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Which Ion based system should I buy?
#61
Starstream Wrote:>>X<< my thanks again that did it!

I was able to edit the file and just did a sleep test and the cursor is gone.

I think I might start a separate thread for the various fixes/workarounds being applied to XBMC Live 9.04.1 and the Asrock 330 just for anyone else having difficulty.

I'm going to have to get my linux machine running again before I forget everything lol

Glad it worked, a silly little annoyance like that drives you nuts if you cant solve it Shocked
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#62
Has anyone found a vendor & price for the ASRock Ion330 box in the USA? I'm really tempted to get one, but have no idea what the price point is...

Thanks...
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#63
sion28 I can see some on ebay for about $450.

Most of the units in Europe are from similar smaller channels most of the main online stores I know of do not stock this unit might be a while before the big stores begin selling it.

The only other two things for XBMC Live & Asrock Ion 330 I would like to square away are
* get audio over HDMI working, suspect its a driver issue but don't know how to update the driver, info here shows updating driver no idea if it would work or break XBMC Live I'd give it a go but it says "make dependencies" not installed and wont proceed after that. (Ctrl+Alt+F2 gets to command prompt)
* updating the graphics driver to see if it improves anything, when using medicineuks ubuntu+XBMC guide he installed the latest drivers and I found XBMC seemed to run much more snappy but under XBMC Live it wont install the drivers saying I need to shutdown the X server (Google showed me a sudio killall Xorg command but XBMC auto restarts after that and the init 3 command doesn't appear to work) again this may break the XBMC Live install but if anyone knows how to shutdown the X server I will give it a go.

Hopefully a future release of XBMC Live isn't too far off so we don't have to go through all these hacks and tweaks to get everything running nicely on the Asrock Ion 330.
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#64
Hey guys any updates on how its going still happy with your decision to buy the Asrock ?

Any of you using 1080p@24Hz on a 1920x1080 screen ?

What about dropped frames how is it on that front has anyone tried the killa.sample ?

What remotes are you using or what would you recommend
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#65
JUICESIX90 Wrote:Could someone let me know if the Aeon skin runs smoothly with Asrock 330?

Thanks Wink

Anyone Huh
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#66
You know, after reading all this stuff about ion platforms barely being able to handle certain things, whats the point? I mean really? You can get a zotac ITX board with a 775 socket so you can put a much more powerful (or even slightly more powerful) processor in essentially the same package. I would go for that before I would ever think about an actual ion setup. I do not want to pay money for a system to have to second guess if it will be powerful enough to handle the content i throw at it.

Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813500022

Edit: But I guess the platform does have time to evolve - i guess we will see how it all pans out.
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#67
pre1014 Wrote:You know, after reading all this stuff about ion platforms barely being able to handle certain things, whats the point? I mean really? You can get a zotac ITX board with a 775 socket so you can put a much more powerful (or even slightly more powerful) processor in essentially the same package. I would go for that before I would ever think about an actual ion setup. I do not want to pay money for a system to have to second guess if it will be powerful enough to handle the content i throw at it.

Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813500022

Edit: But I guess the platform does have time to evolve - i guess we will see how it all pans out.

Where has anyone said it can't handle anything ?

Whats the point of having a more powerful CPU if all your content is handled by the GPU leaving the CPU sitting there doing nothing ?

Maybe if your looking for something that's going to be used for more than just media then its not for you

JUICESIX90 Wrote:Could someone let me know if the Aeon skin runs smoothly with Asrock 330?

Thanks Wink

It runs on the Acer Revo so I don't see why not

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYGPcwzq_QI
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#68
>>X<<' Wrote:Hey guys any updates on how its going still happy with your decision to buy the Asrock ?

Any of you using 1080p@24Hz on a 1920x1080 screen ?

What about dropped frames how is it on that front has anyone tried the killa.sample ?

What remotes are you using or what would you recommend

I'm quite happy with mine the only issues are software ones which will be overcome in due time, the noise from the fan doesn't bother me at all I have mine sitting in a Sony RHT-G900 and I don't hear the fan when playing media.

My Panasonic plasma supports 1080p@24Hz but the resolution is not available in XBMC Live probably need to update display driver.

I'm playing my videos from a Synology DS207+ NAS with jumbo frames and gigabit ethernet via SMB, no dropped frames at all (Well there is always at least 1-2 it seems right at start when playing video over network).

