ASRock Vision 3D HTPC... interesting. - Page 4

I think the cheapest 3D BD player is Sony's BDP-S570 which can be had for around $180 (really nice player BTW). While it does 3D and BD very well, it can't do the same things a HTPC can so it's not really a good comparison.

That said, we can agree that $1200 is way too much for this HTPC.

That 50W TDP GT420 GPU will never gobble up 50W under 1080p playback conditions, neighter will the CPU.

True, but the thermal solution can't assume that.

It is only a matter of time before 3D MKVs start making an appearance (or, are they already here?). blu-Ray players aren't going to be of much help there, but the HTPCs will probably be the first to play them.. I am not sure how much important this will be and how much premium users are ready to pay for this, though.

One thing is that this will be a comparitively future proof HTPC, at least for the next 2 - 3 years, I expect.

It´s only a question of additional cost, compared to the 100HT-BD. Additional is the 3d video and the slot-in player. If I make an estimation of the cost for Asrock of this, it will be not more then arround $100.
That's why I estimated the cost as I mentioned before. I am not willing to pay $1200 (€950) for this HTPC. I think that a lot is dependend of the amount of units that will be sold, this is a factor of major importance to the earn back of the development costs for Asrock. If they place the unit to high in the market only a few elect is able to buy this unit and the number of sold units will be extremely low

By thermal solution you mean the cooling solution? If so, yes it can. PWM controlled fans from the motherboard do the job very well.

Wow, that's a great price. I should have known better

I was at my local best buy the other day and they had a couple of 3d players at $149, a sony and a samsung. If either of them had checkerboard I would have bought one. For those that already have PDVD 10... which you can buy through Amazon marketplace for $39, all you need is an appropriate GPU........ 3D is going to have to be effectively a zero cost add on, just a check box. Panasonic is up in arms because that is the positioning that Samsung is headed towards. If it is free it will fly, only those most eager of early adopters are willing to pay big premiums to support a format with no content.

There is content, but i can count it on my fingers . That being said, if Nvidia & Ati get new 6xxx series cards and GT4xxx cards at very low prices, 40$, the same level as the current 5450 card, it`s going to be a fairly cheap upgrade, especially for people who have older cards that do not support HD audio bitstreaming, so the upgrade won`t be just 3D.

Now display manufacturers, get off your asses and mass-produce glass-free displays, or at least 3D Glasses that look like they came out in 2010, not the early 50`s...

Something is happening at Asrock.The processor specs on the hidden page is changed to Intel® Core i3-370M Mobile Processor

Hidden page

In all that's been discussed and now with it looking like it will be packaged with the i3, I think I'll build my own HTPC again. Apart from the size & power consumption are there any other benefits? It sounds as though for a similar price I could get better specs.

But Getoffthecouch, You can't build a homebrew system with a size matching this one. If size is of importance there are not much options. I agree the price as we can aspect, will be high, but the i3 370 is not bad for a HTPC! Later, when available in the shops and the prices going down, we always can replace it by a i5 or i7

A part of me thinks that the cpu/chipset are going to be obsoleted very quickly with next gen AMD/Intel solutions around the corner (like Sandy Bridge).

This thing needs to be marketed to general public, not geeks who come here People on internet forums can usually build their own and will always have that as a comparison point. Most people don't care about the parts, they just want it to work well.

So the price is not the most important concern as long as its not a shocker. I think there a HTPC can me marketed to the general public. Package it well, add all the correct drivers, and put something like the free XBMC on it, or MediaBrowser. Partner with them.

Put it on store shelves next to the big screen tv's with amazing demos. Boxee box is trying to do exactly this but this is a complete pc that families can use for many different things, and enjoy all their media.

Maybe this is the wrong direction but I sure would like to see a product like this.

