I picked up a pair of Belkin Gigabit Powerline AV units but ended up returning them. In my home, I was only able to get maximum of 60Mbps at a somewhat usable location. Usable location meaning not side by side in the same room. Not only that, the units would lose their brains occasionally and would require a reboot, looks like I'm just going to have to run cat5e.
Anyhow, now that the new Zotac Ion mobos support Wake-On-USB, I couldn't pass up a great deal at NCIX and ended up buying a package with the mobo and 4GB of ram for just over $200CDN. I probably won't have time to build the system any time soon so it's sitting on the shelve in the den.
I did however finally grab a netbook. I bought an Asus EEE 1005HA from the US which will probably come out to around $310CDN after taxes and cashback/rebates. First thing I did was deny the Windows XP EULA and installed Moblin on it. Apart from the very poor Wifi performance, I have been very impressed with Moblin. It's designed specifically for Netbooks with very little screen real estate and while it's still in the beta stage, it seems fairly stable so far. I was able to determine the poor Wifi performance is Moblin specific since Windows 7 Wifi has no problems. In Moblin, the network connection would disconnect/reconnect every 10min or so, and iwconfig showed 20-30db poorer signal that my other linux laptop. Since going to Windows 7 on the device has really made me appreciate how nicely done Moblin's UI is thought out for netbooks. I'm hoping to get some feature requests in, however the project's webpage is poorly laid out and I'm having a little trouble trying to figure out where enhancement requests would go.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Ion and Gigabit Powerline AV
It's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been busy moving homes, etc. Now that we've moved, I have more opportunity to dig into some of the more recent HTPC happenings.
The Nvidia Ion seems to be a fairly promising platform and seems to have received decent reviews and it's something I'll definitely be considering in the near future. In my new home, we completely gutted the kitchen and rebuilding it. There's a small wall between two large windows that is too small for a cabinet, yet a 20+" LCD mount would fit perfectly. Coupled with a small Ion PC, I'd be able to stream TV, media, music into the kitchen for the small eating area. First things first though, finish the kitchen =D. While GPU assisted high def playback works great on the Ion, my main concern is how sluggish frontends like Mediaportal or XBMC would be with the fancier skins like Mediastream. The lack of wake-on-USB on the Zotac boards is a deal breaker for me, although Anand from Anandtech has reported that a rev B with wake-on-USB will be released for the Ion mobos, although I'm not sure if the GF9300 mini-ITX mobo will get it.
At my previous home, the layout was conducive to pulling cat5e to the areas that needed network access, however my new home is not. My internet access terminates in one corner of the upstairs of the house and the TV is in the opposite end. My server needs to be downstairs for cooling, coax access, etc. In a pinch, a coworker gave me a pair of version 1 Powerline adapters he didn't need and at least I was able to setup my server in the basement and have connectivity, getting a peak of 15Mbit which isn't too shabby considering they were V1 products. I had been doing some digging on how fast the newer Powerline AV products were, and the Netgear XAVB101 seemed to stand out amongst various devices available. I found several reports of 90-96Mbit real world transfer speeds. While this isn't close to the 200Mbit theoretical it is definitely a useable thoroughput. Two days ago however, Belkin announced a gigabit theoretical Powerline AV adapter using the Gigle Mediaxtream chipset. Now no one believes for a minute that these devices can do real gigabit, but if they can do 200 or 300Mbit or more, these things would be a real alternative to dragging cat5e or wifi dropouts. The Belkin F5D4076 Powerline AV adapters are supposedly available in North America and were available for order at time of the press release but have since been sold out and back ordered.
The Nvidia Ion seems to be a fairly promising platform and seems to have received decent reviews and it's something I'll definitely be considering in the near future. In my new home, we completely gutted the kitchen and rebuilding it. There's a small wall between two large windows that is too small for a cabinet, yet a 20+" LCD mount would fit perfectly. Coupled with a small Ion PC, I'd be able to stream TV, media, music into the kitchen for the small eating area. First things first though, finish the kitchen =D. While GPU assisted high def playback works great on the Ion, my main concern is how sluggish frontends like Mediaportal or XBMC would be with the fancier skins like Mediastream. The lack of wake-on-USB on the Zotac boards is a deal breaker for me, although Anand from Anandtech has reported that a rev B with wake-on-USB will be released for the Ion mobos, although I'm not sure if the GF9300 mini-ITX mobo will get it.
