Hello,
Currently I'm using a Popcorn Hour A110 to watch my (HD) videos which it does rather well. It is connected to my TV via HDMI and my receiver via SPDIF. Unfortunatly the Popcorn Hour has a few drawbacks:
- User interface is somewhat outdated
- No gapless playback of FLAC files
- Videostreaming from the web "Uitzendinggemist" in Netherlands is not possible
Therefore I'm also using a Netbook (Acer Aspire A150) to listen to my music, also DTS-wav files, watch our photo's and watch video webstreams. Unfortunatly the A150 is not able to play video well (thanks to the Intel GMA) so I'm still forced to use two systems. Also the A150 does not work with the LIVE CD. After installation and booting of the system the screen stays black. This is also the case when running directly from the LIVE CD.
So I'm using XBMC V10 under windows XP, this works rather well but before I put the Netbook in Hibernation I must end XBMC otherwise after starting up again the display, both on the laptop and TV, stays black..
So I would like to replace the Popcorn and Acer A150 by one Netbook. After some research I found this one: Asus Eee PC 1015PN
It has the following specs:
- Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Starter
- Display 10.1" LED Backlight WSVGA Screen (1024x600)
- CPU & Chipset Intel® Atom™ N550
- Memory SO-DIMM 1GB DDRIII** (Maximum 2GB)
- Wireless Data Network WLAN 802.11b/g/n @2.4GHz**
- Bluetooth 3.0**
- Display Card Next-Gen. ION N11M-PT1 with 512MB VRAM
- Hybrid Storage 250GB HDD + 500GB ASUS WebStorage **
- Input / Output 1 x VGA Connector, 1 x HDMI port
3 x USB 2.0
I've got a few questions:
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[*]Has anybody experience in XBMC LIVE on this Netbook and does it work well?
[*]Can XBMC LIVE make use of this latest NVIDIA ION chipset?
[*]Smooth playback of full HD movies possible (Both X.264 and VC.1?)?
[*] What will be the maximum bitrate for video files? I know that the Sigma chip of the Popcorn can only go up to 35 MBit, for HD videos with a higher bitrate I'm forced to use my OPPO BDP-83 Blu-ray player.
[/LIST]
For audio, until I've got new Audio/Video Pre-processor, I'll keep on using an external USB audio stick with optical SPDIF out. This also works well with the currernt XBMC under windows.
Of course video will only be played back on an external HD TV via HDMI.
I know these are a lot of questions but I would like to be definitely sure the Asus netbook can replace the Popcorn and the Acer netbook.
Thanks for your support!