Dell Zino HD - New mini HTPC - Page 9

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

This I'm taking with a grain of salt. I used to have a Radeon HD3450 and the ION does much better with 1080i MPEG-2 broadcasts. I believe the HD3200 in the RS780 is a step below the HD3450 so I'm going to have to assume that it won't be any better at handling interlaced content. I've since replaced the HD3450 with an HD4550 and that one handles 1080i MPEG-2 beautifully.

Originally Posted by gearguy77

Java Jack, thanks for all the information. I was scouring the internet for comparisons between the 3250e and 6850e all weekend, but didn't think to check out AVSforums. You are earning your keep for AMD, and providing a great service to us consumers.

Looks like the Zino HD will be pushing $500 for me, but seems well worth it. It has high WAF, and the gloss black matches my TV and AVR. Only wish the Zino HD had Bluetooth built-in, but adapters are cheap.

I'm sold on the Zino HD, but I am not sure if the 4330 discrete graphics are worth the upgrade. The 6850e seems to handle HTPC tasks well. What are the expected improvements with the discrete GPU?

Originally Posted by fredz85

Could you please also try 1080i content and 1080p rips? Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by marcjordan

SPDIF audio is a must for me. Can anybody think of a reason why a USB to SPDIF device would not work with the Zino?

Originally Posted by marcjordan

Sorry to be a pest but this may have been overlooked... does anybody know if this will work?

Originally Posted by marcjordan

Sorry to be a pest but this may have been overlooked... does anybody know if this will work?

Originally Posted by baltik

Any interesting Bios options? - easy overclocking fast boot etc?

Originally Posted by Java Jack

Take it however you please. I am a person of integrity and would never try to mislead anyone for the sake of a sale. In general terms and for most content sources, the two parts are roughly equivalent.

Some source content like interlaced material may be better on the 9300 I don't know. I have not seen it on a 9300.

I have a 780 based Maui solution at home and it does fine with 1080i, but I do have a more robust quad core CPU in there.

I will try some 1080i content on the Zino HD and see how it does. However, I stand by my earlier statement on relative performance between the 2 parts. I did not say that our part was vastly superior in all cases, I say they were on par with each other. I believe that to be true for a large segment of the content sources.

Originally Posted by Fyodor

FWIW, problems deinterlacing 1080i with lower end ATI parts (e.g. 3450) seem to be relatively frequent complaints on the SageTV forums. There seems to be a perception that the 3D/shading components are not powerful enough. I don't have any first hand experience, myself.

Originally Posted by MikeSM

I have called that out too, but my 780G doesn't seem to have issues on de-interlacing 1080i content. So I think it's just an issue with the discrete video cards. The 4330 here is a mobile 4330, so it may behave differently than the desktop PCI-E 4330 which is quite a dog.

Originally Posted by Java Jack

I don't see how the Zino HD would have any impact on whether this solution would work or not.

The USB ports on the Zino HD are just USB ports like on any other system. If the device in question works on other systems with USB ports, then it should work on the Zino HD.

Originally Posted by jeffkro

So I guess the million dollar question is has anyone tried running hulu HD on a T2350 based laptop?

Originally Posted by fredz85

So it would be better to buy it without the 4330?

Originally Posted by candre23

I wonder if Java Jack would be willing to give XBMC under Linux a try on the Zino. ATI GPUs are notoriously finnickey under Linux, and I'd be very interested to see how well hardware accelerated videeo decoding works, and how easy it is to set up on this platform. I highly recommend Wubi for creating a painless virtual dual-boot installation. If HA just works under Ubuntu without any futzing around, that would make the Zino an excellent starter box for those who don't have much Linux experience.

I apologise for asking for more complicated tests, but you're the only one with the hardware at the moment.

Originally Posted by nalawod

I thought the ATI Radeon HD 4330 had on-board 7.1 sound for HDMI out? I just went the the Dell configurator and they try to sell sound cards as an option. I guess for the people that don't have a HT receiver w HDMI. But if the HD 4330 has onboard 7.1 sound over HDMI, shouldn't Dell make it clear that if you're using HDMI to an HT receiver, you don't need a sound card?

Originally Posted by candre23

No. As has already been pointed out, none of the GPU options in the Zino are capable of HD audio bitstreaming.

Originally Posted by ralphkaz

Regarding the audio - can I just hookup the Zino to my LG LCD via the HDMI, then use the audio output (optical) from the TV to drive the ancient Denon receiver? Will it pass thru 5.1 in this kind of setup?

Originally Posted by candre23

I wonder if Java Jack would be willing to give XBMC under Linux a try on the Zino. ATI GPUs are notoriously finnickey under Linux, and I'd be very interested to see how well hardware accelerated videeo decoding works, and how easy it is to set up on this platform. I highly recommend Wubi for creating a painless virtual dual-boot installation. If HA just works under Ubuntu without any futzing around, that would make the Zino an excellent starter box for those who don't have much Linux experience.

I apologise for asking for more complicated tests, but you're the only one with the hardware at the moment.

Originally Posted by MikeSM

Not sure. You could post in the main 4XXX ATI thread and tsee what people recommend. Again, I don't know if the mobile 4330 works better than the pcie 4330.

Maybe java_jack can ask his GPU engineers about it.

BTW, there is no reason that de-interlacing had to depend on sharder performance. I think nvidia implements this in a different way, so it may just be a driver issue than a fundamental hardware issue. Either way, both Nvidia and ATI seem to put HTPC optimization asa relatively low priority. Though I have to say, ATI has been much more aggressive on implement HD audio features than nvidia, and with nvidia seeming to be changing focus on enterprise GPU computing away from gaming, I shudder to think what that means for HTPC use.

It seems right now the choice is between ATI (and 2nd tier HTPC optimization), and Intel which has 3D performance that blows chunks and a track record for flaky GPU acceleration.