Not tried the killa.sample but all of my 1080p H.264 MKV movies appear to play fine. Is the killa sample the one labeled quad high definition the right one I can give it a try and see

JUICESIX90 Wrote:Anyone Huh

If you can point me to a guide on how to install skins on XBMC Live I'd give it a try though without the latest graphics drivers installed it may be to soon to judge.
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#69
Thanks Starstream

The killa.sample is below probably on here somewhere but cant find it, think its the correct one but not checked if its a flock of birds then that's it Smile

http://rapidshare.com/files/133938829/ki...a.x264.mkv
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#70
Alright I just tested out that one you linked to >>X<< its the one with the birds.

It dropped 11 frames at the start when playing from my network server.

It dropped 2 frames at the start when playing from USB stick.

No frames were dropped during the remainder of playback only at the very start, there is sort of a green artifacts briefly at the start I'm guessing something to do with VDPAU or the driver built into XBMC Live 9.04.1
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#71
Starstream Wrote:Alright I just tested out that one you linked to >>X<< its the one with the birds.

It dropped 11 frames at the start when playing from my network server.

It dropped 2 frames at the start when playing from USB stick.

No frames were dropped during the remainder of playback only at the very start, there is sort of a green artifacts briefly at the start I'm guessing something to do with VDPAU or the driver built into XBMC Live 9.04.1

ok thanks M8 don't think dropping frames at the beginning is really anything to worry about, or at least not the same as dropping frames because it can't cope with it
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#72
Starstream Wrote:sion28 I can see some on ebay for about $450.

Most of the units in Europe are from similar smaller channels most of the main online stores I know of do not stock this unit might be a while before the big stores begin selling it.

Are you searching ebay.com, or ebay.co.uk? I'm in the USA, and ebay.com does not return any results when I search for "asrock ion330"...

I guess we in the USA just have to wait... $450 seems a little steep anyway, considering you could build a similar mini-itx system for less...
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#73
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3509&p=2

Bottom of that page it says that the system *may* have issues playing movies from an optical drive. Apparently all review units for the Revo (and others) are shipped with content ripped to HD, which works perfectly.

...although these reviews aren't using XBMC on linux - like you would need to have hardware acceleration on the platform. So of course there are countless differences.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/28/acer-...vo-review/

That review says the machine plays all HW accelerated content. But, the system struggles with flash video. Again, even my 700mhz xbox plays flash video fine, so this is probably the os/software (windows + flash) limiting it intead of the hardware.

IF someone wants to use the machine for more than XBMC...or doesn't want to use XBMC linux on it....then it is limited....I personally wouldn't spend a couple hundred dollars on a machine for ONLY xbmc (even though I LOVE it). I'm just putting it out there so people know. In some cases in those reviews the system gets VERY close to maxing out. The original poster also wants a torrent client. It is possible that the addition of a torrent client running in the background may cause it to NOT be able to handle a 1080p video (specifically if it is off of optical media, which it appears the OP is interested in). None of this I can say for certain until someone actually does it though (speculation, if you will).
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#74
They're using Cyberlink which is using hardware acceleration if you didn't want to use linux you can just launch an external player from xbmc using CoreAVC and Cuda

Like I said before if your after more than a media player then don't get an Ion based unit although at the press event they had the a 330 running 1080p, encoding a 720p movie and running a powerpoint presentation all at the same time

I'm sure anyone looking at these pretty much knows their limitations at least on this forum

Cant say I think much of those sites "anandtech" said a few months back even an Ion with dual core atom wouldn't be able to play 1080p and single core just about play 720p so I guess they where wrong on that front
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#75
inframan Wrote:I just got one of these the fan noise is not super loud but it it oscillates which for me is just annoying. I tried speedfan to switch it off when not really needed but didn't get it to work. Probably the mother board is too new.

Does yours oscillate too, just wondering if mine is from a faulty batch.

Kudos to the guys at Asrock. Saturday I sent a tech support request querying the oscillating fan noise, yesterday they sent me a beta bios that stepped up the fan to constant. Overall noise level is slightly up but now constant rather then oscillating (I think it must have been turning over very slowly before.)

I haven't taken the cover off to check but I *think* there are two fans in there. A case fan which is the one the BIOS settings (Auto, silent etc) refer to which is actually quite quiet and a chipset fan which I think was the one which caused me issues.)

Anyway felt they should get credit for the quick response.
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Which Ion based system should I buy?0