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On 09/28/2009 12:17 PM, Micah Galizia wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:3d68351e0909280917w5cfa567bgf9f871ba3b7536ea@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Greetings Phil,<br>
<br>
Sorry for contacting you directly, but I noticed in your other post
that you have MythTV running with the ION, and I was hoping you had
time to answer a few questions on your impressions. I guess my main
question is how it performs wrt the UI and HD (mpeg4) playback. Also,
are you using it with a capture card? If so, how does it handle the
recordings?<br>
<br>
Thanks again, and sorry for the private message.<br>
-- <br>
"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause,
while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for
one." --W. Stekel</blockquote>
<br>
I received this as a PM, but thought that the response might help
others.....<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> Hi Micah,<br>
<br>
I have a combined FE/BE based on kubuntu 9.10 (beta) and MythTV trunk,
based on an Asus M3N78-VM motherboard (integrated nVidia 8200 series).
My only capture is an HD-PVR on this system, which grabs via component
in 480p and 780p video with AC3 audio. All of my "recording" content
is, therefore, in H264 (and as a side-effect, natively PS3-friendly.)
This is important because I don't need to run with any de-interlacing,
and there's almost nothing taxing the main CPU during playback. (I let
the STB de-interlace 480i and put out a 480p signal. Unfortunately, I
haven't found any 1080i content coming from my cable provider that
would require me to experiment with de-interlacing.)<br>
<br>
I have two other stand-alone front-ends.... a PS3, and an ION box. I
have plans for potentially two or three additional ION boxes.<br>
<br>
My ION front-end is as follows:<br>
<blockquote>1 x Zotac IONITX-A MINI-ITX Intel Atom N330 NVIDIA Ion DDR2
GBLAN
802.11N HDMI Audio 90W PSU Motherboard <br>
1 x MINI-BOX M350 Universal MINI-ITX Computer Case Black 1X2.5INT <br>
2 x Crucial Rendition 2GB 1X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 240PIN DIMM Memory <br>
1 x Syba SD-ADA25001 USB Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR CLASS2 Mini Adapter with
LED <br>
1 x OCZ Rally 2 High Performance 8GB USB2.0 Dual Channel
Flash Memory Drive <br>
1 x nGear NG-HDMI-MM-10 HDMI M/M 10FT High Quality Video Cable<br>
1 x Sony BD Remote Control<br>
1 x Logitech Cordless Mediaboard Pro bluetooth keyboard with touchpad<br>
</blockquote>
Total cost for the above configuration was about $350 Canadian (plus
tax), excluding the Bluetooth keyboard ($70) and remote control ($23)
which
already had. I chose a Bluetooth remote and keyboard for the range
(10m) and
because it's
not line-of-site. I plan on mounting the ION box behind the TV at some
point. I personally think Bluetooth is the way to go, although I'm on
the bleeding edge with getting the Sony BD Remote control working
properly through uinput and MythTV (I still have some key mapping
issues.) The keyboard works
well when needed. The case I'm using is great, because of the small
size and it has a hidden
compartment for two USB devices.... my USB stick and the Bluetooth
adapter. If I wanted an optical drive, I'd need to go with a different
case however.<br>
<br>
Software-wise, the ION front-end is running mythbuntu 9.10 alpha,
although I've put MythTV trunk on it. It boots from USB, and at the
moment
it's networked via a 100Mbps router to the BE, which I plan to upgrade
to a NetGear WNDR3700 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router once
I can find one available. I run nVidia beta drivers 190.36. (Note, I
had tearing on my combined FE/BE until a recent release of nVidia
drivers.... so I'd recommend running with 190.*) I'm using
HDMI output, with stereo audio over the HDMI (5.1 works fine, but the
TV the FE is hooked to has no surround). I boot/run from USB.<br>
<br>
Performance on the FE is very good for video playback.... It's fine
with any of the content I throw at it, and to be honest even the
single-core model would be fine (and cooler) as CPU load is usually in
the single digits while playing back. I went for the dual-core model
mainly because I wanted to evaluate the board as a possible replacement
system for my two sons' desktop computers. They currently have older
