I've heard some of you mention it, but I didn't look into it until today --> http://www.legitreviews.com/article/876/2/

All I can say is WOW!

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/876/ion_reference_platform.jpg

Nice video overview from CES with demo from Nvidia rep-

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/12/nvidia-ion-platform-gets-demonstrated-at-ces/

IMO, this is the future of HTPC's. I just wish they'd put it in a wider CE-style enclosure to make it look like a DVD player or other set top, complete with basic LCD display and notebook style DVD-RW.

IMO, this is the future of HTPC's. I just wish they'd put it in a wider CE-style enclosure to make it look like a DVD player or other set top, complete with basic LCD display and notebook style DVD-RW.

I agree, but I don't like the stb-style idea. Ripping DVD's, etc. to a server is a better idea. I want something microscopic that I can hide behind me with a projector or behind a tv or, even better, behind a wall. My kb and remote/mouse use RF specifically for this purpose.

What would *really* be cool would be to have it integrated into a projector or tv! When's THAT gonna happen??

Also, the ION would be the perfect home for an SSD. :)

That box is just an example to get people excited. I have seen no actual announcements of a manufacturer releasing anything based on it yet. The manufacturers can do whatever they want. I'm sure we'll see some lame 'reference design' releases but we might see some cool stuff. I'd never want it in a projector or tv because if it broke or when it's obsolete....there goes both devices. Never been a fan of combos.

-Trouble

Nothing stupendously innovative about this- just putting notebook/netbook components in a small box for desktop/set top use, but still a cool if it leads to custom form factor PC's that use standard components internally, and works with Linux drivers and the best distros.

If the board form factor becomes a "standard", it could supplant ITX. I think using notebook hard drives and memory modules makes a lot of sense, combined with the desktop-like ports on the back.

Nice video overview from CES with demo from Nvidia rep-

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/12/nvidia-ion-platform-gets-demonstrated-at-ces/

IMO, this is the future of HTPC's. I just wish they'd put it in a wider CE-style enclosure to make it look like a DVD player or other set top, complete with basic LCD display and notebook style DVD-RW.

If there's no one make notebook-style Blu-Ray drive yet, this is the time.

Notebook Blu-Ray Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118027)

Notebook Blu-Ray Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118027)


Ehh. doesn't burn nuthin' :D

...plus it's (gulp) ...Sony :(

...cool slot load though.

Hey guys a few websites got the ION today to do some reviews, enjoy!

http://www.guru3d.com/article/nvidia-ion-platform-review-preview/
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3509

Notebook Blu-Ray Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118027)

Wow! I could almost buy PS3 with that price. Nice though. Hope LG will come out with something this year.

ACER Hornet to be released on April 8 --> http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=48069

If that box (I mean one like the reference build) gets mass produced at a decent price (<300$ US) it will replace my Popcornhour in an instant!!!

I agree with mythmaster, this box needs not DVD or bluray drive or not even a hdd, just a small SSD or CF card for the OS, the media should all be on a NFS media server (like I'm currently doing with the Popcornhour).

If that box (I mean one like the reference build) gets mass produced at a decent price (<300$ US) it will replace my Popcornhour in an instant!!!

I agree with mythmaster, this box needs not DVD or bluray drive or not even a hdd, just a small SSD or CF card for the OS, the media should all be on a NFS media server (like I'm currently doing with the Popcornhour).

Or better yet, diskless! ;)

If that box (I mean one like the reference build) gets mass produced at a decent price (<300$ US) it will replace my Popcornhour in an instant!!!

I agree with mythmaster, this box needs not DVD or bluray drive or not even a hdd, just a small SSD or CF card for the OS, the media should all be on a NFS media server (like I'm currently doing with the Popcornhour).

some sites suggest the "low-end" model will reach down to $149... I can't see any option needed above the entry level, except maybe the 2G RAM, esp if not use-upgradeable.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/31/ion-based-acer-hornet-nettop-specs-leak-out-1080p-hdmi-playback/

The only thing I think it will fall flat on is Flash performance, since that still can't be off-loaded via VDPAU. Else a fantastic value (and I will buy one to use as a server at a minimum if not more, since its so much cheaper than the EEEB202, with the B204 and B206 still being vapor-ware)

Crossing my fingers that tomorrow is the day!

I would even prefer a barebones box without hdd, RAM and OS, that would be even cheaper and no Microsoft-tax!

Looks like Acer wanted to beat em to the punch

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/acer-launches-first-nvidia-ion-based-nettop-aspirerevo/

no pricing info or release date... sigh.

Looks like Acer wanted to beat em to the punch

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/acer-launches-first-nvidia-ion-based-nettop-aspirerevo/

no pricing info or release date... sigh.

Sexy...

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/04/mini-acer_revo.jpg

They can dump the DB15/VGA though ;)

Cheers,
Kermee

Sexy, indeed! http://www.slashgear.com/acer-aspirerevo-nvidia-ion-1080p-nettop-0840470/

I've read several reports saying late 2Q09 and prior to back-to-school time. I've also seen guesses that say the box should come in right around $300.

LOL --> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/695/1051695/acer-releases-aspire-revo-ion-nettop

LOL --> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/695/1051695/acer-releases-aspire-revo-ion-nettop

I guess the author of that article has never heard of HTPCs or Linux...

The only thing that bothered me in that article was that talk about the batch of 9400 not good enough for Apple, what did he mean, are these somehow flawed 9400 chips?

I guess the author of that article has never heard of HTPCs or Linux...

The only thing that bothered me in that article was that talk about the batch of 9400 not good enough for Apple, what did he mean, are these somehow flawed 9400 chips?

I have some sympathy for the article, but still hope to see and maybe own ION... would have to see a little more detail/fact, but unless ION sells at a significant price discount, one does wonder why use an Atom vs. a low-end C2D. ie. I see no point in paying $300 for an EEE Box PC, with a single core Atom, no matter how good the GPU when I can build a similarly equipped C2D box with 9400 PCI card for the same price and have much more CPU power in reserve for when its needed (ie. these Atom boxes will be useless for Hulu/Flash)

At $150 price point, heck yeah, I pick up an Atom box and use it as a web/mail low-power server, which maybe can also double as my HTPC, altho then I probably want dual-core so I can do HTPC and server at the same time.

The EEE B204 and B206 (I think they were to have an ATI 3450? similar in a way to ION), annc'd in Dec? still have not shipped (I thought they would probably be too pricey anyway)... I hope these "late 2Q" estimates for ION don't follow a similar trend.

I worked in the semiconductor industry for 5 years before going to law school. This is a somewhat common practice; it isn't something to be alarmed about. One of my previous employers had a similar issue -a significant number of chips that had higher leakage than the spec would allow for mobile applications. They also packaged these chips up for use in desktop, always plugged in applications. Certain portions of the wafer and certain lots of wafers bin out higher than others at probe, this is the reality of semiconductor manufacturing. In many ways, this is no different than how processor speed grades get binned out, i.e., they don't design a 2.2 GHz part, a 2.4 GHz part and a 2.6 GHz part. They design a 2.6 GHz part and bin the different speed grades out.

I don't believe that there is anything to worry about as far as reliability or functionality go. These parts (if the Inquirer's assertion is even true, which is questionable based on his overt hatred for Nvidia) most likely draw an extra watt or two, which isn't a huge concern. In some ways this is a good thing, Apple probably pays a price premium for their chips (once again, if this is even true), which makes the other chips cheaper. The alternative is to throw the higher power consumption chips out, driving up the price for everyone.

I think that you are trading price premium and CPU power for size and thermal envelope. I think that one of the commenters on the article stated that using a C2D over the Atom significantly increases the required PCB size.

I don't think Charlie's point was really much about the 9400, more about why bother using Atom when a much more powerful cheapass Celeron would perform better, still have a realistic thermal profile for the box (since it's not a tiny laptop) and come very close in component price.

-Trouble

I think the article is a little over the top emotionally. I'm holding judgment until we're certain on MSRP. It's difficult to judge ION's value until we know its price.

The article says that the Atom TDP is 4W, plus 12-15W for the Ion chipset -- 16-20W total. The Celeron TDP is 35W, plus 12-15W for the Ion chipset -- 47-50W total.

The article is slightly deceptive in how it presents the numbers, adding the chipset power requirements to the Atom CPU power requirements, while not doing the same for the Celeron. This has the effect of making the comparison look like it is 16-20W v. 35W, whereas it is really 16-20W v. 47-50W. Put simply, one Celeron based system would consume the same amount of power as two Atom based systems. Either number is fairly low from a cost-to-run perspective. I think that the lower power consumption of the Atom-setup will help significantly reduce any cooling noise associated with keeping the components in such close proximity.

I do agree that the single core doesn't seem like a good fit. Are there going to be different versions that use single core and dual core Atoms? I also think that using this box as a regular desktop computer may be a little ambitious. From an HTPC perspective, with video-related acceleration being what it is on the Nvidia GPUs, I'm not sure that much more is needed. However, I don't view Hulu or Flash.

Most of the configuration tables I've seen suggest dual-core will be available, as well as differing amts of RAM (as yet unknown if the RAM is user-upgradeable, or soldered to the mobo)

As for a-step-above-atom version of ION.. are there any mini-ATX boards with a 9x00 GPU yet? The micro-ATX mobos with 9400 are 66% as much by themselves (no CPU/memory/HD) as some reports suggest the complete entry-level ION systems will be.

But I'm not holding my breath on the $150 entry point some rumors suggest (but very willing to be pleasantly surprised ;) )

To be fair, TDP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_Design_Power) is not the same as power consumption. We shouldn't infer power consumption based on TDP figures.

A UK website is pre-listing the Acer Aspire Revo with prices, with a release date of 5/18/09. Unfortunately, they don't have any dual core models listed.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/13/acer-aspire-revo-now-up-for-pre-order-in-uk-with-may-18th-releas/

LOL, Asus has now announced the B208... http://www.liliputing.com/2009/03/asus-launches-eee-box-b208-with-windows-vista-and-hd-video.html

1.6GHz Intel Atom 330 CPU+ATI Radeon HD 4350

I still can't find the B204 or B206 (annc'd back in Dec) for sale anywhere.. does froogle, etc, limit results to the US (for folks it thinks live in the US) ?

A UK website is pre-listing the Acer Aspire Revo with prices, with a release date of 5/18/09. Unfortunately, they don't have any dual core models listed.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/13/acer-aspire-revo-now-up-for-pre-order-in-uk-with-may-18th-releas/

For anyone in the US, just replace the Pound sign with a Dollar sign, that's roughly the prices you can expect (I know the exchange rate is not 1:1, but when comparing prices it usually is 1US$=1 Uk Pound).

For a small silent Linux based HTPC front-end the entry level model looks very attractive indeed, 8GB SSD is more than enough for the OS install and 1GB RAM is fine for a Linux based front-end (although 2GB would be better given that the GPU will eat at least 256MB).

And no Microsoft tax with the base model! :)

I very much hope that the RAM is user upgradable, though!

Pretty awesome that they put an SSD in there!

http://gizmodo.com/5204432/acer-revo-and-nvidia-ion-hands-on-flawless-blu+ray-playback-changes-cheap-computers-forever

But let's just jump into the impressive part: It played back an Blu-ray movie with an average video bitrate of 28 megabits per second—peaking around 36—smoothly and basically flawlessly.

