[finish.06]

I am looking @ extending my media center, though have recently came across a problem...

I am needing to media extenders to connect to a 32in 1080p 60Hz tv & another one to hook up to a 40in 1080p 60Hz tv (both connections via HDMI)

I was looking very heavily @ the Acer Revo 3700 until I read reviews saying it couldn't play Hulu (flash based content) in full screen mode without shutter... reports say this is due to the Ion2 GPU. So now I am worried... can a Zotac with Ion1 play flash content on a full screen 1080p tv? I use my media center to play xbmc, netflix & hulu... so therefore XBMC is no worry, Netflix is fine since Silverlight can allow hardware acceleration, but what about flash

Some guidance please? I am now considering building, especially since the prices are just as attractive, but I really liked how the small nettops were TINY! Easy to hide, and all reviews said dead quiet except during startup...

Please give me advice everyone! I need it BADLY!

THANKS,
Caleb

[Tobor]

I have no trouble playing Hulu (and Netflix) content on my Zotac MAG. I've used Playon or the Hulu plugin, and both perform well.

I noticed the price of the MAG has dropped at Amazon, and I'm considering getting another one...

I should mention that I'm running an install of XBMC LIVE.

[finish.06]

I plan on using windows 7 .... do you think that would make a difference? I just heard that flash doesn't support hardware acceleration. Is that true or not? I am really struggling with this decision because money doesn't grow on trees. ha!

...

Why do you think some individuals have reported being unable to play flash content (i.e. hulu) on there zotac?

Thanks,
Caleb

[eskro]

well windows7 has hardware acceleration so thats a good thing ....

but i recall people saying Ion2 GPU is 15% Slower Than Ion 1 ...

Ion2 communicates with the CPU through a single PCI-Express lane ...

While Ion1 is in the northbridge so it connected with the CPU at much higher speeds ...

So to me, it doesn't matter how powerful future Ion2 systems can get,
the single lane bottleneck will still render it inefficient to me...

[dan1son]

Actually flash 10.1 in Windows has GPU acceleration on the ION boxes... and flash 10.2 beta for Windows/Linux (32-bit linux only) BOTH support GPU acceleration on ION.

Flash 10.2 beta in Linux plays youtube 1080p clips with ease on my Revo 1600. Supposedly when the players implement stagevideo for flash 10.2 it'll be even better.

I haven't tried hulu specifically, but I don't see why it wouldn't use the GPU with 10.2 on linux or 10.1+ on Windows.

[PatrickVogeli]

you should consider that performance between ION1 and ION2 machines is basically the same...

that said, I think adobe released a flash plugin with vdpau enabled, but only in 32 bits version, which should make full screen 1080p work. I haven't tried, though.

[worsht]

Another data point: I have a Zotac ID33-BR HTPC with Intel Atom and NVidia ION running Linux. I installed the latest Nvidia binary driver that supports VDPAU hardware acceleration, and the latest flash 10.2 which supports VDPAU. YouTube HD videos work great but Hulu stutters badly. I believe this is because Hulu hasn't made the change from Video to StageVideo (the new flash API).

[tboooe]

I am looking @ extending my media center, though have recently came across a problem...

I am needing to media extenders to connect to a 32in 1080p 60Hz tv & another one to hook up to a 40in 1080p 60Hz tv (both connections via HDMI)

I was looking very heavily @ the Acer Revo 3700 until I read reviews saying it couldn't play Hulu (flash based content) in full screen mode without shutter... reports say this is due to the Ion2 GPU. So now I am worried... can a Zotac with Ion1 play flash content on a full screen 1080p tv? I use my media center to play xbmc, netflix & hulu... so therefore XBMC is no worry, Netflix is fine since Silverlight can allow hardware acceleration, but what about flash

Some guidance please? I am now considering building, especially since the prices are just as attractive, but I really liked how the small nettops were TINY! Easy to hide, and all reviews said dead quiet except during startup...

Please give me advice everyone! I need it BADLY!

THANKS,
Caleb

Just for clarification, I have the Acer 3700 and with the latest flash 10.2 it plays full screen 1080f fine, at least on youtube. I dont use hulu so I cant comment on that. I dont the issue with flash content was so much ion1 vs ion2 as it is down to the slower processor. Anyway, rest assured that the 3700 plays 1080 flash fine...at least for me.