[PierreC]

I got some questions to existing ION + XBMC users, it would be great if you guys could answer them because I am considering buying an ASRock or Acer Aspire Revo system. I currently own an older TviX media player but since the player firmware is still very dodgy and has limited use besides watching videos (bad music, picture support etc) I am considering an ION solution with XBMC. Anyways, over to the questions:

1. Is there any lag/shudder when playing content ? esp for those who play NTSC content but has a PAL TV.
   
2. Is it possible to play 24p content without lag/shudder ?
   
3. How good is the up-scaling of video content ? I read a thread where some filters wasn't accelerated through the GPU on win7 and that could cause issued like fps drops. Can XBMC change resolution based on content and thus let the TV upscale ? for instance if I play 720p content, can XBMC switch to 1280x720 ? or is the up-scaling from XBMC fast and sharp enough?
   
4. In XBMC, can you define what audio content should be passed through to the speaker system and what should be processed before passing ? My audio system can handle DTS and AC3 just fine but it do have problem with AAC for instance, if it is passed through unprocessed. On the TviX I could set AAC and some other formats to process through Analog instead of Digital.
   
5. Any recommended remotes for an ION system ? preferably something that works on linux since I am probably going to try that first. I might decide to use win7 in the future though since I am not a linux savvy person.
   
6. Any tip on a bluetooth receiver that works on linux? I might consider the WII Remote.
   

[neil.j1983]

5. ps3 remote

[hyperionfin]

I have an ION-system and XBMC's Windows-version installed. Before going into each question I'd like to say that at least by my experiences, these XBMC's nightly builds are truly experimental and there are bound to be several kinds of problems on the way for you too. However, with patience, XBMC-Wiki and this forum (and the great developers who're constantly developing the software further) it is possible to get it working perfectly.

1) Maybe the most difficult question on your list. What can I say? It depends. First of all, if you have a good enough high definition flat panel TV, you can forget about PAL and NTSC. All the good TV's out there and most of the cheapest ones too support now'a'days a variety of refresh rates including 24 Hz (for 24 fps content, which is the most common form out there currently), 30 Hz (for NTSC content), 50 Hz (suitable for PAL content, since 25 fps * 2 = 50 Hz) 60 Hz and so on. So basically PAL and NTSC aren't the issues anymore and in a way it doesn't even matter if a video is originating from PAL or NTSC source. The most significant conqesuence of a video being from PAL or NTSC source is its framerate. There are 24 fps videos out there, there are 25 fps videos out there (very few though), there are 30 fps videos out there and so on. And XBMC can play all of these without any stuttering - the only thing that could in some cases create problems is your display/TV, which might not support for instance 50 Hz. Then you'd have to do pulldowns etc.

2) Yes, XBMC supports adjusting your display into 24p-mode when playing 24p content. There is a setting for this in video options. It works fine - however currently there are audio desync problems discussed for instance here (in my thread): http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=76537 This is however always counterable with audio offset -function and will most likely be fixed in close future releases. Picture quality and video smoothness is perfect in XBMC's 24p mode.

3) You don't want to let your TV do the upscaling. It's going to always far worse in quality than XBMC's upscaling. It is a fact that you're going to use DXVA accerelated video decoding on your ION-platform because it won't be juicy enough to play videos otherwise and there are some restrictions there, as you've heard. Only supported upscaling modes in DXVA acceleration are nearest neighbour (the worst possible method) and bilinear (OK picture quality, however it could be sharper). Bicubic or any form of Lanczos are not supported when doing DXVA decoding, in the latest nightly build you're not even allowed to choose them from the settings because it would slow you machine down and create problems. The bilinear upscaling XBMC does when using it with DXVA encoding is always fast enough and is definitely better in quality than your TV's scaling method would be, which might be even worse then nearest neighbour.

4) Yes, you have very clear setting for that in XBMC. You can allow DTS and DD5.1 to be passed to your receiver but AAC-audio to be processed and sent to the receiver as stereo.

5) I have a Asus EEE Box EB1501 system and it comes with a remote that I like a lot. It works with XBMC.

6) -

[PierreC]

Thanks hyperionfin for taking the time and answer my questions, really appreciate it!

[moonwhaler]

Concerning your remote question: I'm using the PS3 remote (which I bought for about 20 Euros) running XBMC Live! (installed onto HDD). It works like a charm, although I have to admin it wasn't plug & play from the start, but that's Linux for ya' ;-)