2010-02-14, 15:34 | Link #101 |
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Join Date: Feb 2010
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I was just looking at Broadcom's Crystal HD chip, which seems awesome but brings about two rather important questions. Once again, sorry for the hijack, as this is barely relevant but I'm not sure it warrants its own topic.
- Are there any netbooks on the market that have a real spare mini-PCIE slot? Using a USB wifi adapter on a notebook looks... dirty. Conversely, it'd be nice if Broadcom updated CrystalHD with a wifi chip and possibly got it into some existing netbook models. It's easily worth $50-100 price premium (compared to ION's ~$150) - To anyone who's tried it (synaesthetic?): I've read it can't handle "Killa Sampla" (my vaguely definitive video accel. standard), but is this due to format limitations (macroblocks, doesn't accelerate at all) or performance limitations on the chip? (plays slowly, choppy). 1080p H.264 over XBMC on any OS for an extra $30-50 is pretty sweet any which way you cut it. |
2010-02-14, 15:50 | Link #102 | ||
blinded by blood
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Netbooks that I know have an open and ready-to-use Mini-PCIe slot that works for more than just a WWAN radio are: HP Mini 110, HP Mini 210 and the Samsung N120. There are many more netbooks with free Mini-PCIe slots, but like I said, you often have to do some soldering. I know that both the Asus eee PC 901 and 1000HE can be modified to turn the WWAN radio slot into a fully-functional Mini-PCIe slot. ION is of course much more capable, but you can easily adapt a Samsung N120 for HD video playback with minimal cost, by picking up a used or refurbished N120, then buying a Broadcom card off ebay for $20. Quote:
It can handle a lot, but I don't really see the point in playing back 1080p Blu-ray rips on a netbook with a 9" or 10" screen. I can understand wanting 720p playback, since many fansub groups only release 720p encodes, but 1080p is a ways away before it becomes the standard.
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2010-02-16, 10:48 | Link #104 |
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Join Date: Feb 2010
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Anything that requires soldering in a PCI-E connector is probably more work than it's actually worth (given time spent and all), and like I said, it's not worth it if I have to take out the wireless chip. I'd rather go Linux/ION for the extra scratch. Heck, the only reason I haven't is because there are no ION tablets on the market, let alone tablets under $500. That's part of what makes the Adam so enticing. While it's ARM, the 1080p playback should be on-par with the 9400's.
There are a few Anime releases in 1080p at the moment via Blu-Ray rips, but it's more about having a "future-proof" setup. 2160p is, in all honesty, probably a decade away, given how ridiculous the diminishing returns are on it, especially when it comes to 2D animation (heck, without CG, 1080p itself gets some nasty diminishing returns, especially compared to a good upscale filter). As such, as soon as you have a player that can do any 1080p H.264/VC-1 setup under the sun (including audio codecs and softsubs), you're essentially done. While the Adam's screen (and the screen of many netbooks) is 600p, the HDMI port works up to 1080p and there's something to be said about being able to arbitrarily hook it up to an HDTV. In a pinch, a house with an HDTV usually has at least one device hooked up via HDMI and you can just use its cable, provided you didn't bring your own for the front port. Plus, even if the screen can't handle the res, there's a value in not having to ever convert a video again. $50-100 bucks buys you a 2.5" drive in the 320-500GB range that uses up 5-10w of power while plugged in and stores more stuff than you'll probably ever need to have on-hand at any given moment in a rather tiny space. Heck, that's enough for a hi-def week-long anime marathon. A tablet-sized device that can function as an e-Reader and a PMP/STB would nearly be an end-all, especially when you can stuff it in your backpack and use your bluetooth headphones to listen to music with it. The only thing that would clinch it would be using Bluetooth dialing and Bluetooth CID to function as a cell phone extension, tho that might be more novelty than function. edit note: Apparently retractable HDMI cables suck. They essentially have to be thin, and thin HDMI cables suffer too greatly from interference due to lack of shielding to be useful. Last edited by MukiEX; 2010-02-16 at 11:17. |
2010-02-16, 17:50 | Link #105 |
blinded by blood
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Before declaring the Notion Ink tablet to be the winner, one of us needs to get our hands on it and be sure softsubs actually do work. Since that is a feature usually only fansub-watchers care about, I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a media player for Android that supports them.
And apparently the Tegra's GPU doesn't support VDPAU, so mplayer (assuming Notion Ink does what they said earlier and allows you to change the Linux distro on the device) won't help out very much... As it stands right now, the HP Mini 311 is still probably the best way to go. It has excellent build quality for an HP consumer product, is the absolute cheapest ION netbook in existence (can be found in the base configuration for less than $400) and has quite a nice screen and keyboard for such a cheap computer. Pick up a Mini 311-1000NR for about $400, yank out the crappy 160GB hard drive and replace it with a good budget SSD (Kingston's new SSDNow V series all run the same controllers as Intel's X-25M Gen 2, which cost much more). Pick up a 2GB DDR3 SODIMM and pop it in... load up CCCP and Media Player Classic, get DXVA all set up on Windows 7... Combine all that with a 500GB USB HDDs full of fansubs and you've got yourself a very portable and very capable fansub-ready HTPC for around $600.