*Drool*

Snippet in there too saying that Flash & Silverlight GPU acceleration for H264 video *might* show up in June... (Hulu HD... YouTube HD...) I'm sure it'll come to Windows first but hoping it'll show up for Linux...

That's because Flash and Silverlight, the two major mediums of web video, don't use graphics acceleration yet, though Nvidia's hoping they will by the time Revo and other Ion products—of which there are at least 40 in the pipeline—ship (probably) around June, since it would give Nvidia that much more leverage in the netbook space.
Flash performance is really the only bottleneck in any HTPC atm, so I'm *hoping* that they get serious about VDPAU, too.

Here's an early review at PCMag.com.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345617,00.asp

more Acer Revo details:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/04/24/acer_revo_storage_switch/

it appears the RAM is in 2 dimm slots, so the 1GB version should be upgradeable.

I will wait for a different ION based mini PC though, as the Acer Revo is lacking a spdif output (my receiver doesn't have hdmi, only spdif).

This Zotac ION Mini-ITX mobo looks very interesting too (depending on pricing):

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/21/zotac-jumping-in-ion-filled-waters-with-new-mini-itx-motherboard/

vga+dvi+hdmi+spdif, 2 DIMM slots and passive cooling and dual core Atom!

More Zotac specs --> http://en.expreview.com/2009/04/20/zotacs-atom-based-m-itx-mobos-for-ion-platform-in-the-works.html

A review of the AspireRevo on Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/28/acer-aspirerevo-review/#continued .. mostly good but noting the glaring issue of Flash not being accelerated for the non-Myth-centric HTPC crowd.

Are any of these Ion solutions actually available for purchase? I'm looking for a secondary MythTV frontend, which these would be perfect for.

The Acer Aspire Revo products are coming out in early May in some parts of Europe, mid-May in others. I haven't heard anything definite, but the assumption is that they will be available in mid-May in the US as well.

One interesting thing is I keep seeing references to nVidia and Adobe both being quoted as saying they are "working on it" with regard to Flash acceleration... and yet I am not finding any info on this outside the ION review articles... anyone finding any concrete info?

Here is another review of the Acer Aspire Revo:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Acer-Aspire-Revo-SFF-NVIDIA-Ion-PC/?page=1

One interesting note, the last page says that the US release will be late-June. If true, why are we getting screwed in the US?

Here is another review of the Acer Aspire Revo:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Acer-Aspire-Revo-SFF-NVIDIA-Ion-PC/?page=1

One interesting note, the last page says that the US release will be late-June. If true, why are we getting screwed in the US?

That and the guess-timated pricing We'd guess that the Aspire Revo will come in somewhere around $349 to $399 at that price I'm still able to easily assemble a full C2D system (tho not at the same size, I fully admit).. hopefully their guesstimate is wrong... and or one would imagine you could buy that Zotac mini and build a system still saving $100.

Their estimated price makes sense for the higher end models, however, I am interested in the bottom end one.

Their estimated price makes sense for the higher end models, however, I am interested in the bottom end one.

Agreed on both points.

Bit-Tech.net: First Look: Zotac Nvidia Ion Mini-ITX (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009/05/02/first-look-zotac-nvidia-ion-mini-itx/1)
Because it's more than just a motherboard - it's a mini-ITX starter kit.

In the box we get not only the motherboard and the usual smattering of cable extras, but also a 90W DC-DC power brick too!
That's pretty cool. The DC-DC components are built-in to the MB. The AC/DC power brick (not DC-DC as the above quote suggests) plugs right in.

Hmmm, the Zotac option is looking more and more attractive to me. While I like the Ion's compact size and think that it would be useful for HTPCs in other parts of the house, my current entertainment center would look silly without something to fill the position currently filled by my HTPC. With so many choices, it's a good time to be fiddling with Linux and HTPCs.

Hmmm, the Zotac option is looking more and more attractive to me.

I agree, my only concern is the price which seems slightly high to me for an Atom board, even with the PSU included...

I agree, my only concern is the price which seems slightly high to me for an Atom board, even with the PSU included...

I agree re: price. There's also no pcie/pci expansion slot. And it looks like a Realtek NIC chip (based on this photo (http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2009/05/first-look-zotac-nvidia-ion-mini-itx/6-8.jpg)).

But 3 sata ports is nice...

I looked around briefly and couldn't find anything - has anyone cracked open the acer ION thing yet?

I agree re: price. There's also no pcie/pci expansion slot. And it looks like a Realtek NIC chip (based on this photo (http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2009/05/first-look-zotac-nvidia-ion-mini-itx/6-8.jpg)).

But 3 sata ports is nice...

I looked around briefly and couldn't find anything - has anyone cracked open the acer ION thing yet?

I guess we have different plans for it in mind, I don't care about sata ports or pci/pci-e slots, I'm planning an as-small-as-possible, silent and low-power front-end to replace my Popcorn-Hour (which has too many limitations and bugs), with all media on an exsisting NFS server accessed over wired ethernet.
So the only things I would add to the Zotac is a case, a SSD or CF boot disk and 2 GB of RAM (1GB would be enough for the purpose too, but RAM is so cheap these days...)..

My ideal system would actually be the Nvidia reference design shown in the first post of this thread.

The only reason I'm not considering the Revo is because it's lacking spdif audio out, which I need.

I'm a bit torn myself, I have an Omaura TF8 case that looks great in my current entertainment system (I know, I know, but you need to respect the wife/girlfriend factor). The lack of a dual core Atom option for the Revo has also turned me off. Does anyone have an estimated availability date for the Zotac boards in the US?

I guess we have different plans for it in mind...
Well, I don't have ANY plans for it right now. I'm just sayin'...

@ drkdiggler:
You can buy the Zotac GF9300-D-E mini ITX board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500022) for $145 from newegg today. And put whatever low-powered LGA775 CPU you want in it or have left over from some other system. It won't be as low-powered as the ION, but you can build it now.

A couple more, but no specs: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12024/asrock_and_pegatron_nv_ion_systems_go_on_display/index.html

Are they going to be able to make this thing mobile too? (or is heat too much of an issue)

Wondering if I can't get the semi-permanent ION netbook that will stay mostly connected to HTPC for playback, surfing, but could also come along on a trip (when I wouldn't be home to watch my HTPC anyway)

A couple more, but no specs: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12024/asrock_and_pegatron_nv_ion_systems_go_on_display/index.html

More pictures and details of the ASRock ION 330 here:

http://en.expreview.com/2009/05/05/asrock-ion-330-specs-detailed.html

with spdif and hdmi and integrated slim dvd and the atom 300 (dual core) this one looks VERY interesting, but as usual, the price will be decisive.

Jay_S:
The Atom's low power is the big driver for me, so unfortunately, that motherboard won't cut it, unless you can tell me where I can buy a dual-core Atom to plug in.

drkdiggler:

I was initially attracted to the ION for the same power-consumption reasons. But thinking about it, does that matter that much for a front end? My front ends sleep or are shutdown when not in use. Say you save 25W over a LGA775 + Geforce 9400 system. That's a marginal cost of $0.003 / hour based on rates in my area.

SPCR reviewed the Asus P5N7A-VM with an E7200 (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article892-page5.html), which peaked at 54W during blu-ray disk playback. According to hothardware.com's review (http://hothardware.com/Articles/Acer-Aspire-Revo-SFF-NVIDIA-Ion-PC/?page=9), the Acer revo peaked at 29W. A difference of roughly 25W. This is obviously not an apples-to-apples comparison, but whatever - we already know the ION uses less power. I'm suggesting that the ION's frugality may not make financial sense.

I'm still waiting for some retail pricing. That's going to make/break the ION for me.

Jay_S:
Thank you for throwing this out there. The economics related to the power consumption difference don't matter much (my utilities are included in my rent), however, power consumption is important to me for a few reasons: less noise (no power supply fan(s), passive cooling or infrequent fan use for Ion) and saving power for the sake of saving power.

On the first point, the location where I keep my HTPC is very cramped and provides crappy airflow. This has resulted in higher temperatures than I would like, which has resulted in the fans being semi-audible.

On the second point, although I try to save energy where I can, I haven't had much success with using sleep or shutting down the frontend. As a result, I leave my frontend on all of the time, so the 25W or so difference, becomes significant over 24/7/365 operation.

On a somewhat related point, my current motherboard has a GeForce 8200 onboard which can do almost everything with VDPAU except for running the hardware deinterlacer in MythTV. I figure that I am going to have to buy a new video card anyway, so I can probably get pretty close to the purchase price of an Ion board by selling off my motherboard, processor, and power supply anyway.

Thanks for the food for thought.

Jay_S:
Thank you for throwing this out there. The economics related to the power consumption difference don't matter much (my utilities are included in my rent), however, power consumption is important to me for a few reasons: less noise (no power supply fan(s), passive cooling or infrequent fan use for Ion) and saving power for the sake of saving power.
<snip>
On a somewhat related point, my current motherboard has a GeForce 8200 onboard which can do almost everything with VDPAU except for running the hardware deinterlacer in MythTV. I figure that I am going to have to buy a new video card anyway, so I can probably get pretty close to the purchase price of an Ion board by selling off my motherboard, processor, and power supply anyway.
These are all great reasons. It's really too bad about the 8200/8300 - those boards are priced so well (compared to their 9300/9400 intel cousins).

Bit-Tech.net: First Look: Zotac Nvidia Ion Mini-ITX (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009/05/02/first-look-zotac-nvidia-ion-mini-itx/1)

That's pretty cool. The DC-DC components are built-in to the MB. The AC/DC power brick (not DC-DC as the above quote suggests) plugs right in.

On a lark I tried "nvidia ion" in Froogle.... FadFusion listed the Zotac board (with the N330) as out of stock, but for $205. Ouch. The N230 mobo for $147.

Changing the search to zotac ion, confirms the magnitude of these crazy prices. :(

mini-itx.com has 2 versions up for pre-order:

Zotac ION-ITX-B with the Atom N230 (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=53&currency=2): $175.53
(Note: this one does NOT include the power brick - look at the pics, there's a standard ATX power connector on the back)

Zotac ION-ITX-A Wi-Fi Dual Core 1.6GHz Atom N330 (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53#ION-ITX-A): $234.53
(this one includes the AC/DC brick and some other stuff)

Ouch is right!

Definitely a shame about the 8200/8300 boards; I'm big on AMD processors. I ripped my first Blu-Ray disc today (The Dark Knight) and can confirm that the onboard 8200 can't hit full framerate in XBMC. CPU utilization is under 10% with the framerate varying between 19-21 fps. Enabling VDPAU noise reduction drops the framerate by 1-3 additional fps.

At these prices you can pick up a Mini-ITX N330 board http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121360 for $82 and a 9400 PCI ($20 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133247

Most of the mini-ITX cases all appear to come with a PSU anyway (so getting a PSU with the Zotac doesn't save any $$)....

Looks like the closest thing to ION from ATI (EEE B206.. EEE Box PC with ATI gfx) isn't all that hot (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/07/review_desktop_pc_asus_eee_box_b206/) :(

I know folks generally prefer nvidia anyway, but would have been nice to see this space (small HD-capable boxes) have as many options as possible.

What's the deal with the 8200 boards? I just ordered one to replace a 6150 board. I thought they worked fine with vdpau.