At my previous home, the layout was conducive to pulling cat5e to the areas that needed network access, however my new home is not. My internet access terminates in one corner of the upstairs of the house and the TV is in the opposite end. My server needs to be downstairs for cooling, coax access, etc. In a pinch, a coworker gave me a pair of version 1 Powerline adapters he didn't need and at least I was able to setup my server in the basement and have connectivity, getting a peak of 15Mbit which isn't too shabby considering they were V1 products. I had been doing some digging on how fast the newer Powerline AV products were, and the Netgear XAVB101 seemed to stand out amongst various devices available. I found several reports of 90-96Mbit real world transfer speeds. While this isn't close to the 200Mbit theoretical it is definitely a useable thoroughput. Two days ago however, Belkin announced a gigabit theoretical Powerline AV adapter using the Gigle Mediaxtream chipset. Now no one believes for a minute that these devices can do real gigabit, but if they can do 200 or 300Mbit or more, these things would be a real alternative to dragging cat5e or wifi dropouts. The Belkin F5D4076 Powerline AV adapters are supposedly available in North America and were available for order at time of the press release but have since been sold out and back ordered.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Passive HD4550 Update...
Well, it's been quite some time since the release of the HD4550, but even though there's been passive cards announced, I've yet to see anything hit the streets. An interesting thing though, Sapphire changed their actively cooled HD4550 to passive as can been seen on their HD4550 product page. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any vendors locally or online that actually specify the passive version of the Sapphire card. Interestingly enough, there is a Ebay seller that is selling a Sapphire fanless heatsink HD4550. A concern I have however, is that the HD4550 may not do SD deinterlacing quite as well as the HD4650/4670 as can seen from this post on AVSForum.
On another note, I'm a big fan of Mediaportal, but I'm thinking of doing a Mediaportal vs XBMC comparison when I get the chance. Need to find some time to set it up though.
On another note, I'm a big fan of Mediaportal, but I'm thinking of doing a Mediaportal vs XBMC comparison when I get the chance. Need to find some time to set it up though.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Nvidia 9300/9400 Released - The best HTPC IGP?
Is the Nvidia 9300/9400 the best HTPC IGP on the market? Possibly. Looks like it has a few software/driver issues that are hopefully sorted out. But other than that the 9300 chipset is looking like an excellent platform, probably the best on the market for now.
AnandTech - The IGP Chronicles Part 3: NVIDIA's GeForce 9300
The Tech Report - Nvidia's GeForce 9300 chipset: Best integrated graphics chipset ever?
Tom's Hardware - Move Over G45: Nvidia's nForce 730i Arrives
To reiterate, the 9300 is pretty much a rehash of the 8200 chipset but for the Intel CPU's. My hope is that the 9300 is will be more actively developed than the 8200 was. I have a feeling Nvidia will be putting more resources on the 9300 since it's in widespread use in the new Apple laptops. So what does the 9300 bring to the table?
-Integrated HDMI
-5.1/7.1 multi-channel LPCM audio via HDMI unlike 780G/780GX
-no repeater bug like the G45
-works with odd HDMI implementations like Denon
-completely smooth 1080p/24 plaback unlike G45/780G
-low power consumption
There's a still 2 big outstanding issues before these boards hit the street though. Memory performance is slow because Nvidia supposedly didn't have the engineering resources to enable Nvidia's Advance Path in their WHQL drivers, and CAS4 timing wasn't available. Word is Nvidia and board vendors are working on getting this resolved, hopefully we'll see this fixed before the boards hit the street.
If you're looking at the various vendors, I highly suggest you look at the manual on each vendor's website carefully. I purchased the Giga-byte GA-M78SM-S2H (8200) mobo based on the assumption that Giga-byte is a good manufacturer and the various boards should be identical in functionality. I was burned on processor/memory timing option on the GA-M78SM-S2H however. Granular control over memory timing and CPU speeds and also GPU speed is missing on this board and when submitted a ticket with Giga-byte, their initial response was that all mATX boards were workstation not consumer boards (WTF?) and therefore have limited bios functionality. I responded with a link to various other mATX Giga-byte boards that had the features I was asking for, and the response from them was that the GA-M78SM-S2H is a lower priced board and therefore doesn't have that functionality. Hopefully on the Intel platform, CPU/RAM timing isn't as important as on AMD for HD media playback, but it is something to keep an eye out for.
