Official Dell Zino 410 HTPC - Page 9

I always forget to check with AAA, doh...ordered one last night, the $649 special as I figure if I got the $499 configuration it would cost me about the same to put my own BD drive in. Also added the remote so I don't have to order the sensor later, plus the trackball keyboard. I will let everyone know how it performs once I get it all hooked up and configured properly. My main uses will be playback of MKV's of blu-ray and high resolution suround sound music.

Can anyone who has setup MKV playback on their Zino 410 let me know whether the following file plays at the correct frame rate?

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M0AJU408

This is the 10 Mbps 1080p60 clip, but it plays at only 20 - 30 fps in MPC-HC (latest SVN version) for me. I am wondering what the issue is.. On the other hand, if someone is able to confirm it plays well, I would love to hear about the config (MPC-HC version / splitter used etc.)

I am actually a Dell employee so I get a nice little 17% discount on any of these bad boys. I was debating on weather or not to build an HTPC or buy one. I was leaning towards the build side, but this little baby would fit perfectly in my existing setup and go great with my other components.

The only thing I would be doing is watching locally saved video, the max being 1080p mkvs, maybe listening to streaming music, possibly streaming stuff from youtube or hulu occasionally. No gaming or anything else. I strictly want to sit this thing under my TV and have it playback video. Would this be a good buy? What would be the advantage of going with the quad vs the dual core for my needs?

Have you tried it using VLC. Maybe its a MPC issue

VLC with or without GPU acceleration just 'hangs' after displaying a few frames. This is a pretty complicated clip.. with 8 reference frames (above the L4.1 threshold) and also 60 fps. Funny thing is that it plays pretty well on a desktop HTPC with the ATI 5570 (but the host processor is more powerful (i5) in that).

Maybe Java Jack or R1Budha can chime in with their experience with the above file (in case they have setup MKV playback)

Edit:

Installed Win7Codecs (Shark007), and the file plays without dropped frames in WMP with Shark007 suggested settings. However, CPU usage is at 80%. In MPC-HC, the decoder is using 5450 DXVA and dropping frames like crazy. Is the Mobility 5450 expected to be this weak? I haven't played around with a Mobility 5450 before, so any inputs from users familiar with the GPU will be deeply appreciated.

just for laughs, i tried to play it on my popbox, and it played fine, no audio though... I don't know how to measure at what rate it played the file though...

How are you guys using the AAA coupon? I can't seem to find it anywhere... (I'm also a AAA member)

Using VLC without GPU acceleration I dropped 4 frames (3 frames at the very beginning) . Using GPU acceleration I was dropping frames all over the place. This was using Intel 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00 GHz and a 9600 GT.

The clip also played fine my WD HD Live.

People do all sorts of things, and to some extent there should be diversity, but sometimes there should be standard/more correct ways of doing things. Wanting fast encoding on an HTPC indicates that either you don't have a more powerful PC than the HTPC, or you have one but it's not networked properly so for some reason it's not convenient to rip/encode on it.

The cheapest option wouldn't have have a problem Blu-Ray bitrates, would it?

The main disadvantage of quad core/discrete graphics would be much higher power consumption. It's very difficult to have a powerful PC (quad core + discrete graphics) that is inaudible in a silent room, even if you build yourself.

Anyone have power consumption measurements BTW?

For the highest end config, at idle, it is approx 29 W and at load it is 60W (load = Prime95 loading all 4 cores + Furmark loading up the GPU fully).

Bitrates are almost never an issue in any HTPC. It is the complicated encoding characteristics / frame rates (sometimes) which are the issue.

That's reasonable for what it is. Still it will be noisy, and probably impossible to mod for silence at that power level in a small box.

Anyone know the consumption for one of the single/dual cores with integrated gfx?

I don't think I'll jump on this though, I'll wait for Fusion to upgrade (in particular Llano, the 32nm CPU+GPU due in 1H 2011).

Strangely, both the dual and quad core variants are rated at the same TDP of 25W. The 5450 and the chipset GPU probably differ maximum by 10 W. (not sure about this.