What's the deal with the 8200 boards? I just ordered one to replace a 6150 board. I thought they worked fine with vdpau.
AFAIK, the 8200/8300 boards:
1) work fine for progressive material, but don't have sufficient muscle for advanced (spatial/temporal) HD deinterlacing.
2) have (or had - maybe it's fixed now?) issues in XBMC. There's posts all over this massive xbmc.org (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=45525) thread about this. But to be fair, I haven't kept up with that issue since I don't actually own one of the affected boards.

^^^ Well that stinks. I was looking at 8200/8300s also, to replace my ATI card. But my only real complaint about the ATI card is that it doesn't do hardware deinterlace and I don't have enough CPU to handle deinterlacing of HD material.

BTW, has anyone tried deinterlacing HD material with the new ffmpeg-mt (multithread) build and a new core 4 CPU????


Perhaps we'd all be better off getting a new core4 cpu and doing the deinterlacing in SW...

^^^ Well that stinks. I was looking at 8200/8300s also, to replace my ATI card. But my only real complaint about the ATI card is that it doesn't do hardware deinterlace and I don't have enough CPU to handle deinterlacing of HD material.

BTW, has anyone tried deinterlacing HD material with the new ffmpeg-mt (multithread) build and a new core 4 CPU????


Perhaps we'd all be better off getting a new core4 cpu and doing the deinterlacing in SW...
Hmm... just replace your ATI card with a 9500GT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+106792522+1295318921+1067942535&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=) and spend the $$$ difference (vs a quad core CPU) on beer.

I have a MB with GeForce 8200 GPU. VDPAU works perfectly for me in MythTV and mplayer. Only XBMC has problems.

As for deinterlacing, I use Temporal (1x,hw) for 1080i, and Advanced (1x,hw) for 480i. Works fine for me.

-- Kevin

Confirmed for Temporal (1x,hw) with 1080i. I had tried Advanced (1x,hw) and Advanced (2x,hw) without any success. k_ross, have you been successful with either of those deinterlacers?

Advanced 1x at 1080i is too slow, the video lags behind. And I assumed I couldn't use any of the 2x deinterlacers, since it says I need to be running at a refresh rate at least double that of the source. I'm running my display at 60Hz.

-- Kevin

Hmm... just replace your ATI card with a 9500GT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+106792522+1295318921+1067942535&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=) and spend the $$$ difference (vs a quad core CPU) on beer.

Unfortunately, my current MB is AGP not PCI-E and there's no such thing as either an AGP or PCI version of the 9500GT (at least I haven't been able to find any). However, there are 8200/8300 versions in PCI.

So I either need to find a PCI card or upgrade to a new MB/CPU and everything else. In which case I'd like to try getting away with just on-board video, but I've only been able to find 8200/8300 versions on-board, no 9xxx series stuff.

Finally, I also do enough transcoding that I can benefit from as much CPU as I can afford. So if I'm going to be forced down the new MB road and I can get the CPU to handle the deinterlacing and just use on-board video, I'd rather go that route than to dump money into an expensive video board that has a bunch of gaming features that I don't want and will never use.

Newegg to the rescue (PCI 9500GT):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814139046

^^^ That sure complicates my decision.

I think I'm still leaning towards a new MB since I've been putting off upgrading for so long.

I'm not sure I want to dump $100 into this old unit and there's a couple of other improvements that I would get from a new MB (faster SATA ports and hopefully an audio chip that has better support than the old VIA chip on my MB).

I guess what I'm really hoping to find is a MB with a 9xxx chipset on board.

There are several motherboard with 9xxx chipset onboard for Intel CPUs. Unfortunately, AMD motherboards are limited to the 8xxx series.

The 8xxx GPU architechture is the same as 9xxx GPU architecture.
(16 g86 steam processors), so there is no limitations in the GPU itself.

However AMD's memory controller is integrated in the CPU (Hyper Transport).
If you have a AM2+ CPU (Phenom or Athlon x2 7x50) with HT3.0 support the performance is equal to the Geforce 9300/9400 board.

This fact makes AMD athlon x2 4850e a bad choice for HTPC.
Lets hope the new 45W quad cores will come into production :)

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13564&Itemid=35

^^^ Well that stinks. I was looking at 8200/8300s also, to replace my ATI card. But my only real complaint about the ATI card is that it doesn't do hardware deinterlace and I don't have enough CPU to handle deinterlacing of HD material.


The 8200 MB (4200+) works fine with my 720p TV and mythtv.

The 8xxx GPU architechture is the same as 9xxx GPU architecture.
There are differences in the IGP's. Per anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3432):

The 9X00 is built on a 65nm process and has 16 shader processors
The 8X00 is built on a 90nm process and has 8 shader processors

@Mac The Knife:
If you're transcoding, pairing a low-end intel quad with a 9300/9400 IGP motherboard would be a great combo. Not the cheapest, though. I'd def avoid the ION for transcoding!

There must be an error in the Anandtech article.

All other sites claims 16 stream processors.

Can someone with a 8200 chipset comfirm with GPU-Z ? :)

Link to other sites (sorry for double post was not allowed to post URL)

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=6&id=2494


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14323002#post14323002
I am not sure what kind of power you are talking about, but basically these GPU are identical. All of 8400 GS, 8200/8300, 9300/9400 include:

- The same hardware HD video decoder PureVideo HD Gen3 that has enough power for decoding all three formats MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264, except 8400 GS (G86) which uses the older PureVideo Gen2 (no VC-1 HA)!
- 16 stream processors of the same architecture

The only difference between a discrete card and IGP is local frame buffer vs. shared memory frame buffer. (Yup, memory is the most difficult part in the AMD platform.) These GPUs are all weak in deinterlacing (as well as 3D performance) because of scanty stream processors.

- 8400 GS (G86): PureVideo HD Gen2, 16 sp, Core/Shader 459/918 (The majority of retail 8400 GS cards are still G86!)
- 8400 GS (G98): PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 567/1400
- GeForce 8200: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 500/1200
- GeForce 8300: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 500/1500
- GeForce 9300: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 450/1200
- GeForce 9400: PureVideo HD Gen3, 16 sp, Core/Shader 580/1500

Summary

GeForce 8200/8300 is powerful enough to playback BD movies!!

There must be an error in the Anandtech article.

All other sites claims 16 stream processors.
You're right - using google image search for 8200 8300 gpuz shows either zero or 16 stream processors (the zero results are most likely before gpu-z was been updated to support the 8x00 series). I wonder how anandtech screwed that one up? Maybe their review was using a pre-production sample? Oddly, you can't find definitive information on this at Nvidia's site!

There are differences in the IGP's. Per anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3432):

The 9X00 is built on a 65nm process and has 16 shader processors
The 8X00 is built on a 90nm process and has 8 shader processors

@Mac The Knife:
If you're transcoding, pairing a low-end intel quad with a 9300/9400 IGP motherboard would be a great combo. Not the cheapest, though. I'd def avoid the ION for transcoding!

Yes, I've been completely off-topic with my ramblings.

I was never interested in the ION, but the related vdpau comments sent me off on a tangent.

I apologize for hi-jacking the thread.

Zotac IONITX-A...

Finally reviewed:

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Zotac-NVIDIA-Ion-Motherboard/

Another review:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16893

EDIT: And another one:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562

EDIT #2: Can't forget Tom's Hardware!

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/zotac-ion-atom,2300.html

Interesting reviews, although they just confirm what was to be expected from the specs.

What would be really interesting now is a review or report from someone installing Linux on it, preferably for HTPC purposes!

Who's the first one to jump? :cool:

I would have liked to, but since I just had to buy a new mobo+gpu+cpu+ram for my desktop PC after the old mobo died, I currently can't justify another PC related expense... :(

I'm ready to buy one as soon as it is available. Does anyone have a definitive availability date?

I'm ready to buy one as soon as it is available. Does anyone have a definitive availability date?

I just can't see buying an ION when you can get the ZOTAC 9300 mini-itx plus a C2D for almost the same price as the ZOTAC ION board.. and certainly not for (my) HTPC use until the Flash situation is remedied with a VDPAU version (I realize a significant segment of folks are more concerned with Myth vs. Flash).. ie. if the size of my build box isn't going to be any smaller.. I'll go for the C2D system.

A tiny pre-fab N330 Hornet (or whatever its called this week) for $200.. ok, that might interest me just for the gee-wiz factor :)

EDIT: $20 rebate on the Zotac mini-itx 9300 (socket 775) now... finger is on the trigger....

if the size of my build box isn't going to be any smaller.. I'll go for the C2D system.


For some people (like myself) it's not just a matter of size, but also of quietness, it's much easier to run the Atom+ION passively cooled without fans than a C2D, especially in a small mini-ITX case.

If the Zotac ION-ITX-A will retail at 180USD like some of the reviews mentioned, then a complete system won't cost much more than 200USD either, all it needs is some RAM and a case (the power supply comes with the mobo), and possibly a hdd, but I have so many lying around that I wouldn't need to buy one and it could be run diskless network booting off the back-end server, too.

For some people (like myself) it's not just a matter of size, but also of quietness, it's much easier to run the Atom+ION passively cooled without fans than a C2D, especially in a small mini-ITX case.

If the Zotac ION-ITX-A will retail at 180USD like some of the reviews mentioned, then a complete system won't cost much more than 200USD either, all it needs is some RAM and a case (the power supply comes with the mobo), and possibly a hdd, but I have so many lying around that I wouldn't need to buy one and it could be run diskless network booting off the back-end server, too.

Everyone keeps mentioning that that PSU is included in the mobo cost, and sorta free, but at the same time, I was assembling a mini-ITX wishlist system at newegg (based on the 9300/C2D Zotac mini-ITX), and don't recall seeing a single mini-ITX case that came without a PSU (I just re-checked.. .only 1 case out of 32 @ newegg is PSU-less and it costs more than many that have a PSU)... so now you just have a spare PSU, not any saved $$ :( Maybe that'll change if more mobo's adopt the same idea, I dunno.

So right now the C2D Zotac is $60 cheaper... but no proc.. add in the E5200 (bottom of what I would think is reasonable), and the price is a wash for the mobo+cpu, and the case price is a wash (until they sell PSU-less cases).. shrug. So then its a matter of quiet vs. how much fan noise will an E5200 produce (while giving 3x the CPU muscle).. honestly I dunno, and can't say that the muscle is needed depending on how much of the tasks are VDPAU enabled.

Don't get me wrong, I think ION is a great idea.. I just think $180 is way off base for the mobo.

mini-box.com has a few really cool mini-itx cases, some of which don't come with a PSU.

I especially like this one:

http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure?sc=8&category=87

Looks like Newegg has some of the Zotac boards in stock!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=zotac+ion

Looks like Newegg has some of the Zotac boards in stock!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=zotac+ion

It says Atom N230. Is that the dual-core? I thought that was 330?

Anyway, I see that Zotac board is fanless. Cool! That would work perfectly with the case I listed above. Add in an SSD, and that makes for a completely silent system!

Looks like Newegg has some of the Zotac boards in stock!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=zotac+ion

The dual-core version (ION-ITX-A) is still missing.

I am also waiting on the dual core (N330), I hope that it will be available shortly. Newegg has a number of mini-PCI Express SSDs available that would fit well in the on-board slot. The combo should make a nice, silent unit.

I am also waiting on the dual core (N330), I hope that it will be available shortly. Newegg has a number of mini-PCI Express SSDs available that would fit well in the on-board slot. The combo should make a nice, silent unit.

