[rs_taylor]

Hi

Firstly im a huge fan and long time user of XBMC since it replaced XBMP on my Xbox. My both technophobe wife & 2 kids(3 & 4) love the interface, with almost no effort on my part
My problem is HD is way beyond my poor old Xbox.

I've been looking for a device that would replace my original Xbox/XBMC for sometime with limited success (Vista/Win7 Media player, Popcorn & WD TV Live all failed me).

Recently, I've seen many great reviews for 330HT as a HTPC & some specifically talking about how well it runs XBMC.

Before I leap in with another HW purchase, I'd like to clarify a couple of issues I've been reading about.

HDMI Audio
As my receiver only has 1 optical in, I'd prefer to have the Audio going over HDMI but there seem to be issue with this with 5.1 audio.
I'm wondering if this is still an issue, if its a HW problem that can't be fixed & if there are any work arounds?
If I send audio over SPDIF to my 5.1 receiver, I assume there is no problems?
Is there any difference between Linux & Win7?

Win7 HW Video Acceleration
I've read some posts that HW acceleration is not possible under Win7 (my preferred OS) and that Linux must be used to get smooth 1080P video.
Is this still true, some posters (usually more recent) have said this is no longer an issue.
I've read about using alternative forks of XBMC that don't seem to have this issue & that running an 'external' player also enables HW Acceleration (would this mean I'd have to select the player to use on file by file basis in the interface?)

I'd prefer to run under Win7 because im more familiar with it and it gives me more options with what else I can use the 330HT for but if I can get all I need running the XBMC Live install I will certainly go with that.

Any guidance greatly appreciated!

[>>X<<]

I don't know of any problems with 5.1 over optical or HDMI

Yes there is hardware decoding under win7 in the latest builds or you can use the DSPlayer branch of XBMC which integrates directshow into XBMC that means you can get DXVA using MPC-HC filters or ffdshow you can also use CoreAVC with CUDA

No need to use an external player anymore but that's still an option

Or you can go the linux route like you said there are plenty of guides on here for doing this on an Asrock

[jhsrennie]

Win7 HW Video Acceleration
I've read some posts that HW acceleration is not possible under Win7 (my preferred OS) and that Linux must be used to get smooth 1080P video.
Is this still true, some posters (usually more recent) have said this is no longer an issue.

The release version v9.11 of XBMC for Windows doesn't have hardware acceleration, but it's eight months old now and that's an *eternity* in XBMC time :-)

The next version, Dharma, is about to go into beta test. I'm using a pre-beta build and it works just fine so you shouldn't run into any major issues with it even though it's a beta. You can try Dharma right now by downloading the most recent build from http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/win32/.

JR

[rs_taylor]

Looks like i'll be getting myself an ASRock then, thanks both!

[sponks]

thanks for the info.

I have an ASRock 330HT and loaded up Win7(32bit) with the latest Dharma release (as of date of post). 720p videos are now very smooth (was running at about 15-18 FPS before) and 1080p videos are better than before (was like 2-3 FPS) but still not perfect. It is obvious when panning it has jerkiness unfortunately. I have enabled the hardware acceleration option in XBMC. CPU runs at about 70-80% utilisation so Im not convinced that is the bottleneck, so I havent tried overclocking yet.

Sponks

[X3lectric]

Use xbmc complete installer and minimal karmic install, use my sig info