4 ms·

> "This is just the basic level of hardware to get a functional home theater PC" Really? I use an Atom CPU, half the RAM, and offload decoding to the GPU for a

by ZoFreX 16y ago

> "This is just the basic level of hardware to get a functional home theater PC" Really? I use an Atom CPU, half the RAM, and offload decoding to the GPU for an average draw at the wall of ~15W while decoding 1080p, and a pre-built device with all that in costs less than his parts. Slap Ubuntu on, add the NVidia and XBMC PPAs, install VDPAU and XBMC and you are good to go!

ck2 16y ago
i3 is significantly more powerful than atom cpu, it's like apples and oranges. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616-14.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616-1...
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  Yes, but it's a single-purpose computer than can apparently fulfill its purpose with a cheaper and more efficient Atom.
  - ck2 16y ago
    I would dare say a media center will have more and more usefulness as time goes by. New services and features to be added. Atom is just so underpowered that if you have some new kind of software to use for a new service that is not GPU accelerated yet, it basically won't be able to get the job done at all.
    - mhd 16y ago
      The problem is that by the time you come up with this strange new service that requires gobs of CPU power, you might have to buy a new machine anyway, and you'll get something way cheaper and/or faster anyway. Premature optimization, unless you already have something specific in mind (e.g. if a new standard is on the horizon). (And getting something cheaper that you can upgrade in that instance is less likely in the price range of cheap multimedia solutions)
      - ck2 16y ago
        Except we are talking about a $30 savings for buying Atom over i3 in a media center. If it was over $100, I could see your logic. But not for $30.
        mhd 16y ago
        If it comes down to building your own solution, then yes, splurge a bit. But I think the greater counter-argument against the solution proposed by the author is a pre-built media player device (boxee, WD etc.). Not big on CPU, but sufficient for the tasks outlined in the original post. Building computers in the low price segments is pretty dominated by "constant" factors, i.e. case, PSU, mainboard. You can easily double your RAM or increase CPU by a large factor with a relative low percentage increase in total price.
        ZoFreX 16y ago
        I didn't make it clear but I was advocating a pre-built device - I went with the ASRock NetTop 330 because it was exactly the specification I wanted, and cheaper than building it myself.
        vetinari 16y ago
        Not really. I got my complete Atom box for €120. Core i3 started at €350.
    - ZoFreX 16y ago
      More powerful is not better. More powerful is more expensive to buy and to run, noisier, hotter. He was bragging about how low his power draw was, and how cheap his box is. I suggested getting a cheaper box that draws less power yet still contains all the functionality he needs. Personally I don't need anything more than XBMC on my media center, and given the popularity of the device I had (ASRock NetTop 330) I doubt XBMC would add features that wouldn't run on it, historically they have always targeted relatively under-powered devices (original XBox, and now iPad et al). On the power front, CPUs have steadily been getting faster and faster all these years, but our general requirements have not risen with the same speed. I have an Atom N270 in my netbook, which is basically a single-core version of what's in the NetTop, and I am running Windows 7 and frequently play Team Fortress 2 (it looks like minecraft, but it's playable!) You can't really describe something as "underpowered" without a context of what it's for. If I was still doing video editing, I would probably consider your computer "underpowered", but if I was building a dedicated server to run iptables to replace my Netgear router then Atom would be overpowered.
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    Point of order: It's not single-purpose. I had mine dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows 7, and it was quite capable in each (Windows 7 felt slightly sluggish compared to my netbook, which is strange because the nettop is faster). The hardware is completely standard, just an ITX form factor Atom + 9400GT pairing, which is a fantastic combination for decoding video for very little power draw or noise.
aphexairlines 16y ago
What happens if rtorrent is running in the background with a few dozen torrents and you try to decode 1080p?
- vetinari 16y ago
  Nothing. rtorrent is starving your network bandwidth and disk i/o; video is decoded by gpu. The atom cpu is enough to handle both at once. If you get choppy playback, it will be due disk i/o.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  As Vetinari said: Nothing. The CPU is dual-core and barely loaded by video decoding. Depending on your connection speed and the piece size of the torrents, you may run out of RAM though (there's 2GB total in the box and it's quite easy to make rtorrent use that much).
pragmatic 16y ago
Serious question: can you play a blu-ray with Ubuntu? Also how do you do netflix streaming (if you do)? I went i3 and Windows 7 so i can get blu-ray + netflix.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  Blu-ray is the one thing XBMC can't do, I have a stand-alone player so I've never looked into the options for playing them on a PC. That said, people are pretty good at stealing decryption keys, and once the encryption is dealt with you're left with fairly standard video format that XBMC (and many other players) could play and accelerate. The other issue would be the interactive menus, but perhaps working out which title is the main film and just playing that would be satisfactory for most people? It doesn't seem insurmountable, a good place to look for that kind of information would be the Doom9 forums. As for netflix streaming, I'm in the UK, so I know nothing about that! I know it doesn't integrate nicely with XBMC and it isn't easy to do in Linux, though. Edit: Forgot to mention that the XBMC Windows version has come along in leaps and bounds recently and now runs quite smoothly on my laptop, so if you play things other than bluray and netflix you might want to check it out.

by ZoFreX 16y ago

ck2 16y ago

i3 is significantly more powerful than atom cpu, it's like apples and oranges. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616-14.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616-1...