According to this German/Swiss webtailer the dual core version will be available on the 27th of May:

http://www.imsuperstore.de/it-outlet/VERSION_2.0.9/shop.exe?file=productdetail.htm&sku=W830138

They already have the single core that newegg has in stock too, that means the expected date for the dual core is likely the same for the US:

http://www.imsuperstore.de/it-outlet/VERSION_2.0.9/shop.exe?file=productdetail.htm&sku=W830137

I agree though, the prices are slightly high, I hope and expect they will drop in a month or two after the release.

EDIT: I just found that intel is charging a 1k Unit Price of 43$ for the dual-core, that's quite a lot for such a puny processor and explains partly the price of the mobo: http://ark.intel.com/cpugroup.aspx?familyID=29035

Don't know about pricing or availability, but you could put a blu-ray in the ASRock ION 330 --> http://www.asrock.com/nettop/spec/ION%20330.asp

LOL, "Slime type"

I have the impression that within 3 months or so we will be spoiled for choice with regards to Atom+ION products.
Hopefully all that competition will also mean that prices will drop quickly from the initial RRP.

I think the new top of the range PopcornHour that Syabas is allegedly working on will have a hard time competing with all these ION devices, especially considering they still haven't fixed many software bugs that have been plagueing the PCH since it's release, while for an ION there are now several fully featured and good looking media center environments like XBMC, Elisa and the good old Mythtv available.

Here is an interesting more in-depth look at the Zotac dual core Atom+ION board:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3566

Subjects covered:

- Wake on USB: Flaky at Best
- Zotac Ion: 720p Gaming Performance
- Watching Flash Video on the Ion
- Overclocking the Atom Processor
- Cooling the Zotac Ion
- Blu-ray and Gaming Power Consumption

(of course all from a Windows perspective...)

Looks like flash playback is going to be a real deal-breaker even on the dual-core atom.

Looks like flash playback is going to be a real deal-breaker even on the dual-core atom.

Yes, that's why I like the competition from Silverlight/Moonlight, it will hopefully eventually induce Adobe to do something about their inefficient flash video code.

It's only a dealbreaker for those who care about flash on their HTPC though, I'd only use it to play back locally stored media files, I have no interest in watching internet flash video streams on it.

XBMC on Ion @ 1920x1080 --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv1Q_DWieAQ

And, of course, the Benny Hillified version --> http://james.nerdiphythesoul.com/bennyhillifier/?id=rv1Q_DWieAQ

:)

Lenovo ION netbook: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/25/lenovos-ion-powered-ideapad-s12-shows-hd-prowess-on-video/

I'm audi.

All four models of the Zotac board are now available and in stock at Newegg.

All four models of the Zotac board are now available and in stock at Newegg.

Yup. I see the long awaited "A" version of the SKU... $199.99 + S/H...

Cheers,
Kermee

The "A" version includes 90w PSU. The "D" version is without, for $20 cheaper.

Edit: Just noticed, why does the "D" version have a faster FSB than the "A" version? 667 MHz vs 533 MHz.

The "A" version includes 90w PSU. The "D" version is without, for $20 cheaper.

Edit: Just noticed, why does the "D" version have a faster FSB than the "A" version? 667 MHz vs 533 MHz.

FSB is a misprint. All Intel Atoms have a default FSB of either 533 or 400 MHz. 667 MHz probably refers to compatible DDR2 memory type, which is either 667 or 800 MHz.

Cheers,
Kermee

EDIT: I lied. Some Intel Atom's have FSB's of 400 MHz.

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=29035

Rest assured, 230 & 330's are FSB 533.

Quick update, I finally got a chance to fire up the IONITX-A-U last night. It was truly plug and play. I unplugged my old motherboard and plugged the hard drive into the new Ion board. Everything fired up and ran well. I can now use the Advanced 2x Hardware deinterlacer in MythTV as well as watch Blu-Rays at full speed in XBMC. I did have an issue initially, however, it seems to have been related to my refresh/resolution settings in XBMC. A few notes:

By default the video memory is set to 256 MB, however, it can be bumped up to 512 MB in BIOS. I'm not sure whether this matters much with the new drivers.
The mini PCIe WiFi card is half height. I have a SuperTalent mini PCIe SSD on the way. I will let you guys know whether the BIOS will allow me to boot from it.

drkdiggler thanks for the report. Please keep us updated about any flaws or also positive things you notice about the IONITX-A-U with Linux.

I'm very tempted to get it too, but I can't currently find a valid excuse to justify the expense with my wife... (maybe I should pretend the PopcornHour is broken :) )

Does suspend-to-RAM work with it and Linux?

What case did you settle for?

Do you run it completely passive or do you use the fan? What are the temps like?

I will keep you posted. As for the case, I am sticking with my old case, the Omaura TF8:

http://www.cpu3d.com/review/2336-1/omaura-tf-8-htpc-chassis/introduction.html

I was originally tempted to wait for the Acer Aspire Revo, but my entertainment system wouldn't look "balanced" without another box in the second bay. The IONITX is very small, a vast majority of the case is empty. The large hole in the back, where my power supply used to be is funny as well.

Gang:

Major bummer -- the following SSD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609413

is not detected AT ALL by the IONITX-A-U when plugged into the mini PCIe slot. I am hoping that Zotac will release a new BIOS that includes such functionality.

Gang:

Major bummer -- the following SSD:

http://www.jdoqocy.com/image-3136390-10521304http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609413 (http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-3136390-10521304?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newegg.com%2FProduct%2FProduct .aspx%3FItem%3DN82E16820609413)

is not detected AT ALL by the IONITX-A-U when plugged into the mini PCIe slot. I am hoping that Zotac will release a new BIOS that includes such functionality.
I halfway expected such a problem with a PCIe SSD. This will take some time IMO.

Also, I've heard that firefox is quite sluggish on Atom CPU's (it IS quite beefy) and that Google's Chrome browser is considerably faster (even though it is still in alpha and doesn't support the flash plugin or several security features). So, I'd be interested to hear of your experiences in this area, as well, once you get everything set up.

I halfway expected such a problem with a PCIe SSD. This will take some time IMO.

Also, I've heard that firefox is quite sluggish on Atom CPU's (it IS quite beefy) and that Google's Chrome browser is considerably faster (even though it is still in alpha and doesn't support the flash plugin or several security features). So, I'd be interested to hear of your experiences in this area, as well, once you get everything set up.

Much of this article is for screen real-estate on a netbook, some the speedup tricks might help for any Atom based design: http://www.ubuntumini.com/2008/11/customizing-firefox-for-netbooks.html

I also suspected an issue, but for $50, hoped to be pleasantly surprised.

Well, I have decided that I can't wait for Zotac to provide SSD mini PCIe functionality so I have ordered a SATA SSD drive. I plan on re-doing my HTPC from scratch as I have run into issues as I have done a lot of learning (and screwing things up) on this HTPC. For those of you interested in the board and how it performs, I will keep you posted. Note however that I have a narrow profile of what I use my HTPC for, i.e., strictly XBMC and MythTV frontend (backend runs on a VM on my server). For those of you who use their HTPC in the same way, I hope that I can help your decision in whether or not to buy the IONITX-A-U. For those of you with a broader use case, YMMV.

Thanks, I'm looking forward to further details of your experience.
Especially working suspend-to-RAM is crucial for me.

Thanks for the info!

I plan on springing for one of these, as soon as they are back in stock. The price isn't that steep, until I included the Blu-ray drive. A $250 BD drive drives the total price way up!

I have a 4GB SSD that I took out of my EeePC. I upgraded to Super Talent 64GB SSD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609407). I'd like to see if it works, but I plan on also getting a regular HD for it too.

1st review of the ASRock ION 330-BD Nettop is up at TweakTown (http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2792/asrock_ion_330_bd_nettop_affordable_overclockable_and_1080p_ hd/index.html)

Some interesting things:
Overclocking of the dual core Atom to 2.1ghz, 24% increase
40W peak comsuption in tests
$399 USD RRP for non BD drive model
Instant Boot utility to boot to windows OS in 4 seconds
Doesnt come with an OS

Just a quick update, I mounted up the hardware last night and did a minimal install of Ubuntu. I have yet to install any X Windows components. A few notes:

I "aligned" my partition to the SSD erase block using a guide from the OCZ forums, which supposedly makes writes a lot faster. It makes logical sense, in Flash you have to rewrite an entire erase block. Alignment is supposed to synchronize your partition and therefore file system blocks with the erase blocks in the device, minimizing the number of blocks that are being re-written.

lm-sensors does not detect any sensors on the board. I'm not familiar enough with the Atom CPU to know whether or not it has its own on-die thermal sensor. However, there is a Nvidia command that you can issue to get the temperature of the GPU. Since the CPU and GPU are tied to the same heatsink, assuming that the heatsink's heat conductivity is high, the CPU and GPU should be at about the same temperature.

Sitting in my case with no ventilation whatsoever, the CPU/GPU gets very hot -- 65C when playing around in BIOS and doing the install. I grabbed the temperature by quickly rebooting and going into the BIOS hardware monitor (maybe BIOS is pulling from GPU, it only shows one temperature). Once again, keep in mind that this is with absolutely no moving air. I must have underestimated the effect that the PSU fan has on lowering temperatures. That being said, I think that a very slow moving case fan alone should be able to drop the temperatures significantly. The crappy little fan that comes with the board drops the temperatures to the low 30C range very quickly.

I can post pics if anyone wants to see the hardware layout within my case.

I can post pics if anyone wants to see the hardware layout within my case.
:cool:

What kind of case is it mounted in? Does it have lots of vents to let the hot air out? Does it get just as hot with the cover off?

drkdiggler, thanks for the additional info, can you please test if suspend-to-ram works?
That's crucial for me.

That ASRock ION 330 seems very interesting too, and competitively priced with the Zotac mobo.

Edit for an update: the ASROCK ION 330 is already available in stock in Switzerland priced at approx. 350USD (with free shipping), not bad at all...
http://www.internet.ch/en/922789_ASRock_ION330_schwarz_Mini-PC,_Intel_Atom_330_1,6_GHz,2GB_DDR2-RAM,320GB_HD,NVID.html

tux99:

I don't typically use suspend to RAM, but I am happy to test. I did switch standby mode in RAM to STR, which I am assuming is suspend to RAM. Should I be testing it at a certain point during operation? Right now I have only progressed as far as doing a minimal install of Ubuntu, would it make more sense to test when I have XBMC or MythTV running? Let me know.

tux99:

I don't typically use suspend to RAM, but I am happy to test. I did switch standby mode in RAM to STR, which I am assuming is suspend to RAM. Should I be testing it at a certain point during operation? Right now I have only progressed as far as doing a minimal install of Ubuntu, would it make more sense to test when I have XBMC or MythTV running? Let me know.

Yes STR is suspend to RAM. I think if it works at an idle desktop it will work with open apps too, at least that's my experience (I found so far it either works anytime with a PC or it doesn't work at all), but if you can test it with XBMC running that would be even better.
The suspend usually works, it's the subsequent resume that fails with some PCs/mobos, so that's the crucial bit.

For clarification, the coolioticon meant YES, I would like to see pics of said build.

I will try to post some images tonight.

Tux99:
I don't think that STR is working properly on the board. I used two different commands to test:

sudo /etc/acpi/sleep.sh

sudo pmi action suspend

Under either command, the DVD drive activity light flashes a few times, then the display blanks. However, my SSH section stays active; I can also disconnect that session and reconnect. Let me know if I screwed something up.

