Lowest power HTPC capable of decoding flash video

M

Mozex

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 13, 2009
Messages
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Hi again, remember me? http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1418052

Time to put a computer in the living room (1080p television). I'll be doing 4 things with it.
* Browsing the web
* Viewing horribly optimized flash-based streams from hulu/netflix
* Playing recorded videos off the harddrive (or an external hard drive)
* Playing older games (quake 3-ish and earlier)

The computer needs to have HMDI, it does not need to support 7.1 as I'll be using my PS3 to play Blurays.

I'm seriously contemplating getting an ION-based net-top since it meets 3/4 requirements and will be super-low power, but I'm curious what the next best thing is (amd/intel, undervolting, laptop chips, etc). I live in San Diego and it gets rather hot here during the summer, so whatever I go with should be tolerant of 100f ambient temp while doing its most demanding task.

Cost is not as important to me as power/heat, but I'd like to stay under $500.
 
ION would fit the bill.

or an AMD45w proc + 8200/8300 mobo +2gb DDR2-800
 
Sadly ION cannot handle Hulu high quality streams. I don't know if it can handle netflix though.

The ION 2 platform can handle hulu high quality, but the last time I checked ION 2 is not out yet.
 
nitrobass24 said:
or an AMD45w proc + 8200/8300 mobo +2gb DDR2-800
Click to expand...

This.

The ION platform plays lower resolution flash, but anything high quality --forget it. Flash just sucks IMO.. I try to avoid it at all costs in my HTPC experience.
 
Could probably use an Atom Processor for this.
The Atom 330 is a Dual Core 1.66ghz processor that can utilize Hyper Threading.
It's low power with a kick.
 
ShepsCrook said:
Could probably use an Atom Processor for this.
The Atom 330 is a Dual Core 1.66ghz processor that can utilize Hyper Threading.
It's low power with a kick.
Click to expand...



No, it's horribly slow. Flash vid's can bring it to a crawl. I'd go with a E5200.
 
An undervolted e5200 on an nvidia 9300 chipset board will handle everything you can throw at it for HTPC frontend duties
 
DaedalusHelios said:
Sadly ION cannot handle Hulu high quality streams. I don't know if it can handle netflix though.

The ION 2 platform can handle hulu high quality, but the last time I checked ION 2 is not out yet.
Click to expand...

They haven't even announced the ION 2 platform yet, so how do you know it will handle HD flash, hulu & netflix? The rumors I've read only mention an increase in the number of shader processors, which will do absolutely nothing for non GPU accelerated media files.

I'm pretty sure that mplayer under linux + vdpau can handle HD flash without breaking a sweat on ION. The problem with HULU and netflix is that they are going to try their best to lock out 3rd party players such as XBMC from using their content.

The undervolted e5200 + 9300 chipset combo would work quite well.
 
What about a 9300/9400 board with a Conroe-L processor? It's only 35w.
 
It appears that no such boards exist. At least, newegg doesn't carry any.
 
i have used an e1400 with an ati 4550 and it shows hulu desktop high quality streams no issue..

also my BE-2400 which is at 2.4ghz does it also
 
I have the e5200 with an Asus 9300 and it handles anything I throw at it with ease including High Quality flash and it's silent.
 
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