Defcon, I agree with you that for the "normal" people a solution like Boxee is the way to go, but like you said, for people acting on forums it may be not enough.
The flexibility of homebrew systems or adaptable applications with pluginns of all kind, like Mediaportal, is for those acting on forums most important. The systems I build have to have a high WAF(Wife Acceptance Factor) and selecting playlists and playback of music should be possible without a TV screen. I doubt if factorybuild devices can match these demands.

jakmal, how are you going with your review? Is it as good as it sounds on paper?

IMHO, this is an oxymoron. HTPC will always be a geek/hobbyist device.

General public needs something like Apple TV or Boxee Box.

Say what? Ever hear of mini-ITX ?

Try to build one with mini ITX and the same capacity and abilities, like processor video etc. I don't think you will be able to.

Most of the ITX systems have atom processors.

Yeah, you can fit an i7 inside a mini-ITX build if you want... i build an i5 + low profile HD5570 inside a mini-ATX case for a friend of mine. Slapped in a Scythe Shuriken and it`s silent.

In response to my feedback on the pricing structure, ASRock just got back to me that they are changing the CPU to i3-370M (as on their webpage). This is supposed to improve their cost-performance ratio ; But they haven't got back to me with the new price yet.

And now, nV has released their latest drivers 260.62 or something. I will have to update drivers and rerun the benchmarks I have got so far. The change in CPU has made all the CPU based benchmarks obsolete, so I need to rerun those too.

I tested out Blu-Ray 3D playback with the latest PowerDVD at the Cyberlink office here with the engineering sample, and it works as advertised. No hiccups, nothing unexpected. (You need to do a little bit of initial setup in PowerDVD for the 3D display to get configured, but that is to be expected, and was a 1-time thing). There is even a 3D WMV sample in our test suite and it also worked perfectly, so there is no need for a 3D Blu-Ray to actually enjoy 3D playback

I can definitely say that ASRock keeps up what it has promised in the specs. (3 USB 3.0 ports is not something I would have asked ASRock to put. 2 would have been more than enough considering that they can't perform upto their full potential in the H55M chipset -- reasons as covered in my Core 100 HT-BD review)

My wife and I watch BD movies on a 120" screen (from about 8 feet) that is being illuminatied by an HTPC-driven JVC RS1 projector. Needless to say, we can easily see any imperfections whatsoever in playback.

I understand that the i series of cpus has some inherent flaw that renders it inappropriate for absolutely smooth playback of 23.976 fps movies. But maybe I'm just plain wrong on this, so I'll just ask: does this new mini, with its i3 processor, play 23.976 fps movies perfectly smoothly?

Thanks.

Both the HDMI and DVI outputs in the Vision 3D are driven by the nVidia 425M GPU. The i3 GPU is disabled in this system.

The nV 425M chipset does perfect 23.976 fps, and I confirmed that with one of the streams in our test suite (It wasn't a 3D sample, but I don't expect that to cause an issue).

Thanks! That's all I needed to hear (read).

When and where will this model be available?

Herve, Pricing is not yet decided. ASRock wanted to send review samples this week (I am playing with an engineering sample myself), but that is getting delayed. So, I wouldn't expect commercial availability (ASRock usually sells on Newegg) till the 2nd week of November.

Jakmal, this is great news. Asrock keeps you busy by changing the config each time.
The results sofar, seem to be perfect (in my view at least).
I keep my eyes wide open for your final review!

a very stupid question.

can i see 3d movie with this Asrock vision 3d HTPC on a non-3D LCDTV ??

No. The display must support a kind of 3D display technology, at least (not every technology is supported by NVIDIA/PowerDVD of course).

On the asrock web they announce to deliver in 14 days! Great!!!!
On the German asrock forum there is the following link publiced (hope you can read German)
http://www.pctreiber.net/2010/asrock...37d-htpcs.html

What you can read is the following (in a nutshell)

four models:
ASRock Vision 3D 135B, 135D an ASRock Vision 137D,137B

The Vision3D 137B will cost 999$ as it looks like on this moment!

The price I did expected eurlier (euro 765)