I will try to post some images tonight.
thx...no rush

Time for the Summer Solstice Fair (http://fremontfair.org/)! Anti-Cheney parades, nekkid bicyclists, crafts workshops, hippie chicks... make it so!

I don't think that STR is working properly on the board. I used two different commands to test:

sudo /etc/acpi/sleep.sh

sudo pmi action suspend

Under either command, the DVD drive activity light flashes a few times, then the display blanks. However, my SSH section stays active; I can also disconnect that session and reconnect. Let me know if I screwed something up.

It doesn't sound like STR is working with this mobo. :(

Although I cannot confirm that you are tring to put the PC into STR correctly (I don't use Ubuntu and those exact commands don't exist on Mandriva), I guess they are correct. Maybe some Ubuntu user here who uses STR can confirm this or tell us how he/she does it?

I generally put my PC into STR from KDE 3.5 by right-clicking the KPowersave icon on the main KDE panel and then click on "suspend to RAM". Never bothered to find out how to do it from CLI.

I installed KPowersave and gave it a shot: no dice. The motherboard exhibited the same behavior except this time it wouldn't accept SSH connections. But I was unable to get the machine to come out of suspend. Sorry.

I installed KPowersave and gave it a shot: no dice. The motherboard exhibited the same behavior except this time it wouldn't accept SSH connections. But I was unable to get the machine to come out of suspend. Sorry.

Ok thanks, that sounds like STR is definitely not working with this mobo.

Just to be absolutely sure: how did you try to resume? Did you try with the power button on the case or only by pressing a key on the keyboard or mouse or remote?

It should definitely resume from STR if you press the power button on the case (if STR is working).

I tried everything short of kicking the thing :D

For those of you interested in the build, it contains the following components:
Zotac IONITX-A-U motherboard
2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 1066
32 GB PQI SSD
LG DVD-ROM drive
Omaura TF8 case
Microsoft MCE remote (old school one that came with 2 IR blasters)

For those of you who wanted to see pictures. Here we go:

1st attachment - Initial mounting (and my realization that my case has a nice IR window). Notice how much spare room there is, despite this being a smaller case. I plan on getting a cover plate for the PSU hole.

2nd attachment - Mounting my USB MCE receiver in the IR window via velcro. Note the plugs in the IR blaster hookups. I soldered up a harness to go from the receiver to two minijacks that I mounted on a spare PCI slot cover.

3rd attachment - The other end of my IR blaster harness.

4th attachment - Closer view of the motherboard. My case has two fans in proximity but they are loud. I plan on replacing one of them with a nice quiet fan and removing the crappy fan that the motherboard came with.

5th attachment - Wiring cleaned up. The MCE receiver will be covered by the optical drive and an empty hard drive case goes over the coiled up USB cable on the left.

Two more:

1st attachment - Final wiring.

2nd attachment - Rear of the case with IR blaster hookups.

Haha! You could prolly fit a box fan and a couple of midgets in that case. :p

When I checked my email at lunch, there was a notification that these were back in stock (12:22 PM)! I don't make internet purchases at work, so I rushed home after work and tried to order one (3:45 PM). They are already out of stock!:mad:

I made a wish list with all the parts needed for this, and next time they are back in stock, I'm ordering it even if I'm at work!

drkdiggler, thanks for the additional info, can you please test if suspend-to-ram works?
That's crucial for me.

That ASRock ION 330 seems very interesting too, and competitively priced with the Zotac mobo.

Edit for an update: the ASROCK ION 330 is already available in stock in Switzerland priced at approx. 350USD (with free shipping), not bad at all...
http://www.internet.ch/en/922789_ASRock_ION330_schwarz_Mini-PC,_Intel_Atom_330_1,6_GHz,2GB_DDR2-RAM,320GB_HD,NVID.html

I just bought an ASRock ION 330 yesterday. They are available in North America now, but I'm really not sure how ASRock is handling distribution. Talked to the owner of the small computer place I picked mine up from and he said that ASRock partner shops will be getting them first. Found it for $399CAD online, mine was $420CAD in store (worth the extra cost for instant gratification!).

I just bought an ASRock ION 330 yesterday. They are available in North America now, but I'm really not sure how ASRock is handling distribution. Talked to the owner of the small computer place I picked mine up from and he said that ASRock partner shops will be getting them first. Found it for $399CAD online, mine was $420CAD in store (worth the extra cost for instant gratification!).

I'd be very glad if you could post your experience with it and Linux here, any driver problems, or any other issues.
Personally I would like to know primarily if Suspend-to-RAM (STR) works, given that it doesn't work with the Zotac ION board.

Has anyone heard further US release information about the Acer Aspire Revo?

I'd be very glad if you could post your experience with it and Linux here, any driver problems, or any other issues.
Personally I would like to know primarily if Suspend-to-RAM (STR) works, given that it doesn't work with the Zotac ION board.

I'm not sure what was causing my audio issues at first. I had set xmbc to use digital, no stereo downmixing and digital output + passthrough to hdmi. I did update alsa..then figured out how to unmute things in the mixer. One of those 2 fixed it.

There are guides on the xbmc forums on how to get most of it set up. One you get the nvidia drivers installed and xbmc working with vdpau, it's pretty sweet. My only issue is trying to get 1080p/24hz working, but that's just going to take some tweaking of modelines in the X config.

I'm pulling content from a samba share on a dlink NAS box. No problem streaming some of the hddvd rips I created. Smooth as silk.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to fiddle with it tonight, but I started working on getting the scraper to work. Got my movies and tv shows mostly sorted out.

Thanks DarthV.

I have just found another ION mini-ITX board which might be even better than the Zotac board:
http://www.tweaktown.com/pressrelease/1326/point_of_view_releases_its_first_nvidia_ion_mobo/index.html

It's not in stock yet over here, but at approx. $160US it's quite a bit cheaper than the Zotac here:
http://www.digitec.ch/?param=toppreise&wert=168476

I'm still undecided yet though, I currently favour the Asrock ION PC, but this board looks very good at this price too.

Are any ION-based systems or netbooks available yet, or look to be available soon?

The boards look quite nice, but I personally would give up some flexibility for the convenience of a pre-built system.

Are any ION-based systems or netbooks available yet, or look to be available soon?

The boards look quite nice, but I personally would give up some flexibility for the convenience of a pre-built system.

ASRock ION 330.

Are any ION-based systems or netbooks available yet, or look to be available soon?

The boards look quite nice, but I personally would give up some flexibility for the convenience of a pre-built system.

I bought my asrock ion 330 last week up here in the great white north.

I got tired of waiting for them to restock the IONITX-A-U at Newegg.

Monday I noticed the IONITX-D-E was in stock, so I added it to my shopping cart.. Since that version needs a PSU, I was checking the cases with PSU that were offered. By the time I decided on a case, the motherboard was already out-of-stock!

AAARRRGGGHH!:mad:

I found the IOITX-A-U at this site, and ordered one. It costs a little more ($19), though.

http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/ionitx-a-u-p-11211.html

It's scheduled for a 7/6/09 delivery. Now I have to read the thread on VDPAU!

Both of the dual core Zotac mobos are no longer listed at Newegg. I had a shortcut saved for them, and they come up listed as "Deactivated".

The one I purchased from OrbitMicro (http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/ionitx-a-u-p-11211.html) is on the way. It would have already been here if they weren't so dam slow at filling the order. They now list as having 141 available, down from the 162 when I ordered mine.

Get 'em while they last!

FYI, the wake on USB issue for Zotac appears to be fixed with a new rev of the mobo.. how you can tell which rev you are going to get is apparently still a mystery...

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3611

I bought an Asrock Ion 330 for $395 Canadian and XBMC is flawless in it. Suspend to RAM works fine. Even my VISTA only remote and IR receiver (well I use a Harmony remote) works out of the box.

Here is a excellent howto including installing XBMC as a session in Ubuntu.

I changed the Ubuntu bootlogo to match XBMC and my install looks and behaves like a set-top box with the luxury of still dropping back into LINUX if I want to.

http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54705

Kryspy

I bought an Asrock Ion 330 for $395 Canadian and XBMC is flawless in it. Suspend to RAM works fine. Even my VISTA only remote and IR receiver (well I use a Harmony remote) works out of the box.

Here is a excellent howto including installing XBMC as a session in Ubuntu.

I changed the Ubuntu bootlogo to match XBMC and my install looks and behaves like a set-top box with the luxury of still dropping back into LINUX if I want to.

http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54705

Kryspy

I have similar results with the ASRock ION 330 also. I'm using XBMC over Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop (via PPA's) versus XBMC Live. I had to get ALSA updated to 1.0.20 to get Audio over HDMI to work properly but it works great now!

Cheers,
Kermee

$25 rebate at newegg on the Zotac ION mobos. (so they are now less overpriced :D )

EDIT: as pointed out by erkq this is only on the 230 mobos, not the 330 (dual core)

$25 rebate at newegg on the Zotac ION mobos. (so they are now less overpriced :D )

Well, darn... it's not on the mobo I want! I want the 330 dual core w/PS

Question for you guys...

1) The ASRock 330 seems to be sold out everywhere and Newegg has discontinued carrying it. Can anyone recommend a place that has it in stock? Do Fry's or Microcenter carry it?

2) Can someone recommend parts that we can build a similar system? I don't mind building it myself, I just want something that is small and very quiet.

Question for you guys...

1) The ASRock 330 seems to be sold out everywhere and Newegg has discontinued carrying it. Can anyone recommend a place that has it in stock? Do Fry's or Microcenter carry it?

2) Can someone recommend parts that we can build a similar system? I don't mind building it myself, I just want something that is small and very quiet.

I find it weird that the Asrock has been discontinued on newegg, it's selling well all over Europe, maybe small and low power stuff doesn't suit the American "big and powerful mentality"... ;)

Your best bet is to go with one of the Zotac boards, see here for a full overview (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/nvidia_ion_products_overview.html) of what's available.

Cool.. Thanks..

Is there case that is like the ASRock 330 that I could put it in that you could recommend?

Josh

Cool.. Thanks..

Is there case that is like the ASRock 330 that I could put it in that you could recommend?

Josh

I don't know one exactly like the Asrock, but personally I would chose the APEX MW-100 (there is a pic of it on that page further down too), it's even better than the Asrock as it has front USB and audio.
Also it comes with an external PSU included, so you can get one of the Zotac boards without PSU which are cheaper.

I don't know one exactly like the Asrock, but personally I would chose the APEX MW-100 (there is a pic of it on that page further down too), it's even better than the Asrock as it has front USB and audio.
Also it comes with an external PSU included, so you can get one of the Zotac boards without PSU which are cheaper.

Any problem with ventilation on the MW-100 or does it run cool ?

Question for you guys...

1) The ASRock 330 seems to be sold out everywhere and Newegg has discontinued carrying it. Can anyone recommend a place that has it in stock? Do Fry's or Microcenter carry it?
.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-ION330B&src=FR&pid=8cfcc11a7b66af09fe671033b1256862333a0df018680e95ca43d1f0 e47a65d8

http://www.feppaspot.com/servlet/the-161/ASRock-ION-330-NetTop/Detail

Can't vouch for the veracity of these sellers- just what came up in a Google Product search...

