very nice do not forget to mention board has wifi on it. I wish the ion boards would drop below the 100 sweet point
HardlyWerker
Member
posted: Oct. 27, 2009 @ 1:07p
That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
DarkScout said: OR Ubuntu and XBMC on it and you have something that should do 1080p and easily rivals any system on the market today.
I could be wrong, but as far as I know xbmc, flash and boxee dont support hardware acceleration on the ION, and the atom in this box is quite inadequate for decoding anything other than standard def video.
I think there are some things in development for xbmc, and theres a flash version coming out someday soon that uses the hardware acceleration.
Powerdvd and windvd support the ion. I think windows media center does as well. But for any internet video like hulu, Netflix video or anything that doesnt go through the hardware accelerated players just wont work on this box.
At about the same price point if you buy it when the right coupons are around, you can get a Dell studio hybrid with a dual core cpu, a 3450 gpu that'll decode everything, enough cpu power to do software decodes, and a windows 7 license. Pretty close to the same power footprint too.
You also dont need to go with USB tuners. For a small form factor box with no internal slots, I'd use the silicondust network tuners. Much more flexible and far fewer problems than USB or even internal tuners.
HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
What is this "TV Tuner" of which you speak? My HTPC doesn't even have a DVD drive. Sits very quiet. Silently waiting while my SheevaPlug gets me all the goodies..
HTPC, to me, is supposed to do one thing. Play 1080P at my request and sit off otherwise. IF I was so inclined. I'd have a MythTV box with a full ATX MoBo sitting in the server room with a RAID and a full compliment of tuner cards (If I REALLY was that much of a TV Junkie).
Even so, what is so bulky and awkward about this? http://www.Newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815260023
black0ut
Thrifty Member
posted: Oct. 27, 2009 @ 1:38p
Ya, nowadays the sweet spot for HTPCs are either a lowend Exxxx series or lowend AM3 cpu with a motherboard with onboard graphics that can decode HD. It's about the same price (or cheaper), and the power draw is not that much more for a HUGE peformance increase.
sklar said: I could be wrong, but as far as I know xbmc, flash and boxee dont support hardware acceleration on the ION
You are wrong. XBMC and Boxee both support VDPAU, which supports video cards back to the 8300 (which handles 720p just fine). I can't wait for my GT220 to get here which supports VDPAU Feature Set C, which will also supports MPEG-4 ASP (MPEG-4 Part 2), Xvid / OpenDivX (DivX 4), and DivX 5 AND hardware upscaling. (I currently max out one of my CPU's upscaling my SD content).
As far as I know Adobe hasn't released hardware accelerated Flash for ANYONE. (Trust me, I'm first in line since it chokes my brand new MacBook Pro horribly).
3450 gpu that'll decode everything
ATI hasn't released their VDPAU/CUDA equivalent yet. It's always been "coming soon".
HardlyWerker
Member
posted: Oct. 27, 2009 @ 2:05p
DarkScout said: HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
What is this "TV Tuner" of which you speak? My HTPC doesn't even have a DVD drive. Sits very quiet. Silently waiting while my SheevaPlug gets me all the goodies..
HTPC, to me, is supposed to do one thing. Play 1080P at my request and sit off otherwise. IF I was so inclined. I'd have a MythTV box with a full ATX MoBo sitting in the server room with a RAID and a full compliment of tuner cards (If I REALLY was that much of a TV Junkie).
So then you're just mistaken at what an HTPC is. An HTPC is supposed to combine ALL of your home theater goodies into 1 box. TV included. Otherwise you may as well just have a cheaper network connected media player...
HardlyWerker said: So then you're just mistaken at what an HTPC is. An HTPC is supposed to combine ALL of your home theater goodies into 1 box. TV included. Otherwise you may as well just have a cheaper network connected media player...
You should login and correct the Wiki then. Wiki said: A Home Theater PC (HTPC) or media PC is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal computer and a media center software which feature video and music playback, and usually but not always also digital video recorder functionality. It usually has a 10-foot user interface and is connected to a television or a television-sized computer display, and is often used as a digital photo, music, video player, TV receiver and digital video recorder, and normally controlled with a remote control. The general goal of an HTPC is usually to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into a single machine that will be located where the home theater system is desired. An HTPC system is typically controlled with a remote control for controlling the main interface, and the GUI normally has a 10-foot user interface design so that it can be comfortably viewed from a such distance.