AnandTech - The IGP Chronicles Part 3: NVIDIA's GeForce 9300
The Tech Report - Nvidia's GeForce 9300 chipset: Best integrated graphics chipset ever?
Tom's Hardware - Move Over G45: Nvidia's nForce 730i Arrives
To reiterate, the 9300 is pretty much a rehash of the 8200 chipset but for the Intel CPU's. My hope is that the 9300 is will be more actively developed than the 8200 was. I have a feeling Nvidia will be putting more resources on the 9300 since it's in widespread use in the new Apple laptops. So what does the 9300 bring to the table?
-Integrated HDMI
-5.1/7.1 multi-channel LPCM audio via HDMI unlike 780G/780GX
-no repeater bug like the G45
-works with odd HDMI implementations like Denon
-completely smooth 1080p/24 plaback unlike G45/780G
-low power consumption
There's a still 2 big outstanding issues before these boards hit the street though. Memory performance is slow because Nvidia supposedly didn't have the engineering resources to enable Nvidia's Advance Path in their WHQL drivers, and CAS4 timing wasn't available. Word is Nvidia and board vendors are working on getting this resolved, hopefully we'll see this fixed before the boards hit the street.
If you're looking at the various vendors, I highly suggest you look at the manual on each vendor's website carefully. I purchased the Giga-byte GA-M78SM-S2H (8200) mobo based on the assumption that Giga-byte is a good manufacturer and the various boards should be identical in functionality. I was burned on processor/memory timing option on the GA-M78SM-S2H however. Granular control over memory timing and CPU speeds and also GPU speed is missing on this board and when submitted a ticket with Giga-byte, their initial response was that all mATX boards were workstation not consumer boards (WTF?) and therefore have limited bios functionality. I responded with a link to various other mATX Giga-byte boards that had the features I was asking for, and the response from them was that the GA-M78SM-S2H is a lower priced board and therefore doesn't have that functionality. Hopefully on the Intel platform, CPU/RAM timing isn't as important as on AMD for HD media playback, but it is something to keep an eye out for.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Passive Radeon HD4550's trickling in...
It seems that even though the NDA was lifted on the ATI Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350, it is still a bit late to market. However, we're starting to see passive HD4550 cards posted by vendors:
Giga-byte GV-R455D3-512I (2xDVI-I,1VGA,likely HDMI adapter)
Force3D HD4550 (DVI-I,1VGA,1 S-Video,likely HDMI adapter)
Giga-byte GV-R455D3-512I (2xDVI-I,1VGA,likely HDMI adapter)
Force3D HD4550 (DVI-I,1VGA,1 S-Video,likely HDMI adapter)
Monday, October 6, 2008
ATI HD4550 - No passive cards yet...
Last week the NDA on the ATI HD4550/HD4350 was lifted and most of the various ATI partners have released the specs of their cards. What I find odd is the reference ATI HD4550 card was passively cooled with no fan yet the vendors who have announced their HD4550's are actively cooled.
Currently announced HD 4550's (all actively cooled with fans):
SAPPHIRE HD 4550 512MB DDR3 PCI-E
ASUS EAH4550/DI/512MD3
PowerColor HD4550 512MB DDR3
HIS, MSI, and Diamond have yet to release their HD4550. Hopefully they don't put a fan on their cards.
Currently announced HD 4550's (all actively cooled with fans):
SAPPHIRE HD 4550 512MB DDR3 PCI-E
ASUS EAH4550/DI/512MD3
PowerColor HD4550 512MB DDR3
HIS, MSI, and Diamond have yet to release their HD4550. Hopefully they don't put a fan on their cards.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
ATI HD4550/4450 The Close to Perfect HTPC Video Card?
ATI/AMD is slated to release the Radeon HD4550 by the end of September. Word on the street is it will cost $50-60 for a 512MB version and as low as $39 for a 256MB version. Low-end cards in general are always looked down upon in the gaming community for being much too slow for anything but displaying a desktop. However, the HD4550 brings video acceleration for MPEG2/VC-1/H.264 material as well as multi-channel LPCM over HDMI to the table. It will also likely be offered with passive cooling (no fan) from several vendors. While these features are not found on other cards like the HD4870, it is however a breakthrough for low-end video cards. For example, I have some parts leftover from a Socket 939 AMD 3800+ X2 dual core system that merely needs a case and video card. I can revive this older outdated hardware by just throwing in an HD4550 and I can let my parents use this computer as an HTPC.
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