Atom system for XBMC
#1
Long time since I posted on here.
Lost touch on development after XBMC for original Xbox, but would like to use it again, as all solutions out there at the moment for a proper Media Center are **** Wink

So, I saw the Nvidia ION reference box, and thought, you want one :-)
So, looked around, but not able to fine one of these.
I know it was a reference box, but thought it was also available to buy.

Now I'm looking for a list of possible small boxes/units to have XBMC running on it capable of streaming HD over network in 1080p

My current list is very short and only has 2 units:

Acer Aspire Revo
Asus EB1501

Is there anything else I should look at.
Would like to get your opinions on this topic.

Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Christian
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#2
Asus EB 1201 also has the required ion, but no integral optical drive (and more boxy casing)
Zotac MAG
ASRock Ionstar

more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Ion#Desktop_systems

Zotac, Asus and Asrock all also make mini-itx motherboards with ION hardware

Also, not to be sniffed at is the possibility that when VAAPI development is complete (and the drivers support it) that some regular atom based chipsets will be able to do the 1080p decoding, without the nVidia GPU hardware
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#3
Thanks,

I think I will buy this one here:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/182588

Revo R3610.
Had the dual-core N330, and 2 GG memory already.
Just need a USB DVD, and I'm ready to go Nod
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#4
derchris Wrote:Thanks,

I think I will buy this one here:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/182588

Revo R3610.
Had the dual-core N330, and 2 GG memory already.
Just need a USB DVD, and I'm ready to go Nod

Why not asrock ion 330 HT ? It has dual-core n330, 2 gb ram, integrated DVD-RW and a mce remote if you use the ion flavour of xbmc-live (it's here in the linux forum) you can be uo and running in half an hour, more or less, just remember to download the deb for the remote (on asrock site) and you are done... and it works quite well :-D

ZIOLele
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#5
ah yes, as you're in the UK, that's the best deal i've seen for a 330 ION.

keeps popping up on HotUKDeals.com Smile
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#6
Didn't know it was listed there.
Ordered it yesterday, should be here in the next few hours Wink

I have chosen this one, as it will be a Streaming client only.
Have my PS3 for Blu-Rays.
And AFAIK the Acer has no active cooling (Fans), which the Asrock has.
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#7
derchris Wrote:Didn't know it was listed there.
Ordered it yesterday, should be here in the next few hours Wink

I have chosen this one, as it will be a Streaming client only.
Have my PS3 for Blu-Rays.
And AFAIK the Acer has no active cooling (Fans), which the Asrock has.

That is definitely a good price for the R3610.

I've got an eeebox EB1501 which works great but I don't think I've actually used the optical drive yet. I think if I require a 2nd box it'll be an R3610, hopefully at that price or cheaper!
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#8
Why not hold out for a month or so. See what the boxee box is like..

I have heard it will retail for <$200 so in the UK I hope we can get it for £150ish

It'll run boxee by default but it should be easy to convert to XBMC..
MC1 (SD & HD): Asus A8N SLI, AMD x2 4600+, 2GB DDR 400 Cosair, Palit Nvidia 9400GT 1GB (Passive), ARTIC 500W PSU, Lian Li PC-C32B, Samsung 250GB SATA
MC2 (SD&HD): RaspberryPi
MC3 (SD&HD): RaspberryPi
NAS1: HP Prolient Microserver N40L 2Gb Ram, 250Gb OS Disk, 1x2TB HDD ext4, 5.25" to 3.5" disk drive added to ODD Slot for OS disk

Blog: http://ninet.org
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#9
just a quick point - you don't need a dual-core atom.

I have a single-core zotac ion board and it plays 1080p video just fine, even decoding DTS5.1 audio isn't a problem. network streamed or local, it's all good.

xbmc is fast and responsive, even when the machine is doing Other Stuff (sometimes it's rendering video and so on)

the advantage of single core is it requires much less cooling, therefore fewer and slower fans, therefore much quieter system in yer front room. you cannot hear my HTPC unless it's disk is seeking, even from close up. it makes the PS3 seem loud.
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#10
there is a fan, but it's quiet. my colleague has one as a lounge PC and myth front end (I'm slowly converting him to XBMC...) and he says it rarely if ever spins up, and when it does it's seriously unobtrusive.
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#11
Mmmm I'm thinking either the ASRock 330 or the Acer, the Acer doesn't seam to have IR though? so using a harmony remote would need an additional dongle and also no wireless N which I was after too, so that's another cost to think about.
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#12
Side note:
I'm loving XBMC on my "Zotac ION-ITX F" (It's the one with 16xPCIe slot fur upgrades in future like a PCIe SSD ) Big Grin lol

Quiet & CPU temps are low (actually the old IDE Hard drive i've got rigged to it for backups is louder!)
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#13
Do you know if ION 9400 will do XVID as well as H.264 in hardware rendering okay?
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#14
if you're requiring xvid for standard def media, then the atom processor will play that back just fine on its own.
afaik, VDPAU does not offload MPEG 2/4 decoding to hardware. but SD rips of movies/TV eps in Xvid playback just fine on the original xbox (a pentium 3 700 MHz cpu) without much stress at all. the atom CPU can also handle them without high CPU load. in fact, xvid/divx up to 720p will probably be just fine too.
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#15
Cool, thanks Ali!
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