Again. I don't see the point of even having a TV tuner. All Digital Cable is encrypted and the cards are near useless from what I've heard. Not to mention I don't even have Cable. Nor do I have an areal up.
I COULD spend the money on tuner, figure out how to get it working, make sure to set it up. Or I could set up an RSS feed and let someone else who has more time than me do all this for me.
And none of those embedded networked media players come close to the configurability, flexibility or codec availability as XBMC.
Maybe the OP could change the title: "Movie watching, music playing, picture viewing hdmi capable s/pdif output Combo - Zotac..."
To me, an HTPC is any PC that integrates with a home theater's audio and/or video functions, regardless of the specific PC functionality used. In my case, it's a web browser, a Netflix player, and gives access to my networked MP3 library. All integrated with my HD projector and AV receiver. Even if my HTPC had a tuner, I couldn't tune TV signals with it because I am a DirecTV customer.
As for the deal in question, unless that case form factor, and ultra low power/heat is essential, I'd go with one of the many mATX Celeron/Sempron mobo combo deals that are appearing for under $75 these days, and add in a cheap PCIe DVI card.
My HTPC is a old Dell Dimension 2400 Celeron 2.4 with only PCI slots. It has a PCI version of the 8400GS video card, and it works great driving a 720P projector via DVI/HDMI. I use it because it's an extremely quiet machine.
HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
Eh, it really depends on what you're looking to do. IMO, over-the-air television broadcasts are as "obsolete" as as DVDs or CDs. But, of course, to each his own.
As far as this deal goes, it's great, but people should be aware that the dual core atom is not strictly necessary for decoding 1080p video. I recently built myself a nice little HTPC using the Zotac IONITX-C-U Mobo, which has a built in power supply, this case, a 1GB stick of ram, and a 4GB USB memory stick for the operating system. I have it running XBMC in Ubuntu and it decodes any video I throw at flawlessly. It also is completely silent (no hard drive and totally fanless) and uses next to no power (19W at idle, 26W when decoding 1080p video, according to my Kill-A-Watt), all for under $200. Now, this setup was ideal for me because I had a wired network in place, and thus was able to get away with a minimum of onboard storage. Other people may have different needs.
sklar said: DarkScout said: OR Ubuntu and XBMC on it and you have something that should do 1080p and easily rivals any system on the market today.
I could be wrong, but as far as I know xbmc, flash and boxee dont support hardware acceleration on the ION, and the atom in this box is quite inadequate for decoding anything other than standard def video.
...
Reports from the field say that dual Atom CPU and ION combos work fine for just everything out there...doing full Blu-ray at all the various frame rates and uncompressed audio as well.
This Zotac board supports mild over-clocking, which most people say is working as well.
The only problem is, if you over-clock, you also need to put a fan on it, making it a bit louder than some folks care for.
starfox9000
Member
posted: Oct. 27, 2009 @ 8:47p
If you have an older TV, good luck getting HDMI to actually work right. Both ATI and Nvidia have crappy HDMI support. All kinds of problems, like the pannel isn't sized properly, or the resolution needs to be tweaked to get it to display correctly. Or nagging problems, like the picture quality is terrible unless the sharpness is maxed out, waking up from sleep and the sound is gone, or the sound doesn't work at all depending on the tv or which drivers are installed. You may find youself using a seperate monitor just to configure the video to work with your TV's HDMI. It's definately not like hooking up a PS3 and having it just work.
robohomer said: Saw a similar combo on eBay much cheaper and ready built. In addition, it has a killer casing and kicks ass!! It has the smallest mini ITX and coolest on the market. Let me know if you see anything smaller or nicer. ebay link
The system linked to that eBay page costs about $30 more than the Newegg bundle, and you only get 2GB RAM and 120GB HD (vs. 4GB and 1TB).
HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
"TV" is sooooo 20th century. It's all about the Internet now, baby...
Newegg has also started selling the Acer AspireRevo AR3610-U9012 (w/ the dual cores and Win7) now, at the base price, 329.99 +sh/tax. No optical drive, and ram/HDD size (2gb/160gb) are rather paltry, but damn i love that case, and the vesa mount. aspirerevo link
HardlyWerker
Member
posted: Oct. 28, 2009 @ 7:28a
fxfuji said: HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
"TV" is sooooo 20th century. It's all about the Internet now, baby... At this point in time that may be true of college students and Computer Geeks. But the multi-billion dollar pay tv industry may differ in opinion. Most *real* consumers pay for TV service or get it free OTA. Heck even if they are stealing the signal, they are stealing a pay tv signal.