By the way, the unit is pretty silent even at load. I have experienced the fan noise at load in both the ASRock Vision 3D and the Zino 410, and I would actually say the Zino 410 is less noisy. Professional measurement of the sound level of the Vision 3D was around 35 dB, and this one should be even lesser.

Yeah, I'm only getting the 'discounted' systems now as well. Bummer. I'll have to keep an eye out on the AAA and the retailmenot sites.

Thanks!

Hi,

I'm very interested in buying the high-end version of the Zino. I know it's not really needed for htpc purpusses only but I also want to use the machine as a hyper-v server to build a small virtual lab environment.

So, the question that's keeping me busy:
- Will the combination HTPC and Hyper-V perform on the high-end, 8GB ram configuration? (I will be running max 4 to 5 virtual servers cuncurrent).

@jakmal: Will there be an anandtech review for this machine and when do you think it will appear on the website? Will you cover a comparison with the Asrock Vision 3D?

Hope anyone can help!

The processor is a mobile processor meant to be usually used for laptops. I am not sure about the processor requirements for Hyper-V, but it does sound like something suited for a desktop processor. Disclaimer : Never used Hyper-V or studied its requirements before ; Other knowledgeable members should chime in.


Yes, There will be a review and a comparison with the Core 100 / Vision 3D. Initial benchmarking / analysis reveals that the high end config is better than the Core 100 but not as good as the Vision 3D. I hope to get the detailed review out of the door by next weekend.

Been looking hard at Roku and AppleTV, but Im wondering if the 410 with the best ATI card isnt a better choice.

Looking for something to hoop up to my Duo/58" plasma to handle all web available HD, like Hulu, Nflix, Amazon VOD, CBS.com Free HD episodes.

You guys think the 410 is a good choice to do everything? My issue with other boxes are there is not a one size fits all, while it seems a HTPC would do it all. Watching free HD episodes of CBS.com is a pretty cool deal if it would work.

Yes, but this is just an upper bound, chosen for some inscrutable marketing reason.

That's good, but 35db is not good for a non-gaming PC, so how much less is important. Looking at the earlier pics of the internals, there is just one fan, so if you took a low power version, replaced the fan if necessary, and added something to dampen/isolate the hard drive somewhat, or better replaced it with an SSD, you could have a very quiet system.

Jakmal thanks for your reply, I hope someone can shed some light in the dark concerning my hyper-v question.

Actually, marketing does not determine the TDP of our processors. TDP is determined by our engineering and validation teams based upon extensive testing.

I saw this in the Zino 400 thread.
I've been following this thread but I guess I haven't been paying enough attention, is the above really true?

The 5450 model supports 7.1 LPCM and also HD audio bitstreaming. Personally verified

not only is it wrong, it's very wrong.

i have my system up and running and have now for a few weeks.

it plays not only 5.1 from DVD's via hdmi, it also plays all HD audio sources via HDMI as well.

my setup is as follows:
Dell ZinoHD 410->Sony STR-DN1000->Sony 42" LCD

and this did not require any setup by me as it was configured for this "out of the box" from Dell.

The only setup i did was the speaker configuration within Windows to tell it i had a 5.1 setup.

Thank you gentlemen for your responses.

CNET has reviewed the Zino HD with Quad core, HD540, blue-ray, etc.
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/del...t;get-selector

But they are not measurements. They are chosen from a set of numbers - 25W, 45W, 65W, 95W etc. that are clearly not measurements, and I'm sure this set of possibilities not chosen by engineers. Presumably this set is chosen by marketing, so people don't get confused by more exact numbers, and so they don't understand the tradeoffs involved in picking a higher processor speed. This is not a criticism.

To guage power consumption you need measurements; TDP only gives you a very vague bracket for load power consumption.

The CNET review makes a pretty good case for getting the Gateway SX2850-33 over the Zino. Hmmm... decisions decisions...

The Gateway (I think the previous version) was the top of my list before the 410 came out. It really depends on your requirements, mine are simple and at this point the low end 410 looks like it's "good enough" for the next couple/three of years, which is all I buy technology for anymore anyway.