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2010-02-16, 22:07 | Link #106 | ||
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Join Date: Feb 2010
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Quick bit: Notion Ink released a spec sheet right before MWC, and the big announcement is options for Android/Ubuntu/Chromium OS, which hopefully means it'll be very "open" to custom OS's (e.g. unsupported but unimpeded).
Yeah, I probably mis-spoke there. I want a Qi3, video accel, and HDMI out on a tablet. While the Adam is the first device that's announced those features, and I'm easily open to other options. There's a lotta time between now 'n June. Quote:
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Ubuntu proper hasn't really made an honest effort in tablet optimization, either. MID and Netbook Remix look abandoned, and neither is really anything that resembles "complete" for that form factor. In all honesty I'm hoping that Maemo (or its successor, MeeGo) is up and running on Tegra 2 devices by June with DSP support 'n OpenGL ES. It has a real Linux environment (Quake 3 was ported, for instance), is intuitive and touch-friendly (even w/o multi-touch capabilities), and has a fully-featured player (with DSP support and healthy codec/container options) in the repositories. Add to that NTFS support (repos again, I'm not sure it's official) for said USB drive, and you have a much nicer mobile device environment than Android can provide. Last edited by MukiEX; 2010-02-17 at 01:17. |
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2010-02-17, 20:32 | Link #107 | |
Yummy, sweet and unyuu!!!
Join Date: Dec 2004
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I've been wanting a tablet, but I'm really having trouble justifying it. My Acer 1810TZ is the perfect size and power for carrying around. My main laptop is a 15inch Asus which i really only use to play guild wars and watch anime . Finally my N900 fulfils my other needs such as reading ebooks on the train on in bed. I guess that if I didn't have the 1810TZ then I could have gotten a tablet instead.... I think subconsciously even though I like a physical keyboard the idea of the single swivel hinge makes me feel like it will break really easily...
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2010-02-19, 00:13 | Link #108 |
blinded by blood
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The 1810TZ should also play anime pretty flawlessly with a few settings tweaks in MPC-HC; the GMA 4500MHD supports full hardware h.264/AVC decoding through DXVA (even though MPC-HC's homepage says it doesn't work).
Since the 1420P has the same GPU, it should also handle it quite well.
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2010-02-19, 03:01 | Link #110 | |
Nani ?
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Emerald Forest ( yes its a real place. )
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It's point is to siphon money from people who don't know about the devices that can do it better, faster, and cheaper. Last edited by Edgewalker; 2010-02-19 at 03:02. Reason: Avoid flame |
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2010-02-19, 05:43 | Link #112 |
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Join Date: Feb 2010
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You're right, it could very well be the encode. Tho I've had it, in general, macroblock more often than my Radeon 4850 (which, admittedly, doesn't accelerate some of the higher end H.264 clips). CoreAVC in general has some issues with image quality, and my guess is that this isn't entirely disconnected from its ability to play H.264 vids at a much faster speed than most implementations.
Going back to Tegra 2, hopefully we'll have a good idea as to its honest playback limits when the Boxee Box comes out. If it's honestly based on XBMC like Boxee itself is, there's really no reason for it to not at least attempt to play anything thrown at it, putting pure video decoder limitations out in the open. If only it didn't look so atrociously bad and supported regular TV-Out (the Tegra 2 is, in fact, capable of NTSC/PAL; it's listed in the manual). |
2010-04-05, 00:33 | Link #117 | |
Moe Moe Kyun~ <3
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: California
Age: 29
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wait for the 2nd generation to come out or you might waste like $500 on a paperweight
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2010-04-05, 10:51 | Link #119 |
(。☉౪ ⊙。)
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: In Maya world, where all is 3D and everything crashes
Age: 36
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ44S17mHO4
Sped up video.. about half an hour of work.. struggling with the interface. I am laughing so hard right now I think the screen will get very VERY dirty in the long run I am still waiting for complaints.. I heard about an overheating rumor which is obvious seen the specs of this thing |
2010-04-05, 16:52 | Link #120 |
MUDKIP MUD!
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Beside a road, next to a tree
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the way I see it, iPad is like a Wii, it's just all empty hype and it's something that is going to tank in the long run, like what is happening with the Wii right now.
yes, people do tell me "it's going to be like the iPhone". I laugh and say "sorry buddy, not this time". Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone, but iPad is no iPhone nor it can make the same magic happen. the main reason is the fact that iPad is just an underpower computer that you can use your finger to do some stuff on that, yet it's more expensive than other computer of the same class. I rather get that EEE tablet, at least the screen won't get damage when I put it in the bag with my other stuff, plus it's a hell lot cheaper with more to offer... but then again I am still happy with my EEE1000HD that I got a year ago :P
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Last edited by gummybear; 2010-04-05 at 19:22. |
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