Celeron M 520 1.6 for H.264 720p HD content?

[hansvonaxion]

Hey Windows users,

I'm contemplating an el cheapo PC to sit net to the TV for DLing and video playback on the TV to free up the laptop and I came across a Sharp Internet PC at an outlet store...

The link in Japanese

The reason I'm considering it is because it has a separate 250GB HD for recording TV, it works with the Aquos TV we have (1366x768 LCD model) and will record, can be programmed via EPG etc and comes with wireless KB with built in trackpad and a remote.

But the only model they have is the PC-AX80V, which has a Celeron 520 M 1.6Ghz processor. I'm wondering if this will be good enough to play back H.264 encoded MVK files up to 720p? An ideas? I figure if it can record HD content up to 1080, it should be able to play back 720p even if it is encoded and compressed. Forgot to mention, Intel 945GM with 224MB shared memory.

My other option is the new Mac Mini, cos they've just released a new model that's about 30% cheaper than the older one, making it somewhat reasonable.

Thanks in advance.

[hansvonaxion]

Well no thanks to you guys I bought the Aquos computer and it seems to play HD content just fine even though the Windows website suggests 2.4Ghz and over (from memory) as minimum requirement.

Mind you, I just dragged the CPU monitor widget to the desktop and the CPU guage hasn't budged from 100% since doing so (even when not really doing anything)! That ain't right.

Now I just need to get it running in English.

[otispunkmeyer]

today even with an Atom... u can power 720p video. you just need a cheapish Nvidia or Radeon GPU (like a Geforce 9 series or something) and that thing will do the processing for you, taking the load off the CPU

bit late now of course, but most elcheapo computers can do HD with just a half decent graphics card

plus i would of bought the mini.... the new ones got some very worthy parts.

[Paco]

I'm pretty sure the dual core Atom 330 is capable of 1080p playback...

"The HD video appeared smoother with the HT-enabled system, but the fact remains that even with HT disabled we had a wonderful viewing experience -- free of any choppy frames."

Also, don't get upset about no response to a computer hardware question after only two days when you're posting on a forum for fans of a television show about CARS. There are lots of better places for those kind of questions.

If you're in dire need of a small performance increase you can replace the windows OS with Ubuntu (or whatever linux flavor you prefer) and install Boxee as your media center.

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by otispunkmeyer

plus i would of bought the mini.... the new ones got some very worthy parts.

Yeah the mini would have been nice, but after forking out for wireless KB and mouse it would have cost more than double what I paid for this thing and I wouldn't have been able to record TV (that function is more for the wife - I don't watch much TV).

The new model is about 30% cheaper than the outgoing model (here, at least) with some improved features - must suck for the people who recently bought one. I got caught when I bought an iPod a couple of days before the new one came out.

Originally Posted by Paco

Also, don't get upset about no response to a computer hardware question after only two days when you're posting on a forum for fans of a television show about CARS. There are lots of better places for those kind of questions.

If you're in dire need of a small performance increase you can replace the windows OS with Ubuntu (or whatever linux flavor you prefer) and install Boxee as your media center.

I wasn't upset.
I didn't want to join a forum to post one question.

I've never used Ubuntu. It would probably work for my needs, I'm just using the machine for torrents and video playback. Is Ubuntu less prone to viruses than Vista?

[low strife]

As long as you have a graphics card that supports video playback, just about any Celly\Pentium 4 processor over 1.5Ghz should run low\mid bitrate.

Any ATI 3xxx card, or 8xxx Nvidia card will support video decompression.

[Paco]

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

Is Ubuntu less prone to viruses than Vista?

Yes, very much so. For the same reason that Mac people don't worry about viruses as much as Windows: not a lot of people write viruses for linux.

Since you have the computer knowledge to run torrents, you'll most likely be able to figure out Ubuntu. If you've never used anything but windows, using Ubuntu isn't too much different from Vista. And if you're just using it for simple stuff like torrents, web browsing, and media playing, then you can try that boxee program, XBMC, or any of a million other options.


The bad part is the time involved figuring which programs you want to use and setting everything up, but once you do, it's worth it.

[hansvonaxion]

I think I might stick with Vista for now, just because this machine is split into a PC and PVR and I think I've screwed some functions up already just by installing an English version OS (can't find a recovery or software disk anywhere to reinstall the pre-loaded software). For some reason, audio doesn't play through the HDMI anymore for one thing.

