[PantsOnFire]

- Is it good enough for XBMC and HD playback?
- Does the CPU (Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8100 (2,1 GHz, cache L2 3 MB, FSB 800 MHz) compensate the GPU weaknesses? At the end, I would just like to use it as my XBMC device and I want it to be smooth and fluid during operation.

There are a couple of pretty well detailed demo/reviews of this PC on youtube if you search for them. The guy is pleased to heaven about the system until he gets playing 1080p content. It's actually quite heart-breaking, he's very excited and happy about the whole system until he runs MCE and finds the menus to be sluggish. No mention about if he updated his gfx driver however..

I dont know how xbmc and it skins compare to implementation of Microsoft's efforts, but smooth or fluid I would not use to describe the motion in MCE showing on screen in these youtube reviews.

[diazamet]

What are you talking about? XBMC doesn't support Blu-ray, see => http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=31630

I think his point was, why did Dell put a Blu-ray drive in a machine that is incapable of supporting Blu-ray at the hardware level?

[o_dog]

i wasn't talking about xbmc but the computer. Whats the point of a bluray drive if you can't decode the movies?

[Gamester17]

The DELL Studio Hybrid PC that comes with a Blu-Ray Disc Drive probably uses CyberLink PowerDVD or Corel WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray software for playback (however both of those only features GPU hardware acceleration on NVIDIA and ATI graphics controllers, not Intel which DELL Studio Hybrid PC seem to come with).

[martroy]

The DELL Studio Hybrid PC that comes with a Blu-Ray Disc Drive probably uses CyberLink PowerDVD or Corel WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray software for playback (however both of those only features GPU hardware acceleration on NVIDIA and ATI graphics controllers, not Intel which DELL Studio Hybrid PC seem to come with).

Yes, there is a GPU that is installed with the blu-ray option. According the PC Pro review , it is an addon mini-PCI Broadcom BCM70010 video decoder. The only reference I could find on Dell's website is in the Optical Drive section when custom building it: "6X BD Combo Drive(CD/DVD+/-R;Bluray Read)w/ Media Accelerator"

Martin

[frumpy_uk]

Fujitsu Siemens ESPRIMO Q5030 - anyone tried this box yet?

[navigates]

Fujitsu Siemens ESPRIMO Q5030 - anyone tried this box yet?

If you select the blueray option, you do get hardware acceleration. Still looking for the perfect xbox1/xbmc replacement.

[greenteagod]

The DELL Studio Hybrid PC that comes with a Blu-Ray Disc Drive probably uses CyberLink PowerDVD or Corel WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray software for playback (however both of those only features GPU hardware acceleration on NVIDIA and ATI graphics controllers, not Intel which DELL Studio Hybrid PC seem to come with).

I have a studio hybrid and it's plays bluray discs with "Dell MediaDirect." No playback issues. Uses 30-40% of one core for 1080p playback

[Geeba]

Still looking for the perfect xbox1/xbmc replacement.

Yup me too!

I have a studio hybrid and it's plays bluray discs with "Dell MediaDirect." No playback issues. Uses 30-40% of one core for 1080p playback

Have you tried booting via XBMC Live and tried any full HD playback?

[Jeroen]

I have tried XBMC Live and I didn't get it working, but I believe that's because the GPU in the Hybrid is not supported by XBMC Live yet.
I don't play a lot of Full HD content, mostly 720p and below but I have tried a couple of Full HD movies and it really didn't give any trouble. I took the fastest CPU available though. I have had the Hybrid for a couple of months now and I'm really pleased with it.

[greenteagod]

Still looking for the perfect xbox1/xbmc replacement.

Yup me too!

I have a studio hybrid and it's plays bluray discs with "Dell MediaDirect." No playback issues. Uses 30-40% of one core for 1080p playback

Have you tried booting via XBMC Live and tried any full HD playback?

No I haven't. I didn't figure XBMC Live would be able to support the wireless xbox 360 controller, sound through the hdmi or various other things, so I haven't even bothered with it yet.

[jonnypajamas]

Just wanted to say that I got my Studio Hybrid 2 weeks ago, 2.1ghz 3gb ram and Atlantis flys on it. I get 1080p to my sharp lcd and watching bluray is amaaaaazing. No glitches yet. Ripped bluray is fine too. I was nervous about getting it after reading some reviews about it's hardware limitations but I haven't noticed anything. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a small power friendly htpc.

[vskatusa]

Maybe the best bet is to buy a laptop which will double up as pc + xbmc (hooked to tv via hdmi) !

[vskatusa]

jonnypajamas,

How have u connected the hybrid to the TV? If it was thru HDMI, can you confirm if the HDMI outputs both PASS-THRU 5.1 (Not just stereo) + VIDEO - Because this was one of the issues when I talked to DELL sometime back (2 months back) and they confirmed that the HDMI when connected to a receiver will output ONLY STEREO sound not digital 5.1 sound passthru! This is a bummer because the very idea of HDMI is to eliminate all the cables! Sony seems to have the best implementation over HDMI in their AW and FW series laptops.

Can you please list the configuration of your dell hybrid?

[jonnypajamas]

T8100 2100mhz
3 gigs of ram
Bluray Player
intel 965 video
vista ultimate sp1
latest eventghost
latest xbmc
hdmi into a sharp 42 inch 1080p lcd
thx 2.1 through studio headphone out
3.5 windows experience score
wifi audio/video stream from a WHS box in the basement

Sorry I have no way of testing that sound scenario for you.w