Until higher speed connections are readily available all over, Internet TV will be just a neat thing to watch on your pc monitor. Hulu et al still have a long way to go to catch up to Digital cable quality.
HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
OTA tuner isn't a requirement in my HTPC. Mine has similar capability to the one being offered here, except I have added blu-ray playback and remote control to the system.
OTA recording is a fine capability, no doubt, but I and many others already have PVR capabilty from the cable company. Even my FIOS DVR outshines anything you can get inexpensively in the PC environment. The state of the industry with regard to recording encrypted content via cable to PC is sorry at best. Options include the HD-PVR, which is, as you would deem it, cheap USB. It is probably the least expensive option in this regard, and will not allow recording at full quality, and anyway can be added to the OP's offering just as easily as any other HTPC. Some expensive and ill-supported cablecard solutions exist, but barely...anyone looking to record encrypted content via cablecard solution should just buy a TiVo, enjoy excellent flexibility and support, and be done with it. The networked player you mention in a later post won't play games, do blu-ray, or give me the weather, or alert me to new emails, or surf the web securely, or run my home security network/allow access to IP cameras on my tv, or allow my wife to video-conference with her parents overseas, etc...at least, not one similarly priced to this offering.
HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
If you MUST have OTA tuning support... one word that SHOULD change your entire "point"/understanding. HDHomeRun.
HardlyWerker
Member
posted: Oct. 28, 2009 @ 11:28a
phire420 said: HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
If you MUST have OTA tuning support... one word that SHOULD change your entire "point"/understanding. HDHomeRun. Why would you want an external box when going out of your way to have a small form factor HTPC? Reducing clutter to make more clutter. Reducing power usage (going with Atom) to create more power usage.
I don't dispute that the HDHR is a nice box, but then money is just being wasted by concentrating on small and powersaving.
This setup is great as a HTPC. I have a self build one with an even smaller case. I rip all my DVD's and most of my blu-ray movies to my network drive at full bitrate. The Zotac plays them all fine. RW, FF with no hickups. Like a lot of people with Hometheather PC's I don't need a tuner as I have dishnetwork which already has its own DVR functionality. I like it so much I'm already thinking of building another Zotac unit. The overall unit is really small (depends on the case you choose of course). Mine measures about 8x10x2.5 inches. That's smaller than a sheet of 8x11 paper!
its an awesome build and if I didnt already get an ASROCK barebone Id go for it and use the components I already have in addition to the case and mobo. As far as Asrock, its running Ubuntu XBMC with HDMI output and is connected to my WHS over powerline AV: it plays any 1080p bitrate rip I throw at it. I still have HDHomerun device but I havent hooked it up since I moved to a new apartment since I got a killer deal on comcast(free HD DVR for a year, $1 showtime and $5 HBO). So i use comcast for TV and Asrock for my downloaded media needss.
starfox9000 said: If you have an older TV, good luck getting HDMI to actually work right. Both ATI and Nvidia have crappy HDMI support. All kinds of problems, like the pannel isn't sized properly, or the resolution needs to be tweaked to get it to display correctly. Or nagging problems, like the picture quality is terrible unless the sharpness is maxed out, waking up from sleep and the sound is gone, or the sound doesn't work at all depending on the tv or which drivers are installed. You may find youself using a seperate monitor just to configure the video to work with your TV's HDMI. It's definately not like hooking up a PS3 and having it just work.
