[mythtv-users] Is the Acer Revo still the best frontend?

[Raymond Wagner]

On 11/9/2010 11:00, Dan Wilga wrote:
> On 11/9/10 2:13 AM, Raymond Wagner wrote:
>> On 11/9/2010 01:32, Johan wrote:
>>> Op 09-11-10 05:54, Kevin Ross schreef:
>>>> On 11/8/2010 8:25 PM, Charles Wright wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> If there were another system in a similar form factor that I can hide
>>>>> behind my television (the Revo is just zip tied to the TV bracket),
>>>>> but with enough CPU to do Flash and have the appropriate
>>>>> virtualization extensions; I would personally consider replacing my
>>>>> Revo.
>>>>
>>>> Any mini-ITX form factor motherboard with onboard nVidia graphics, 
>>>> with a real CPU instead of an Atom would do the trick, such as the 
>>>> Zotac GF9300-I-E.  Put it in an m350 case from mini-box.com, plus a 
>>>> PicoPSU, and strap it to the back of your TV. :)
>>>
>>> Was also looking at a new front-end, but I'm not really certain if 
>>> this box has the ION2 chipset. All it states is Next Gen ION. Is 
>>> that the ION2? As barebone, without disk and memory it's 240 Euro.
>>
>> The ION2 does not have a significantly more powerful CPU or GPU than 
>> the original ION units.  All the same limitations still apply. 
>
> But it does have on-chip decoding of MPEG4, which can be a big plus if 
> that's how you have transcoded all your existing content.

MPEG4 (ASP) is garbage anyway.  While H264 was designed for better than 
double the compression of MPEG2, ASP might get you 40% before you start 
noticeably losing quality.  Beyond that, it's designed for low bitrates 
and 'tops out' in terms of quality.  No matter how much bitrate you 
throw at it, it will never accurately render gradients.  You will always 
see heavy blocking in nearly solid fields.