JoachimSchipper 16y ago
Yes, but it's a single-purpose computer than can apparently fulfill its purpose with a cheaper and more efficient Atom.
- ck2 16y ago
  I would dare say a media center will have more and more usefulness as time goes by. New services and features to be added. Atom is just so underpowered that if you have some new kind of software to use for a new service that is not GPU accelerated yet, it basically won't be able to get the job done at all.
  - mhd 16y ago
    The problem is that by the time you come up with this strange new service that requires gobs of CPU power, you might have to buy a new machine anyway, and you'll get something way cheaper and/or faster anyway. Premature optimization, unless you already have something specific in mind (e.g. if a new standard is on the horizon). (And getting something cheaper that you can upgrade in that instance is less likely in the price range of cheap multimedia solutions)
    - ck2 16y ago
      Except we are talking about a $30 savings for buying Atom over i3 in a media center. If it was over $100, I could see your logic. But not for $30.
      - mhd 16y ago
        If it comes down to building your own solution, then yes, splurge a bit. But I think the greater counter-argument against the solution proposed by the author is a pre-built media player device (boxee, WD etc.). Not big on CPU, but sufficient for the tasks outlined in the original post. Building computers in the low price segments is pretty dominated by "constant" factors, i.e. case, PSU, mainboard. You can easily double your RAM or increase CPU by a large factor with a relative low percentage increase in total price.
        ZoFreX 16y ago
        I didn't make it clear but I was advocating a pre-built device - I went with the ASRock NetTop 330 because it was exactly the specification I wanted, and cheaper than building it myself.
      - vetinari 16y ago
        Not really. I got my complete Atom box for €120. Core i3 started at €350.
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    More powerful is not better. More powerful is more expensive to buy and to run, noisier, hotter. He was bragging about how low his power draw was, and how cheap his box is. I suggested getting a cheaper box that draws less power yet still contains all the functionality he needs. Personally I don't need anything more than XBMC on my media center, and given the popularity of the device I had (ASRock NetTop 330) I doubt XBMC would add features that wouldn't run on it, historically they have always targeted relatively under-powered devices (original XBox, and now iPad et al). On the power front, CPUs have steadily been getting faster and faster all these years, but our general requirements have not risen with the same speed. I have an Atom N270 in my netbook, which is basically a single-core version of what's in the NetTop, and I am running Windows 7 and frequently play Team Fortress 2 (it looks like minecraft, but it's playable!) You can't really describe something as "underpowered" without a context of what it's for. If I was still doing video editing, I would probably consider your computer "underpowered", but if I was building a dedicated server to run iptables to replace my Netgear router then Atom would be overpowered.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  Point of order: It's not single-purpose. I had mine dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows 7, and it was quite capable in each (Windows 7 felt slightly sluggish compared to my netbook, which is strange because the nettop is faster). The hardware is completely standard, just an ITX form factor Atom + 9400GT pairing, which is a fantastic combination for decoding video for very little power draw or noise.

aphexairlines 16y ago

What happens if rtorrent is running in the background with a few dozen torrents and you try to decode 1080p?

vetinari 16y ago
Nothing. rtorrent is starving your network bandwidth and disk i/o; video is decoded by gpu. The atom cpu is enough to handle both at once. If you get choppy playback, it will be due disk i/o.
ZoFreX 16y ago
As Vetinari said: Nothing. The CPU is dual-core and barely loaded by video decoding. Depending on your connection speed and the piece size of the torrents, you may run out of RAM though (there's 2GB total in the box and it's quite easy to make rtorrent use that much).

pragmatic 16y ago

Serious question: can you play a blu-ray with Ubuntu? Also how do you do netflix streaming (if you do)? I went i3 and Windows 7 so i can get blu-ray + netflix.

ZoFreX 16y ago
Blu-ray is the one thing XBMC can't do, I have a stand-alone player so I've never looked into the options for playing them on a PC. That said, people are pretty good at stealing decryption keys, and once the encryption is dealt with you're left with fairly standard video format that XBMC (and many other players) could play and accelerate. The other issue would be the interactive menus, but perhaps working out which title is the main film and just playing that would be satisfactory for most people? It doesn't seem insurmountable, a good place to look for that kind of information would be the Doom9 forums. As for netflix streaming, I'm in the UK, so I know nothing about that! I know it doesn't integrate nicely with XBMC and it isn't easy to do in Linux, though. Edit: Forgot to mention that the XBMC Windows version has come along in leaps and bounds recently and now runs quite smoothly on my laptop, so if you play things other than bluray and netflix you might want to check it out.