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-ION330B&src=FR&pid=8cfcc11a7b66af09fe671033b1256862333a0df018680e95ca43d1f0 e47a65d8

http://www.feppaspot.com/servlet/the-161/ASRock-ION-330-NetTop/Detail

Can't vouch for the veracity of these sellers- just what came up in a Google Product search...

Yeah.. EWiz won't have them in for 6-8 days and Feppaspot is out of Hong Kong so I didn't want to take the chance in case something was wrong with it.

Thanks though

Josh

1) The ASRock 330 seems to be sold out everywhere and Newegg has discontinued carrying it. Can anyone recommend a place that has it in stock? Do Fry's or Microcenter carry it?

I find it weird that the Asrock has been discontinued on newegg, it's selling well all over Europe, maybe small and low power stuff doesn't suit the American "big and powerful mentality"... ;)

Your best bet is to go with one of the Zotac boards, see here for a full overview (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/nvidia_ion_products_overview.html) of what's available.
Nah, Newegg just does that occasionally if an item is particularly in demand and they have trouble getting more. That's happened to several of the ZOTAC IONITX boards, too.

Any problem with ventilation on the MW-100 or does it run cool ?Short answer, yes to the first question if you plan on going fanless.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16683569&highlight=#post16683569
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16739553&highlight=#post16739553

Short answer, yes to the first question if you plan on going fanless.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16683569&highlight=#post16683569
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16739553&highlight=#post16739553

Well the Asrock 330 has 2 fans inside too, so it's still comparable to the Asrock.

Well the Asrock 330 has 2 fans inside too, so it's still comparable to the Asrock.
That's the reason why I put a qualifying "if going fanless" in the statement. :p

Again, as I've mentioned, the two Scythe Mini Kaze fans were sufficient to bring down the temperature to levels I'm comfortable with. The sound coming from the system is practically negligible, even when operating on the desk just a few feet away from me.

really good deal to get a zotac ion board cheap

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1504403

You can get the ZOTAC IONITX-C-U for $105 after all the rebates and the ZOTAC IONITX-B-E for $90

Also for the case on the c-u I'm getting http://www.short-circuit.com/product/m350.html

just thought you may want to know. From someone else that bought from zuperbiiz, the board version supports the wake on usb feature.

r
You can get the ZOTAC IONITX-C-U for $105 after all the rebates and the ZOTAC IONITX-B-E for $90


Yes, but those are the Atom N230 single core versions, not the more popular N330 dual core versions...

valid point but still a great price for single core. For my usage as a frontend it doesn't matter and I prefer the lower power usage of the single core

Nice:
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2009/08/12/viako-ml-55-leap-n330-wifi-mini-htpc/

Does anyone recognize the case they are using?

As the mobo is a standard Zotac IONITX, I assume the case is a third party miniITX case, that can be bought on its own too.

It's in the article title. They're a Viako case.

http://www.viako.com/product/detailinfo.asp?ACODE=A040&BCODE=B199

It's in the article title. They're a Viako case.

http://www.viako.com/product/detailinfo.asp?ACODE=A040&BCODE=B199

Thanks, I had thought Viako was just the name of the company building the assembled mini-PC.

Anyway, it seems that case is currently available only in Korea, even on ebay I had no luck finding it.

tux99, what are you looking for in a ITX HTPC case?

Just asking as our protoype unit is nearly complete, in which case I might be able to supply something that suits your needs.

PS if you really want a viako case, let me know which one you want from the product pages I linked to above, and I'll see what I can chase down.

tux99, what are you looking for in a ITX HTPC case?


small (barely bigger than an ITX board), good looking, space for one 2.5" HDD or SSD, space for one slim DVD/BD drive, front USB+audio, external laptop-type PSU, ideally integrated front IR-receiver that connects to a USB header on the mobo (and works with Linux!!), quiet fans, not too expensive!
That Viako Mini Letter 80 Neo case seems to tick almost all the right boxes for me,it's just missing IR and front USB+audio and I don't know how much it would cost...


Just asking as our protoype unit is nearly complete, in which case I might be able to supply something that suits your needs.

Interesting, tell us more, thing is I'm in Europe, I think shipping costs from NZ would make it too expensive.


PS if you really want a viako case, let me know which one you want from the product pages I linked to above, and I'll see what I can chase down.

Do you know if there is a distributor for them anywhere in Europe?

small (barely bigger than an ITX board), good looking, space for one 2.5" HDD or SSD, space for one slim DVD/BD drive, front USB+audio, external laptop-type PSU, ideally integrated front IR-receiver that connects to a USB header on the mobo (and works with Linux!!), quiet fans, not too expensive!

Good to see you know what your after. Like the Viako I'd be able to tick a few of the boxes, but not all.

Small (barely bigger than an ITX board) - Width wise case is a perfect fit for mini itx, but we have an extra 100mm depth to accommodate other electronics.

Good looking - Yes

Space for one 2.5" HDD or SSD - Yes, may also allow 3.5inch drive mount.

Space for one slim DVD/BD drive - Not offered at this sage, We are looking at a slot load drive opening for another project, but I doubt we'd make the case available to end users.

Front USB+audio - Yes to audio on certain models (headphone only), no to USB

External laptop-type PSU - Yes

Ideally integrated front IR-receiver that connects to a USB header on the mobo (and works with Linux!!) - Yes, optional - testing not complete yet

Quiet fans - Yes - zero fan design - completely passive

Not too expensive - very comparable on pricing vs other aluminum HTPC cases - bettwen 100-200 USD inc delivery worldwide.

Interesting, tell us more, thing is I'm in Europe, I think shipping costs from NZ would make it too expensive.

Very strong, all aluminum construction:
- 8mm brushed aluminum front panel
- 4.5mm extruded aluminum side panels
- 3mm back plate

Choice of front plate colour:
Black
Silver
Champaigne/gold
Custom colour on request - extra charge

Essentially this is the base unit we are working from:
http://www.hdmovies.co.nz/temp/Chassis/Chassis05.jpg

If the buyer is interested in a more audio focused case we'd offer:
http://www.hdmovies.co.nz/temp/Chassis/Chassis04.jpg

As above, shipping shouldn't be prohibitively expensive. We'd be looking at a total price inc delivery of $100-$200 USD depending on location and extras ordered (IR receiver, rotary volume control etc).

Do you know if there is a distributor for them anywhere in Europe?

No distributor for Viako in Europe as far as I know. I've flicked an email off to a local korean supplier to see if they'll ship overseas.

Good to see you know what your after. Like the Viako I'd be able to tick a few of the boxes, but not all.

Small (barely bigger than an ITX board) - Width wise case is a perfect fit for mini itx, but we have an extra 100mm depth to accommodate other electronics.

Good looking - Yes

Space for one 2.5" HDD or SSD - Yes, may also allow 3.5inch drive mount.

Space for one slim DVD/BD drive - Not offered at this sage, We are looking at a slot load drive opening for another project, but I doubt we'd make the case available to end users.

Front USB+audio - Yes to audio on certain models (headphone only), no to USB

External laptop-type PSU - Yes

Ideally integrated front IR-receiver that connects to a USB header on the mobo (and works with Linux!!) - Yes, optional - testing not complete yet

Quiet fans - Yes - zero fan design - completely passive

Not too expensive - very comparable on pricing vs other aluminum HTPC cases - bettwen 100-200 USD inc delivery worldwide.



Very strong, all aluminum construction:
- 8mm brushed aluminum front panel
- 4.5mm extruded aluminum side panels
- 3mm back plate

Choice of front plate colour:
Black
Silver
Champaigne/gold
Custom colour on request - extra charge

Essentially this is the base unit we are working from:
http://www.hdmovies.co.nz/temp/Chassis/Chassis05.jpg

If the buyer is interested in a more audio focused case we'd offer:
http://www.hdmovies.co.nz/temp/Chassis/Chassis04.jpg

As above, shipping shouldn't be prohibitively expensive. We'd be looking at a total price inc delivery of $100-$200 USD depending on location and extras ordered (IR receiver, rotary volume control etc).



No distributor for Viako in Europe as far as I know. I've flicked an email off to a local korean supplier to see if they'll ship overseas.

Oooooh!

That top is one is almost perfect. All I would need is built in IR (NO VFD) and the ability to power on via remote. Of course I can mod it myself for the IR and power on via IR, but it would be great if it came out of the box that way.

Essentially this is the base unit we are working from:
http://www.hdmovies.co.nz/temp/Chassis/Chassis05.jpg


That looks very good indeed, I would need at least space for a slim slot-in drive (which I already have anyway), as I would like to replace my stand-alone DVD player with it too.
Therefore as it stands, the Viako case would still be better suited for me.


No distributor for Viako in Europe as far as I know. I've flicked an email off to a local korean supplier to see if they'll ship overseas.

Thanks for that!

All I would need is built in IR (NO VFD) and the ability to power on via remote.

I received our sample IR receiver today. Will test it out ASAP and get back to you (power on via remote should work as well provided the motherboard you are using supports wake on USB). Does linux happily support the ehome MCE receivers?

That looks very good indeed, I would need at least space for a slim slot-in drive (which I already have anyway), as I would like to replace my stand-alone DVD player with it too.

Conducted a test fit yesterday with a slim slot load BD drive. It's not going to fit with a Zotac IONITX board if one goes with the intended motherboard mounting that couples the heatsink to the case for passive cooling. We do have the option of going for a deeper case (400mm deep) which would allow the optical drive to fit easily, but I'm not sure end users would want the increased size.

Therefore as it stands, the Viako case would still be better suited for me.

Quite likely. The supplier I contacted won't ship out of Korea. For your information pricing on the Viako cases excluding shipping and taxes/import duty are approx:

VIAKO Mini letter ML 55-TR $60 USD
VIAKO Mini letter ML 55-DK $60 USD
VIAKO Mini Letter ML 80-Neo $80 USD

However I suspect you'll have to befriend a South Korean citizen or find someone travelling there to get you one (PS it's a nice place to go for a short holiday - was in Seoul in May this year).

I received our sample IR receiver today. Will test it out ASAP and get back to you (power on via remote should work as well provided the motherboard you are using supports wake on USB). Does linux happily support the ehome MCE receivers?


Linux supports MCE receivers (and many others) via LIRC.

Conducted a test fit yesterday with a slim slot load BD drive. It's not going to fit with a Zotac IONITX board if one goes with the intended motherboard mounting that couples the heatsink to the case for passive cooling. We do have the option of going for a deeper case (400mm deep) which would allow the optical drive to fit easily, but I'm not sure end users would want the increased size.


I agree 40cm would be too deep. So your case allows completely passive cooling of an IONITX (the dual core too)?
That sounds interesting, have you measured the cpu and gpu temperatures after several hours of video playback, how high do they get at most?


Quite likely. The supplier I contacted won't ship out of Korea. For your information pricing on the Viako cases excluding shipping and taxes/import duty are approx:

VIAKO Mini letter ML 55-TR $60 USD
VIAKO Mini letter ML 55-DK $60 USD
VIAKO Mini Letter ML 80-Neo $80 USD



These prices sound very interesting, I wish they were at least available direct from Korea on ebay!
I have to see if I can convince some PC parts supplier local to me to import them...

I assembled my system and have a monitor on VGA and another on HDMI and.... Flash doesn't work at all!! All Flash media show the "play" symbol and then they go to black if I click on it. The dual monitor support is kinda' cool, though.

