Official Dell Zino 410 HTPC - Page 10

Originally Posted by David James

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?

Originally Posted by R1Budha

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.

Originally Posted by klas

That's exactly my thinking. I guess I will stick to my 6850 w/ 4330 a bit longer, unless quad core proves to be more exciting then this.

Originally Posted by scJohn

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

Originally Posted by chopchop0

Agreed. I think the important thing is that you have the discrete HDMI video card (either the 4330 on the Zino 400 or the 5450 on the Zino 410) on your system rather than the integrated one.

Originally Posted by David James

so what happens if you have the integrated one?

My requirements are simple, I don't even need 5.1 or 7.1. I'm okay with 2 channel. Will the Integrated HDMI card give me that?

Originally Posted by jakmal

I did some more testing and it looks like the Mobility 5450 is too weak to do DXVA for 60 fps H264 clips (even those from the Panasonic 1080p60 camcorder). The frames do get decoded, but play back very slow (decoder not able to keep up with the required frame rate / choppy).

(The test streams all play fine with ffmpeg-mt by making use of all 4 cores of the P940, but the CPU usage averages around 60 - 80%)

Originally Posted by oaklandnative

Sorry, can you please explain this a bit more for those of us not quite up to par on the technical aspects? As I understand, you're saying the GPU is too weak to play 1080p 60fps clips but the 4 core CPU can play them fine (without the GPU) using ffmpeg-mt because that allows for multicore support? Don't the CPU and GPU work together? Would one have to disable GPU acceleration to properly play the clips?

I guess my real question is whether XBMC would be able to play 1080p at 60fps

Thanks

Originally Posted by jakmal

It does appear that the GPU is too weak to play 1080p60. The CPU is capable. For video decode with DXVA, GPU works 99% of the time, and the CPU isn't doing much except a little bit of housekeeping. For ffmpeg-mt, GPU works 0% and CPU is doing the full decoding as well as housekeeping.

If you are using MPC-HC to play clips, you have to make sure that GPU acceleration is disabled. Alternately, you can use Shark007 codec and have Windows Media Player play back the files without using GPU acceleration (I see suggested config is ffmpeg-mt).

Some XBMC builds try to use DXVA I think (don't have personal experience), but the older builds used CPU to decode. If CPU is used, you are all set. Otherwise, you have make sure XBMC doesn't use DXVA at least for the 1080p60 H264 clips (but, that beats the whole point of having a discrete GPU in the machine).

Originally Posted by CSMR

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.

Originally Posted by chopchop0

Agreed. I think the important thing is that you have the discrete HDMI video card (either the 4330 on the Zino 400 or the 5450 on the Zino 410) on your system rather than the integrated one.

Originally Posted by David James

so what happens if you have the integrated one?

My requirements are simple, I don't even need 5.1 or 7.1. I'm okay with 2 channel. Will the Integrated HDMI card give me that?

Originally Posted by jakmal

I did some more testing and it looks like the Mobility 5450 is too weak to do DXVA for 60 fps H264 clips (even those from the Panasonic 1080p60 camcorder). The frames do get decoded, but play back very slow (decoder not able to keep up with the required frame rate / choppy).

Does anyone else face the same issue? Jay, do you have any insights into why this is happening?

I see that the video BIOS of the the 5450 clocks the engine at 500 MHz when UVD is being used (while it is at 675 MHz for other configurations). Is there any way to increase this frequency, and would it help?

(The test streams all play fine with ffmpeg-mt by making use of all 4 cores of the P940, but the CPU usage averages around 60 - 80%)

Originally Posted by SpeedyV

Java Jack, what are your thoughts about running hyper-v on the high-end version of the zino? I know the cpu is a mobile one and it's just running at 1.7Ghz. I want to combine a HTPC with a labsystem and the Zino would be a really nice fit..... but only when it performs.

Thanks for your advice!

Originally Posted by SpeedyV

Java Jack, what are your thoughts about running hyper-v on the high-end version of the zino? I know the cpu is a mobile one and it's just running at 1.7Ghz. I want to combine a HTPC with a labsystem and the Zino would be a really nice fit..... but only when it performs.

Thanks for your advice!

Originally Posted by Dewg

I'm thinking about getting the 410 Dual Core with the 5450 graphics for streaming internet TV and light web browsing. Netflix, Hulu Plus, Youtube, and various network websites.

Everything I've read in this thread indicates that it'll stream that content in 1080p without any problems.

Has anyone run the Windows Ratings on their 410's? If so, what are the component ratings?

I'm really curious what the 2.4 Dual Core rates out as vs the 1.7 Quad Core, and the integrated graphics vs the 5450.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by mesostinky

Just bought a Zino HD. 2.2GHz P340/onboard video, 2GB. It comes with ATI Catalyst 10.4, I updated Flash and reinstalled DirectX. This is basically the exact same software/hardware setup as my main HTPC except that has an AMD X2 250 3.0GHz(785G/onboard video). I thought I would make some notes for people who want to buy the basic configuration and still try to run 1080P content.

Basically I'm trying to decide if I should keep it. It has 2 big problems. 1) It "just" plays 1080P Flash video smoothly on youtube and especially hulu. Cpu usage is say 60-90% for 1080p youtube and its near 90% for 480p hulu, specifically the Glee/Duets episode. It's smooth but there is zero margin for what is coming 6 months from now. 2) While vga looks perfect at 1080P, the text on hdmi is awful. I've done whatever adjustments I can but it's unusable. I would need to run at 720P hdmi, which does looks a decent bit better, or run vga only which looks perfect at 1080P

Ignoring point 2) for now as I'm still testing(feel free to give pointers) the 2.2GHz cpu combined with ATI's not great Flash acceleration puts this on the edge put people who want to use this particular config for HD online content.

Offline HD is as expected, Buck bunny 1080P, that Bond 1080P 9refs L5.1 clip, etc play fine.

I bought this over an Intel atom/ion1(say a revo 3610) system because I thought the cpu would give it an edge. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Anecdotal evidence I've seen shows those systems might have a slight edge. Mine, if I keep it, is going in a tiny space behind my 720p 26" HDTV in the bedroom. I haven't decided what to do yet.

If anyone has any questions or wants me to test any video please let me know.

Originally Posted by Java Jack

Hmm, odd. I have almost the same configuration and my CPU load on Glee Duets is 65-70% using a pop out window, full screen on 40" LCD.

Using Hulu Desktop app, results were slightly higher at 75-80%

Are you sure h/w acceleration is working?

Originally Posted by mesostinky

Yup I'm 100% Positive. You're also using a faster cpu I think which iirc has double the cache and a 128bit fpu vs my 64bit fpu. That might explain the difference. With just a little bit faster cpu all of these problem go away. It's a shame that Dell doesn't offer the faster Turion cpus which would fix this potential problem and only cost users slightly above what the P340 costs.

Originally Posted by SpeedyV

Java Jack, Thanks for your reply. It made it clear to me that this isn't the machine for me.