Windows PC's, and I plan to replace them with two Linux ION boxes
hooked to 24" 1080p computer monitors, giving them both MythTV FE
capabilities and personal Linux workstations. Once I have my new
router, I
plan to experiment with running the FE wireless, to see if that's a
viable configuration for my sons machines. (The PS3 runs fine
wirelessly, provided the BE is wired directly to my wireless router,
but the quick testing I did with the Zotac wireless showed
playback issues. I expect it to take some significant effort to tune
the
wireless in the Zotac to the point where it can be used as a wireless
FE... if ever. Good chance I'll be running CAT-6e to my sons rooms
eventually.) <br>
<br>
Others have done some testing to show that the Zotac can commercial
flag just about in real time. Clearly with something like an HD-PVR
hooked to it, it would be fine as there isn't any real processing load
put on it anyway. I've toyed with the idea of running one with an
HD-PVR as a slave back-end. One challenge with using it as a BE may
be firewire.... I use firewire for channel changing, and there's no
firewire with the Zotac (a USB-to-firewire adapter is quite expensive,
so I'd look at another MB before going that route. There's an Asus
ION board that has a more normal PCI slot on it that might be better as
a BE choice if you need to add a firewire card. My main reason for
wanting to move from 100Mbps to 1Gbit ethernet is related to upgrading
the wireless part of the router...although it might help with FFD/RWD
performance on the FE as well (which is acceptable but could be better.)<br>
<br>
The one performance caution I've heard related to the Atom processors
has to do with running things like Flash under Linux.... as there is
no VDPAU acceleration for Flash, you're relying on the Atom and from
what I've read it sounds like the ION boards are underpowered for
Flash. I haven't tested this myself, although I'll need to
as it's the one think that may keep me from using these boards as
general purpose workstations for my sons.<br>
<br>
Getting the board going was easy, apart from figuring out how to make a
bootable USB DOS image so that I could flash the Zotac's
firmware....that was frustrating. HDMI audio took some
research/tinkering, but works fine.<br>
<br>
I put 4GB of memory on it for two reasons (1) with two memory modules
you can run dual-channel, improving memory bandwidth which in turn
could have an effect on VDPAU performance (2) I'm booting from USB,
and I didn't want to risk swapping to USB (indeed, I don't have a swap
area). However, 2GB is probably sufficient depending on what
plug-ins or other software you intend to run. If you boot from USB,
8GB seems like the right amount to allow for things like
dist-upgrades. I actually compile trunk on the ION (slow, but saved me
figuring out how to configure/cross-compile it), NFS mounting the
source code.. but all the dev tools/libraries are installed on the USB
stick.<br>
<br>
A note about cooling.... the case I'm using provides excellent
airflow, and I find that (on it's side) the board runs cool enough, so
I'm not using a fan and the FE is totally silent (Zotac says the fan is
optional, and given that I run low on CPU, and with no hard drive,
optical drive, or internal power supply adding to the heat dissipation,
and my case is full of holes, I decided to test out "optional"). This
has been fine for about 6 weeks, and even after hours of playing HD
material, the system is still cool-enough to the touch (of course, the
main CPU is not being taxed). The main CPU is normally at or just
below 70(C) degrees.<br>
<br>
My unresolved issues right now are:<br>
(1) the frequent display of old frame-buffer information when starting
a watch recording.... although I'm convinced this is easily solvable
once one of the MythTV devs looks at it - must get around to opening
that ticket!<br>
(2) I haven't been able to get wake-on-USB working yet, even though my
board supposedly supports this - could be a kernel or dist issue, but
I'm hoping someone else will write a howto. <br>
(3) Testing flash performance for things like youtube.<br>
<br>
Once I've worked through these, I'll decide whether to order 2-3 more
Zotacs.<br>
<br>
Hope this helps.<br>
<br>
Phil<br>
<br>
</div>
<br>
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