Zotac's Ion: The World's First mini-ITX Ion Board
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 12, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Blu-ray Playback: It Works Quite Well
I tried using the Zotac Ion to watch Blu-ray movies, after all, that’s one of the major reasons to get this thing over the much cheaper Intel alternative. NVIDIA’s Ion chipset (aka GeForce 9300) can fully decode H.264 and thus make high definition movies watchable on the otherwise incapable Atom CPU.
Anything that supports NVIDIA’s PureVideo HD will work on the Ion board, in this case I used Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 9 Ultra - the latest version off of Cyberlink’s website. I fired up Casino Royale and watched, the CPU utilization across all four virtual cores (two physical cores) ranged between 19 - 27% on average. At times I saw steady peaks at 36% and the highest I ever saw was 50% in an unexpectedly stressful scene. With the dual-core Atom, I never saw any dropped frames.
The high CPU utilization is simply due to the content decryption required by every copy protected Blu-ray disc, the actual decode is being done completely in hardware. If you playback an unencrypted Blu-ray disc you get CPU utilization in the 10 - 14% range.
Earlier versions of PowerDVD were not well optimized for Atom, but the latest updates to PowerDVD 8 and PowerDVD 9 ensure smooth playback on even a single-core Atom/Ion system (I used an older version of PowerDVD in my short lived Ion Blu-ray Investigation which was the cause for poor performance in those tests). Note that at one point in my testing I saw the CPU usage hit 50% on the Atom 330, which means it would be at 100% with an Atom 230. The spike only lasted for a second or two but it's possible for a single-core Atom setup to stutter in situations like that if you have a background task running at the same time.
You can even get hardware acceleration using the Ion board under Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. Using the latest stable build of MPC-HC you simply need to go to the Options menu (View -> Options) and configure a few items. Click on Output then select EVR or EVR Pres. if you want to enable subtitles.
Then click on the Internal Filters option and disable all FFmpeg transform filters, enable all DXVA transform filters and enable the Matroska source filter (for playing back MKVs).
If you configure MPC-HC as I described above you'll get full hardware acceleration on the Ion board. This is a great way of watching your own ripped content. Without encryption CPU utilization ends up being in the 10 - 14% range, allowing you to even do things in the background while you're watching a video. I would caution you against doing too much however, so much as scrolling the volume slider up/down will cause the video playback to stutter. You're probably better off just being happy that you're not dropping any frames and not touch anything while you enjoy your movie.
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KidneyBean - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
Isn't it stealing to use Media Player Classic if you use patented decoders without paying for them?If so, I would hope you don't publish such information in articles in the future.
Penti - Friday, May 29, 2009 - link
Nope infringement is never steeling. It's pretty okay as long as it isn't used commercially. Usually your allowed to use any patents for personal use though. So it's fine. You won't go to jail. Of course he won't publish stuff that discourage the use of homebrew codecs and software that are needed for playing warez and illegally ripping your movies. It would be silly as that's what people use computers for, especially htpcs. It would really be a limited worthless device without it.sprockkets - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
With MPEG4, you only pay what you publish with it, not decode.DXA for nvidia cards is clearly documented on how to use it.
Dolby Digital is another story, but seeing as how you can send the bitstream to your receiver to decode it legally, what's the big deal?
Jeffk464 - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
I don't understand what the major need is to have a low power desktop. If it plugs into the wall its not really an issue like it is with notebooks. Its seems like the main focus for a Home Theater PC should be in keeping things quiet. Why not use a notebook processor and focus on making a super quiet heat sink and fan. I like the idea of compact pc's but HP has managed to squeeze a full on systems with a high end cpu onto the back of a lcd display in a nice little package.cosmotic - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
How are Flash (normal animation and (HD)video) and Java graphics performance?For Java, you can install the JDK and double click the jar:
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_13\demo\jfc\Java2D\Java2Demo.jar
The composite and transform demos would be particularly helpful.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
I've been meaning to talk about FLV performance, I'll try and include that in a short followup soon.Take care,
Anand
strikeback03 - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
The version of the Intel LF2 board you have here is already being pulled from the channel. It's replacement is the LF2D, which loses the S-Video port. Not a huge loss, as most people who tried to use it could not get what they wanted out of it (does not support different content to both the VGA and S-Video ports).Was Vista the OS for all the tests? I am using an LF2 board in my carputer with 1GB RAM, running a somewhat stripped-down version of XP on a 7200RPM 2.5" drive. Running on the car touchscreen (7", 800x480) or in PIP on my desktop monitor, and it feels pretty snappy in general usage. If I give it the full 1920x1200 though it slows down a lot, especially in my front-end software. Also, the image quality over VGA is not as good as some laptops I have hooked up to that monitor over VGA.
For carputer use I would like to see a better onboard audio codec and more ports. The 3-port thing doesn't give much flexibility on inputs and outputs.
Is the increased power consumption of the Intel boards due to using a standard ATX PSU? Did you consider getting one of the Pico-PSUs (like this: http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-150-XT-102-power-k...">http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-150-XT-102-power-k... ) to try on a more comparable basis? Also, is there any way to test the draw on each rail? The Intel boards are not really compatible with the lower-powered Pico-PSUs due to rather excessive draw on the 5V rail.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
Vista was the OS used for all of the tests and I'll second what you're saying, I've found XP far snappier than Vista with these Atom based systems. I just stuck with Vista to keep the results somewhat comparable to other CPU results.I did use a standard ATX power supply on the Intel boards but that's why I also tossed in the Eee Box results to show you what an Atom system with a smaller PSU can do.
Take care,
Anand
Jeffk464 - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
I don't understand what the major need is to have a low power desktop. If it plugs into the wall its not really an issue like it is with notebooks. Its seems like the main focus for a Home Theater PC should be in keeping things quiet. Why not use a notebook processor and focus on making a super quiet heat sink and fan. I like the idea of compact pc's but HP has managed to squeeze a full on systems with a high end cpu onto the back of a lcd display in a nice little package.sprockkets - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
Look at the prices on logic supply for a laptop socket itx board and how much the processor is and you will see how much cheaper this setup is.Besides, the vast majority of Anandtech readers prefer to build ourselves, not buy OEM crap.