[ShinyAndy]

Wasn't sure to post here or on the AVForums site but as I'm a huge fan of XBMC I'd start here..

I've been using my old modded Xbox for years now and having just upgraded TVs to a 42" Samsung LE-A656 it's bugging me that I can't watch any HD downloaded content

Having spent the last 2 or 3 days looking into home builds and the plethora of options surrounding that I've come across more than a few mentions about the ASRock. What with living in Spain and the limited component suppliers here (plus support issues if I bought from outside Spain) and having spent the last 20 years of my life working in IT I'm kinda loathed to start getting my hands dirty if I can avoid it!

I've noticed a lot of HD content seems to use the MKV wrapper with DTS sound. Clearly the old Xbox can't play even 720p let alone 1080p in that format so I tried setting up my Xbox360 as an extender via my 2 year old desktop PC. If it doesn't have DTS sound then it seems to work fine (although quite bad stuttering/frame drops if a high motion scene is playing) but WMP is doing my head in and I'm missing all the wonderful features of XBMC

Will the Ion 330 definitely cope with a 1080p mkv coded film with DTS sound?

I have a Buffalo Terastation NAS that I've been streaming from and wonder if that might also become a bottleneck as transfer rates when copying to/from it aren't great? If that is an issue what options do I have with regard to greater storage than the 320GB the Ion has?

[spiff]

running linux; yes

[ShinyAndy]

Yes, I was going to run XBMCLive or Linux

[blittan]

100mbit network speed is more than enough for any HD content out there today. ION330 is very suited with linux installed, small for factor, shiny finish (sleek looks) and pretty silent (atleast quiter than the old xbox)

[kbrookes]

I can confirm.

I'm running an ION N330 mobo with 4GB RAM booting from a Sony flash thumbdrive, pulling files down over a 100Mbit network connection. I'm running XBMC Live and have zero issues with 8GB 1080p Bluray rips.

Less than 10% CPU utilisation across all cores.

[ShinyAndy]

Fantastic news but can I ask if those rips also have DTS sound as I'm pretty sure that's what seems to cause my problems with my current setup because I can watch 1080p stuff without any problems as long as they don't have it!

Also, do you use a remote control with your setup? I've searched high and low through these threads for the last few days and keep seeing mentioned that the Microsoft MCE remote works out the box with XBMC but does it have to be a genuine Microsoft one or one of the "copies" you can find on ebay? I don't want anything fancy (read: expensive!)

[Clumsy]

DTS works (again) with linux xbmc, that shouldn't be a problem.

[blittan]

No problem with anything on the ion330, everything I have thrown at it works great

[Levvy]

The only thing to be careful with the ION330 is that it's not suitable for HD flash video. If plan on streaming high quality flash video over the internet you'll need a beefier processor.

[kbrookes]

Be careful with the choice of remote. A lot of the cheap MCE knock-off remotes are detected as HID devices and LIRC doesn't work with them out of the box. I'm positive there's a way to get them to work, but after a week of futzing around I couldn't make it happen.

I would up buying a known working remote, the Hauppage 335 and it works (almost) flawlessly out of the box. Having trouble with wake from sleep via the remote - ironically this was the one thing that did work out of the box with the HID remote.

[truant]

I have an ION 230, the single core Zotac board. It's done everything I've asked to just fine - full 1080 video, DTS sound etc. etc. Cpu use during playback is about 5%.

Remote control via wiimote. Bluetooth means not having to point it!

[DarthV]

The only thing to be careful with the ION330 is that it's not suitable for HD flash video. If plan on streaming high quality flash video over the internet you'll need a beefier processor.

Doesn't XBMC use its own flash player instead of the adobe one? Pretty sure most youtube HD flash vids are h264 encoded, so vdpau should allow you to play them on the ION platform. It's just the horribly implemented adobe flash player that makes it a mess in a web browser

[CrashX]

The only thing to be careful with the ION330 is that it's not suitable for HD flash video. If plan on streaming high quality flash video over the internet you'll need a beefier processor.

Intel ATOM 330 ( Dual core ) should be fine for HD flash content ...

[graysky]

Great thread... can any of you guys running the Zotac/Atom 330 board any my question about jumbo frames?