Under a new clean install of Ubuntu 9.04, I'm running 185.18.31 nVidia drivers and although the Adobe web site shows it's downloading 10.0.32.18 Flash, Ubuntu shows 9.0 r999. Should I update the BIOS? Doesn't seem likely that's the problem.

I assembled my system and have a monitor on VGA and another on HDMI and.... Flash doesn't work at all!! All Flash media show the "play" symbol and then they go to black if I click on it. The dual monitor support is kinda' cool, though.

Under a new clean install of Ubuntu 9.04, I'm running 185.18.31 nVidia drivers and although the Adobe web site shows it's downloading 10.0.32.18 Flash, Ubuntu shows 9.0 r999. Should I update the BIOS? Doesn't seem likely that's the problem.

Go to the package manager.. remove all traces of Flash and Gnash.. then go to the Adobe site, and download the .deb for Ubuntu.. save it, quit your browser, double click on the .deb and install it.. should be ok then.

Go to the package manager.. remove all traces of Flash and Gnash.. then go to the Adobe site, and download the .deb for Ubuntu.. save it, quit your browser, double click on the .deb and install it.. should be ok then.

Including all the SWF stuff? I guess I need to be brave...

Go to the package manager.. remove all traces of Flash and Gnash.. then go to the Adobe site, and download the .deb for Ubuntu.. save it, quit your browser, double click on the .deb and install it.. should be ok then.

I'll be darned. That worked. Of course full screen Hulu type videos are useless. BUT, they are completely perfect through Boxee with about 50% CPU usage. The only HD source I can find in Boxee is Earth-Touch. It seems to be limited by the network speed and seems to be limited on their end and I have 11 megabit speed. If it buffers data it plays almost perfectly but then it will get to judder and finally stop.

I'll be darned. That worked. Of course full screen Hulu type videos are useless. BUT, they are completely perfect through Boxee with about 50% CPU usage. The only HD source I can find in Boxee is Earth-Touch. It seems to be limited by the network speed and seems to be limited on their end and I have 11 megabit speed. If it buffers data it plays almost perfectly but then it will get to judder and finally stop.

Glad it worked.

Is Boxee Flash?

Boxee (and I think XBMC) can play Flash video streams natively. Boxee had code that would scrape Hulu (and other sites) and give a friendly menu of videos to play. But they were forced to remove it.

So your case allows completely passive cooling of an IONITX (the dual core too)?
That sounds interesting, have you measured the cpu and gpu temperatures after several hours of video playback, how high do they get at most?

Correct, full passive cooling of a dual core Zotac IONITX system. I'll run a complete set of temperature tests and report back, but initial results show around 5 degrees celsius lower temps when installed in the case vs running open on a test bench (at low - medium work loads).

Boxee (and I think XBMC) can play Flash video streams natively. Boxee had code that would scrape Hulu (and other sites) and give a friendly menu of videos to play. But they were forced to remove it.

Exactly, and I thought that boxee now incorporates a browser plugin for hulu flash content, but I don't understand how it could possibly play flash content more efficiently than, say, with firefox...although the version of firefox that comes with jaunty has a serious leak problem and needs to be explicitly killed and restarted after a couple of hours because it will hog 100% of one of your cores regardless of whether or not you are playing flash content.

Exactly, and I thought that boxee now incorporates a browser plugin for hulu flash content, but I don't understand how it could possibly play flash content more efficiently than, say, with firefox...although the version of firefox that comes with jaunty has a serious leak problem and needs to be explicitly killed and restarted after a couple of hours because it will hog 100% of one of your cores regardless of whether or not you are playing flash content.

Actually, you're right. I remembered reading that Boxee had native Flash stream playback support, but further investigation reveals that they just package the Flash plugin into a standalone binary, bxflplayer.

Now why is that more efficient than Firefox? I don't know, maybe the actual video rendering is handled in a different, more efficient way.

-- Kevin

Actually, you're right. I remembered reading that Boxee had native Flash stream playback support, but further investigation reveals that they just package the Flash plugin into a standalone binary, bxflplayer.

Now why is that more efficient than Firefox? I don't know, maybe the actual video rendering is handled in a different, more efficient way.

-- Kevin

Whatever they've done, the difference is huge; from completely unwatchable with Firefox to perfect with Boxee. This is for full-screen.

Whatever they've done, the difference is huge; from completely unwatchable with Firefox to perfect with Boxee. This is for full-screen.

Well, boxee deserves a second look then. Last I checked they had no plans for vdpau support, but I'm guessing that they'll eventually "get with the program" on that.

Have you tested with HD content in fullscreen like the "seeker"? http://www.hulu.com/hd/48731

the newest version of boxee has vdpau just like xbmc. I can select vpdau-temporal as an option on the video menu

the newest version of boxee has vdpau just like xbmc. I can select vpdau-temporal as an option on the video menu

All I could find is "use hardware acceleration if available" under the "Videos" configuration menu. When I checked this off HD videos from Hulu played flawlessly for about 1 minute and then Boxee crashed out. Then Boxee would not run again until a reboot. Beta software problems? :) But at least we're on a path and will have it eventually I think.

All I could find is "use hardware acceleration if available" under the "Videos" configuration menu. When I checked this off HD videos from Hulu played flawlessly for about 1 minute and then Boxee crashed out. Then Boxee would not run again until a reboot. Beta software problems? :) But at least we're on a path and will have it eventually I think.

OK... good news update. Boxee stopped crashing with hardware acceleration. It's a mystery why "things" start to behave. The only HD content I can find in Boxee is Earth-Touch and I think it's 720p. It plays flawlessly! It looks beautiful. I found http://www.hulu.com/hd/48731 but it won't play under Boxee for some reason. Network Traffic goes to zero when I select that video. I played it on straight Firefox/Flash and got about 1 fps!

A question... so now I have HD playback working in Boxee, where the heck is the HD programming on Boxee? Earth-Touch has been all I can find!

none of the streamed over the internet stuff in boxee is hd. I provide my own local hd movies and content from a local large samba share.

Oh and I confirmed that boxee does do vdpau acceleration. I changed the video interlacing method to vdpau and processor usage dropped way down. 1080p high bitrate mkv and vc-1 content was pretty much flawless. I have the single core version and it was using about 70% of the processor. Very few dropped frames

Also I'm running my zotac board from a mythbuntu diskless image. Boots in about 15 to 20 seconds and seems to work just fine (minus restart and shutdown on the board working. Things just crash midway through the shutdown process once network goes down)

I can select vpdau-temporal as an option on the video menu

I changed the video interlacing method to vdpau



I'm just not seeing these option in Boxee. The only hardware acceleration related option I can find is an "Enable hardware assisted decoding when possible" checkbox under Settings->Video. Has another version of Boxee already come out?

Is there any way to choose a 480p Hulu stream instead of the 360p stream?

BTW, Earth-Touch is a Hulu app that does HD under Boxee. It's the only one I found so far, though.

You can change your account settings in Hulu to play 480p by default...assuming that boxee actually logs you in to your account. I'll have to check it out again now that it has vdpau support.

If it doesn't log you in to Hulu, then you should be able to request that feature. It should be fairly straight-forward to implement if they are, in fact, using browser code to connect.

I'm just not seeing these option in Boxee. The only hardware acceleration related option I can find is an "Enable hardware assisted decoding when possible" checkbox under Settings->Video. Has another version of Boxee already come out?


it's an option when you are playing the video. You have to open the menu once the video starts playing. It's in the video section. Change it from auto to vdpau or vdpau temporal

it's an option when you are playing the video. You have to open the menu once the video starts playing. It's in the video section. Change it from auto to vdpau or vdpau temporal

OK... I found that. But how do you get it to "stick" from video to video? I have to reset it each time I play something. Perhaps I should take this to the Boxee forum if this is too OT.

Has anyone overclocked these puppies in this forum? I learned how to do it here: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3566&p=4
Then I double-checked the results with /proc/cpuinfo and, yes indeed it reports a cpu MHz of 2000. I checked it because it's running at 33 degrees C (with the stock 60mm fan). I've been running it all day with Ubuntu and Boxee and it has been 100% stable. Is it really this much of a no-brainer? I'm tempted to try it fan-less.

The same article on pg 3 http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3566&p=3 confirms that fullscreen Hulu HD is not watchable (which is what we all suspected). Kind of shocking to me that we've seen/heard so little from Adobe on this when every Atom article/review mentions how bad Flash performance is.... are they all on vacation? :D

The same article on pg 3 http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3566&p=3 confirms that fullscreen Hulu HD is not watchable (which is what we all suspected). Kind of shocking to me that we've seen/heard so little from Adobe on this when every Atom article/review mentions how bad Flash performance is.... are they all on vacation? :D

Huh... I find it completely watchable on a 1024x1280 screen. It's got a hiccup every so often but mostly completely smooth. It also plays well on 900x1440. Maybe the overclocking helps.

The Acer Aspire Revo is at newegg for the shockingly low price of $199.

Acer AspireRevo AR1600-U910H Intel Atom 230 (1.6GHz) 1GB DDR2 160GB NVIDIA ION LE graphics Windows XP Homehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103228&cm_re=acer-_-83-103-228-_-Product

single core, but...at least its not at the $300-$400 prices for most Atom systems.

edit: altho a little unclear about the implications of ION LE vs ION http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/14908/1/

The Acer Aspire Revo is at newegg for the shockingly low price of $199.

single core, but...at least its not at the $300-$400 prices for most Atom systems.

edit: altho a little unclear about the implications of ION LE vs ION http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/14908/1/

Well spotted, I have added it to the Nvidia ION overview article (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/nvidia_ion_products_overview.html) straight away.

AFAIK, the LE version only support DirectX 9, so it doesn't work with Vista, but I think it makes no difference for Linux.

Has anyone modded one of these to include an IR receiver?

The Acer Aspire Revo is at newegg for the shockingly low price of $199.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103228&cm_re=acer-_-83-103-228-_-Product

single core, but...at least its not at the $300-$400 prices for most Atom systems.

That is almost exactly what I've been looking for as a second frontend. Dual core would be ideal, as would an included IR receiver. But, the core functionality is perfect, if VDPAU is stable with it (a search of the MythTV mailing list showed a couple reports of people using the Revo with VDPAU)

At only $200, this is hard to beat.


Any recommendations for the best distro to use for MythTV+VDPAU?

Modding it for a ir receiver would negate the warranty. An external USB receiver isn't all that obtrusive.

I installed a recent Ubuntu daily build on a POV ION based system. I just noticed that there is an SVN version of MythTV 0.22 available from the repositories. I don't know if it has VDPAU eanbled or not. I just compiled 0.22 from SVN, and don't want to ruin anything just to try it.

Anyone wanna give it a try? There is a karmic koala alpha 6 version available too, as well as a daily build.

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/alpha6
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily/current/

An alternative for the Atom-averse out there-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500021

Anyone try one? Same miniITX form factor and VDPAU capable (8200 vs 9xxx) like the ION boards, but with an AM2+ socket to put whatever CPU you want in it...

I don't like a CPU monopoly any more than an OS monopoly ;)

I think that the choice of the Atom CPU is because of it's low power consumption. Am I incorrect on this?

An alternative for the Atom-averse out there-

Anyone try one? Same miniITX form factor and VDPAU capable (8200 vs 9xxx) like the ION boards, but with an AM2+ socket to put whatever CPU you want in it...

