, with the Beagleboard tipping the scales at a modest $150 and the ability to fit in the palm of your hand. Already running on everything from MIDs to AppleTVs and now moving to ARM-powered devices like the Beagleboard, it looks like XBMC needs to be renamed from "Xbox Media Center" to "ubiquitous media center."

Cheapest

[manekineko2]

This looks incredible if they can pull it off, but until this is out, what is the cheapest XBMC machine I could throw together that would be able to play any content I throw at it?

I'd love to jump on upgrading from my vintage Xbox XBMC, but I'd hate to drop a few hundred on an upgrade only to find out that it plays 99% of videos out there, but chokes on all high bit rate 1080p MKVs with lots of action, or something like that.

How does this compare to a Popcorn Hour?

[sunking2]

Or other network media tank? I love my IO-100 and it plays everything I have ever thrown at it. Low wattage, runs linux, excellent audio/video connectivity and is I think 300mhz mips.