Re: ASRock 330 Brings Affordable HDMI 1080P XBMC Solution

["keyvan2r" <k1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I bought one these with a BD drive about two weeks ago for =A3315.

I am using it as a HTPC client to MainLobby / DVDLobby / MLServer
software from Cinemar.

I have tried the Mac mini / Plexx combo and while its has a very nice
on-screen interface it does not really meet my requirements.

I my setup I have my SD DVD content ripped to a NAS in Video_TS folders
with movie title as folder name - about 350 titles.

There are also about 40 BD movies ripped to a USB drive on the nas - for
now - planning a bigger (8/12Tb) WHS box for about another 90 BD's and
future BD rips - also to run the MLserver component. Don't think I shall
be getting many more titles in DVD....

The ASRock runs XP Pro, Arcsoft TMT 3 for playback and the Lobby bits to
control it. The control & selection is done with a Samsung Q1 tablet
running DVDLobby.

I have had some issues with Arcsoft TMT BD playback when I took the pc
off my desktop monitor (apple 24") and connected it to the 58"
panasonic
plasma at 1080p.

It is very strange, only the top quarter of the picture was displayed as
though it was a 2x2 display setup and only the top left display was
connected. I am working on it.... :-(

Otherwise the performance, noise, etc is very good. It works fine with
Mainlobby on the Q1 tablet with movies launching fine and reamote
commands are responsive

Arcsoft TMT is fine playing all my ripped BD's so far and works well as
a stand-alone BD player with the optical drive. It also has a feature
called SimHD which upscales SD content to 1280x720p. It does this pretty
well and both in this mode and 1080p for BD content the cpu load is
around 15%. The ION GPU - which I believe is on par with a nvidia 9400
card - seems to handle the content easily - the HDMI connection is easy
for connection to my Yamaha receiver. My issues so far relate more to
Arcsoft TMT than the ASrock box.

Overall I am happy with my purchase, and given that at this price and
addition of Global cache IR controller - I get a nice touch screen
controlled AV setup with a graphic rich front-end - movie/music-sever
functionality which can rival Crestron / AMX / kaleidoscape at a much
lower price - with HA & security if needed. With the latest versions of
DVDlobby and the AMG sub, the ripping & catalog can be automated.
Although for me it's leass hassle to just do the rip from my desktop
everday use pc.

There is an ASUS 8.9" tablet (T91) which I am looking at as another
wireless touch-screen control device to complement the Q1 which I have
for ages and works fine.

K

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, Andy Davies <dajdavies@...> wrote:
>
> 2009/9/23 Mark McCall lists@...
>
> > A few days ago we were contacted by the guys at LinITX.com
Apparently they
> > had a little box we'd be interested in. Turns out the ASRock 330
is
> > another
> > nettop PC, but one with a nice GPU. What makes this especially
interesting
> > to us is that the XBMC team have recently added GPU support to
the
Linux
> > version of their world beating media player software. So can this
little
> > =A3250 machine replace our weapon of choice, the Mac mini which
costs double
> > the price? Read on to find out...
> >
> > http://bit.ly/19JtMw
> >
> >
> The Asrock still looks too much like a PC to me so I've been waiting
for the
> new dual core Acer Revo to come out before giving this a whirl (oh and
some
> spare cash of course)
>
> From the xmbc forums the single core Atom can struggle a bit, although
some
> people seem very happy with them
>
> Andy
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>





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