I don't like a CPU monopoly any more than an OS monopoly ;)

Unfortunately that board is lacking HDMI and SPDIF audio outputs that's why it didn't make the "Best Linux HTPC mobos (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/best_linux_htpc_motherboards.html)" list either.

Yeah, I know you could just add a sound card, but that won't fit in small ITX cases, so it negates the main point of chosing ITX over mATX.

I think that the choice of the Atom CPU is because of it's low power consumption. Am I incorrect on this?

low power (therefore easier to cool without noise) and even smaller size, you won't be able to build such a small PC as the Acer Revo with an ITX mobo.

Unfortunately that board is lacking HDMI and SPDIF audio outputs that's why it didn't make the "Best Linux HTPC mobos (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/best_linux_htpc_motherboards.html)" list either.

Yeah, I know you could just add a sound card, but that won't fit in small ITX cases, so it negates the main point of chosing ITX over mATX.

Good catch on the missing SPDIF- guess that's why you run your own Linux website and I just post here ;)

While the missing HDMI is not an issue for me (trivial to get a DVI to HDMI adapter or cable), it's unbelievable they would omit an SPDIF out on the back panel.

However, if you zoom in on the Zotac board pic at newegg, there is an SPDIF header on the lower right- trivial to add a coax out.

If the price goes down futher, I might want to try this Zotac with an Athlon II X2 45nm cpu...

Unfortunately that board is lacking HDMI and SPDIF audio outputs that's why it didn't make the "Best Linux HTPC mobos (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/best_linux_htpc_motherboards.html)" list either.

For $30 you can get a Turtle Beach USB optical out.. my understanding is that it works well under linux. Not perfect, but if it makes an otherwise "flawed" mobo "work", then it could be useful (but in this case, still no HDMI)

Good catch on the missing SPDIF- guess that's why you run your own Linux website and I just post here ;)

Naah, anyone can run their own website, with the amount of posts you have accumulated here you could probably fill half of wikipedia... ;)


While the missing HDMI is not an issue for me (trivial to get a DVI to HDMI adapter or cable), it's unbelievable they would omit an SPDIF out on the back panel.

However, if you zoom in on the Zotac board pic at newegg, there is an SPDIF header on the lower right- trivial to add a coax out.


I mentioned HDMI because that's another way to get digital audio, I know a DVI to HDMI adapter for video is trivial, there is even one included.

However the SPDIF header is a valid option, but not suited for someone inexperienced as tracking down the right back panel adapter or making your own is not trivial unless you know what you are doing (I'm sure YOU do!) :)

However the SPDIF header is a valid option, but not suited for someone inexperienced as tracking down the right back panel adapter or making your own is not trivial unless you know what you are doing (I'm sure YOU do!) :)

Uhh, some numbskull actually wrote a coax SPDIF HOWTO

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=997533

:D

low power (therefore easier to cool without noise) and even smaller size, you won't be able to build such a small PC as the Acer Revo with an ITX mobo.

True, but I'm not so certain that the power usage gap is all that wide between Atom/ION and the latest crop of Athlon II 45nm CPU's...

True, but I'm not so certain that the power usage gap is all that wide between Atom/ION and the latest crop of Athlon II 45nm CPU's...

My Atom ION 330 with 4 gig RAM and 1T drive consume 25 watts. Doesn't the Athlon itself consume more than that?

My Atom ION 330 with 4 gig RAM and 1T drive consume 25 watts. Doesn't the Athlon itself consume more than that?

Measured at the wall? Full load?

Measured at the wall? Full load?
Yes, measured at the wall. No, not full load. I'll play a 720p video through Boxee and see what it says.

Measured at the wall? Full load?

It bounces between 30 and 32 watts, sometimes going as low as 28 what playing 720p full-frame under Boxee. But the CPU cores are only averaging 25% utilization. The nVidia chip is at full clock speed: 450 MHz.

EDIT: I'm running Ubuntu on it.

It bounces between 30 and 32 watts, sometimes going as low as 28 what playing 720p full-frame under Boxee. But the CPU cores are only averaging 25% utilization. The nVidia chip is at full clock speed: 450 MHz.

EDIT: I'm running Ubuntu on it.

Good looking numbers.

What codec? x264? MPEG2? VC1?

Good looking numbers.

What codec? x264? MPEG2? VC1?

I don't know. I'm a bit of a nubie at all this. How can I tell? It's Earth-Touch videos under Boxee.

But don't expect this mobo to play full screen HD w/o use of nVidia acceleration. I'm hoping something will come from the Adobe/nVidia collaboration soon. Non-Boxee Flash is 1 to 2 fps!

I don't know. I'm a bit of a nubie at all this. How can I tell? It's Earth-Touch videos under Boxee.

But don't expect this mobo to play full screen HD w/o use of nVidia acceleration. I'm hoping something will come from the Adobe/nVidia collaboration soon. Non-Boxee Flash is 1 to 2 fps!

If the file(s) are on your local drive or network, just drop to the desktop, open a Nautilus window, browse to the file, right click, Properties. One of the tabs should show the video and audio codecs.

If streamed from the web, it's probably FLash video, which is usually an MPEG4/x264 variant.

What did you use to measure the power draw? Kill A Watt?

Pretty much all reviews I have seen have confirmed that an Atom+ION draws between 20-30Watts at the wall-plug, so these measurements seem consistent to me.

A Athlon II will never be that low for the whole system, we are talking 50 Watts at the very least.
Also despite the TDPs, Intel E5xxx series cpus are still more efficient than even the latest 45nm Athlons (look at recent Fudzilla reviews for example), not by much anymore though (not like the 65nm Athlons that were quite inefficient, especially at full load).

Athlons can be a good choice if you take costs into account though as mobos and cpus are cheaper than Intel equivalents.

Anyway, nothing beats the ION+Atom currently from a power-saving POV for HTPCs.

If the file(s) are on your local drive or network, just drop to the desktop, open a Nautilus window, browse to the file, right click, Properties. One of the tabs should show the video and audio codecs.

If streamed from the web, it's probably FLash video, which is usually an MPEG4/x264 variant.

What did you use to measure the power draw? Kill A Watt?

It is streamed. I don't have ANYTHING on that 1T drive yet. :(

I'm using a "Watt's Up?" Pretty believable numbers. I'm running dual monitors. When I turn on my 17" 1280x1024 monitor it goes from 28 to 53 watts (25 addn'l watts). When I add the somewhat dimmer 19" 1440x900 it goes up to 74 watts (21 addn'l watts).

Unfortunately that board is lacking HDMI and SPDIF audio outputs that's why it didn't make the "Best Linux HTPC mobos (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/best_linux_htpc_motherboards.html)" list either.

Yeah, I know you could just add a sound card, but that won't fit in small ITX cases, so it negates the main point of chosing ITX over mATX.

It comes with a DVI-to-HDMI dongle, and you do get audio over HDMI with this board. I have two 8200 boards (one Jetway, one Zotac), and they both have the same audio-over-DVI setup. I bitstream DD and DTS to my HT receiver over HDMI using the DVI-to-HDMI dongle. I think it's common to all 8200-based boards. Probably 9300 as well, but I don't have any of those.

Also, the Jetway board, the JNC62K, does have rear-panel SPDIF input and output, via 3.5 mm jacks.

It comes with a DVI-to-HDMI dongle, and you do get audio over HDMI with this board. I have two 8200 boards (one Jetway, one Zotac), and they both have the same audio-over-DVI setup. I bitstream DD and DTS to my HT receiver over HDMI using the DVI-to-HDMI dongle. I think it's common to all 8200-based boards.

That's interesting to know, it still lacks a rear SPDIF connector though, for all those people like myself who don't have a hdmi AV-receiver.
The on-board header is a solution for that, but that's not as good (extra hassle) as if they had included a rear panel connector (I don't understand why that had to save a few extra cents by leaving that out).
I'm not bashing the board, I'm sure it can be a good low budget choice (for an ITX board), it's just not as good as some other boards.
The Jetway seems a bit overpriced to me, you might as well chose a GF9300 board for little more money.

Any we are drifting a bit off topic here me-thinks... :)

Okay I'll try to steer this back on topic.

The Atom/ION boards have another advantage that people are missing. You can run these completely fanless for a totally silent PC! (At least the single core Atoms. I heard the dual cores put out enough heat that a fan is recommended.)

I'm thinking about picking up another Ion board and setting it up as a carputer. I loaded linuxice onto the ion I have and it works really well.

Okay I'll try to steer this back on topic.

The Atom/ION boards have another advantage that people are missing. You can run these completely fanless for a totally silent PC! (At least the single core Atoms. I heard the dual cores put out enough heat that a fan is recommended.)

Yes, you do need a fan with the dual core. But you can take the stock 12v fan that comes with the Zotac mobo and plug it into the 5v supply (with a 3 to 2 adaptor). It is silent at that point. You just need to move the air along, no gale force winds necessary. It keeps the temp to 50 degrees on a hot day, usually more like 40 degrees.

I was having various issues with my Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H (GeForce 9400, Celeron 440 Conroe L) system when it came to de-interlacing 1080i content. In Windows, I either got occasional stuttering combined with frames that were not de-interlaced at all. With later Nvidia drivers, no more stuttering, but the frames were only partially de-interlaced. Both problems seemed to point to a lack of processing power, and I know I was able to repeat at least the first problem on another system using the same motherboard and a more powerful dual core CPU. In Linux with MythTV, I was experiencing a slight video lag when using the Temporal 2x de-interlacer with 1080i content. Again, that to me suggests lack of processing power. I then put together an Ion system using the ZOTAC IONITX-A-U motherboard (dual core atom with power supply). To my surprise, this system seems to be handling 1080i content perfectly! I checked the Nvidia X Server configuration on the Ion and noticed that it had several different performance levels ranging from 200 MHz to 450 MHz (I think those were the numbers). I thought that maybe since the Gigabyte motherboard didn't have a fan on the graphics chip that it was getting too hot and staying at a slower speed. I looked at the Nvidia X Server configuration on that system, and there was only one performance level, but it was 580 MHz! So it would seem that the Gigabyte should be outperforming the Ion, yet it is the other way around. Does this sound right? Is the Gigabyte system faster than it should be? I did not intentionally overclock it myself if it is.

Matt

none of the streamed over the internet stuff in boxee is hd. I provide my own local hd movies and content from a local large samba share.

Oh and I confirmed that boxee does do vdpau acceleration. I changed the video interlacing method to vdpau and processor usage dropped way down. 1080p high bitrate mkv and vc-1 content was pretty much flawless. I have the single core version and it was using about 70% of the processor. Very few dropped frames

Also I'm running my zotac board from a mythbuntu diskless image. Boots in about 15 to 20 seconds and seems to work just fine (minus restart and shutdown on the board working. Things just crash midway through the shutdown process once network goes down)

I found a fix for the shutdown problem.

1. Go into your image (sudo chroot /opt/ltsp/i386)
2. Edit the file /etc/init.d/mythbunt-diskless-client
3a. Find the lines that say
mkdir -p /var/run/sendsigs.omit.d/
pidof nbd-client > /var/run/sendsigs.omit.d/nbd-client
3b. and change them to
mkdir -p /lib/init/rw/sendsigs.omit.d/
pidof nbd-client > /lib/init/rw/sendsigs.omit.d/nbd-client
4. Exit the chroot
5. Rebuild the image (sudo ltsp-update-image)

This I found on a bug report labelled SRU_292319.debdiff. After this change, the shutdown and reboot has worked properly for me.