But I've set it up so I can just drop torrent files to the shared public folder on the windows machine and uTorrent will start them automatically so I can use the latop for everything and the PC as a video player. And torrent speeds seem to be better, getting 5-7MB/s now.

As much as I want to use something other than Windows, I'm also lazy.

On a sidenote, I tried a 1080p file and playback was not smooth. Not that I would expect it to be when outputting to a 1360x768 display.

[low strife]

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

But I've set it up so I can just drop torrent files to the shared public folder on the windows machine and uTorrent will start them automatically so I can use the latop for everything and the PC as a video player. And torrent speeds seem to be better, getting 5-7MB/s now.

On a sidenote, I tried a 1080p file and playback was not smooth. Not that I would expect it to be when outputting to a 1360x768 display.

On a home connection? Even if you're at college, they like to throttle stuff like that.

1080p x264 tends to me over 10mbps, and that's not easy to playback.

[hansvonaxion]

I'm in Japan, internet is great. True 100Mb connection for cheap. The place I'm moving to at the end of the month has 100Mb included (it's about 1000¥/mo), no provider needed, just plug into the wall. Well, that's what they're telling us - we might move in and find out we need a provider for some reason or another.

[low strife]

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

I'm in Japan, internet is great. True 100Mb connection for cheap. The place I'm moving to at the end of the month has 100Mb included (it's about 1000¥/mo), no provider needed, just plug into the wall. Well, that's what they're telling us - we might move in and find out we need a provider for some reason or another.

Yeah, but the downside is that your connection to the rest of the world is far from 100mBit. The most I've ever gotten from a Japanise IP is about 100kb\s.

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by low strife

Yeah, but the downside is that your connection to the rest of the world is far from 100mBit. The most I've ever gotten from a Japanise IP is about 100kb\s.

True that. If I do a speed check I get about 2-4Mbs from EU and US.

I'm seriously starting to think about Ubuntu. Windows is awful.
I thought having not used Windows since XP my opinion might have been outdated and Vista would change it, but no. OSX is not perfect, far from it, but it still blows Windows out of the water. (I'm sure the hardware doesn't help though)

[PacketCollision]

I've been using Ubuntu almost exclusively (my laptop has an XP partition for MS SQL Reports work I do, and an OS X partition for iPhone Development, but I almost never boot either of them) for a couple of years now, and I love it. It's not for everyone, but it suits my needs exactly. It has a faster networking stack than Windows too.

[Hercules286]

Originally Posted by hansvonaxion

I'm seriously starting to think about Ubuntu. Windows is awful.
I thought having not used Windows since XP my opinion might have been outdated and Vista would change it, but no. OSX is not perfect, far from it, but it still blows Windows out of the water. (I'm sure the hardware doesn't help though)

There's nothing wrong with a well-configured XP install, unless you're developing. That being said, I like my Ubuntu install alot, save for a few minor annoyances. Now I only boot into windows for running games. (LFS runs through wine, at 1/2 the performance)

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by PacketCollision

I've been using Ubuntu almost exclusively (my laptop has an XP partition for MS SQL Reports work I do, and an OS X partition for iPhone Development, but I almost never boot either of them) for a couple of years now, and I love it. It's not for everyone, but it suits my needs exactly. It has a faster networking stack than Windows too.

I've invested so much time and effort into getting Windows working I don't think I can face starting over again.

Originally Posted by Hercules286

There's nothing wrong with a well-configured XP install, unless you're developing. That being said, I like my Ubuntu install alot, save for a few minor annoyances. Now I only boot into windows for running games. (LFS runs through wine, at 1/2 the performance)

I guess most of my problems stem from having done a clean install of English Vista over the Japanese version, but the only reason I did that was because MS doesn't offer decent language support in the first place. I would have had to upgrade to Ultimate (for 35% the cost of the whole machine) to be able to add a language pack, if I did I would have lost manufacturer support anyway. In OSX all languages are pre-installed and it takes about 30 seconds to change.

So after the upgrade all the drivers were gone (I'd forgotten what drivers were) and it took me ages to get the keyboard working properly - required me to create strings in the registry or something.

I still don't have the sound working through HDMI, even though I've updated the drivers for the sound card (countless times). But I can live with using the analogue stereo mini jack for now or the optical out when I get an amp.

Thanks for your input guys. It's (almost) running smoothly.

[hansvonaxion]

Sorry to bump this dead old thread, but just thought I'd update for future reference.

HD 720p content only plays smoothly up to single DVD size. I've had a 4.3GB rip play fine, but a 4.4GB rip dropped frames, same with files 6-7GB.