These are all genuinely valid points. My main HTPC works great for HD-DVD, DVD and Blu-Ray playback, plus webbrowsing, Netflix and Hulu downloads, etc... (except for an HDTV tuner card not working - not sure where the blame lies, but it's not crucial since I use my DirecTV HD-DVR for TV anyway), and is terrific for gaming on my 110" 720p display from my projector. However, I think I've encountered every one of the problems starfox9000 listed with my living room HTPC and have never been able to get it working with my Denon HT receiver. Since I want the second HTPC primarily to play Blu-Rays and DVD's, play Netflix, Hulu and YouTube downloads, and play Pandora music downloads, I'm really wondering what the point is, in Q4 of 2009, to an HTPC anymore, since the LG and Samsung Blu-Ray players can each playback all but about two of the above sorts of downloads. The next generation of LG or Samsung will probably be able to all of those things and will do something else that no HTPC will be able to do, namely, send audio to both my plasma and to my HT receiver (which I want for the sake of simplicity for my other, non-techie family members who are not always able to master the "Play TV" and "Play Movie" buttons on my Harmony remote). I don't have a network drive set up and so far have been OK with just watching disks from Netflix, the library and local video stores without needing to copy them onto a hard drive. Yeah, every single HTPC junkie claims they only store copies of movies they already own on Blu-Ray or DVD on their media server and that's about as believeable a claim as "I've never been to an online porn site." For websurfing, checking the weather, doing Skype video chats, etc... in the living room, I've got a laptop.
I also think this particular combo seems to have rather marginal CPU and GPU horsepower, not to mention practically nonexistent in-the-box expandability. However, if you did have a media server and a network set up, or else rather limited HTPC requirements, this does seem like a nice deal and a nice combo for what it is.
vladgur
Senior Member - 1K
posted: Oct. 28, 2009 @ 5:15p
after building a number of more powerfull htpcs, XBMCs interface is pretty much second to none(with Windows MC very close second) and the fact that it works accelerated with SPDIF out and HDMI output out of the box on this ion platform is a plus. Absence of DVR is a negative, but again, OTA and QAM recordings even with HDHOmerun were subject to your wiring/location and with the great deal i got on COMCAST this year, its simply not worth it to me.
I dunno, anyone seen the Aspire Revo for $199 as a legit competitor to this combo? Short of an integrated 802.N, it's almost a perfect Mini Killer. And it's so plasticy and consumery, too!
vladgur
Senior Member - 1K
posted: Oct. 28, 2009 @ 9:47p
199 revo is a single core cpu though and an ION LE core(LE may stand for slower GPU) it also does not have an optical drive which may or may not be a problem
GWBush said: I dunno, anyone seen the Aspire Revo for $199 as a legit competitor to this combo? Short of an integrated 802.N, it's almost a perfect Mini Killer. And it's so plasticy and consumery, too!
If your plan is to run XBMC, the Aspire Revo works great. Note that the Revo has no digital audio outputs other than the HDMI.
HardlyWerker said: That motherboard is hardly adequate for use in an HTPC config. With 0 PCI and 0 PCIe you really wanna be stuck with sucky USB TV tuners? There is no point in having a small system like this as an HTPC if you're just going to have a bunch of external boxes for tuning etc... TV tuners are an integral part of any HTPC, deal sucks.
That is HARDLY the case anymore. Untill (if) the day comes where digital cable card ready tuners are readily found for reasonable cost that are easy to set up and actually work, besides the 1 or 2 digital cable ready high dollar extremely finicky windows media center computers out there, tuner cards are getting more useless by the day. About the only thing they are good for anymore is your basic ~50 or so channel cable lineup, and on a lot of systems, more of those channels slowly get picked off and moved to the digital tier only I guess in an attempt to get people to subscribe to higher packages. Want your full cable lineup? premium channels? Have anything but cable like sat,fios, uverse, etc? Then that trusty old tuner card does nothing for you. While there may be some, I dont think many people who get hardcore into HTPC are holding themselves back with a basic cable lineup or OTA. All that you really need anymore is inputs to connect a sat/cable/etc box to it.
That said, those ION platforms are PERFECT for XBMC which is one of the best if not THE best HTPC like setup you can have these days. Also for those considering picking one of these up solely for HTPC, consider devices like the WDTV live and such. The default firmware is no where near as nice as XBMC, but it works well. Once good 3rd party firmware starts rolling out (early ones are out already), it should really open these up. I ditched my HTPC setup in favor of one of those and havent looked back. Probably 99% of my HTPC use was all downloaded content as I left the tv to the seperate HD DVR, so the media player wich is cheap, tiny, and SILENT was a much better fit.
prann
New Member
posted: Nov. 2, 2009 @ 11:45p
The Zotac IONITX-F-E has a PCIe slot to add a tuner card.
prann
New Member
posted: Nov. 2, 2009 @ 11:46p
The Zotac IONITX-F-E has a PCIe slot to add a tuner card.
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