SPDIF? Now what...

[jmadero]

Hi All,

So I'm browsing around the energy efficient mini towers and keep stumbling across this SPDIF for 5.1 sound...now my question is that I have a 5.1 standard computer speaker system, how would I use this with a SPDIF input? Is it possible? These low power desktops look amazing, it's not in the budget now but the Dell Hybrid with blue ray player looks like it could be a killer media box so I was just curious

[GNU-Fan]

Hi,

I don't know about SPDIF, but as you mentioned BlueRay: Be advised that BR support on Linux is said to be very problematic. So make sure you can use it as you wish before paying for hardware which will refuse [sic!] to work.

[coopstah13]

if your speaker system doesn't have an optical or coaxial SPDIF input on it, then it can't work

those dell studio pc's couldn't be that efficient, since they are still using desktop processors, i didn't even see anywhere where they put the actual power usage

if you want a real energy efficient desktop, consider any atom based system, you could put one of those together and have it draw 75 or less watts at peak

[jmadero]

How much do you think it'd run me to build one of those systems? And for non peak am I looking at 40-50 watts about? I heard that computers rarely use their peak output, usually it's more like 50%. Also, could I just buy one pre-made? The 75 watts, does that include powering the hard drive? Really attempting to get an efficient media box up (but it's going to wait for awhile). Just starting to look things over. thanks

[HROAdmin26]

Using an Atom for a media PC is a bad idea. They are decent for low power consumption, but bad for the same reason when decompressing high-quality video. You can google for video playback on netbooks. For high quality H264, 720+ resolutions, Atoms cannot keep up.

Power consumption is a subjective topic. For example, my media PC isn't powered on most of the time. And when it is on, power usage can vary widely depending on what it's doing. Media decoding that's offloaded to the video card or other chips will also affect things. A CPU that's correctly idled is using much less power than under load. There are examples of a "lower power" CPU requiring more juice because it runs under a higher load (to say, decode video) than a "higher" power CPU which is under a ligher load decoding the same video.

Consider A) how often will the system be powered on B) does the CPU support frequency "throttling" C) how much cooling does the CPU need (media PC - less fans = less noise) D) what media does it need to handle.

[jmadero]

Basically considering a xbmc box/backup for my laptop and one other laptop. Ideally the machine would be on while I'm home but in standby mode (heard this uses about 1 watt). I'd power it off when I'm at work/school and sleep (between the three it's probably about 14 hours a day). I'd want it on when I'm home because it'd be connected to printer and for backup purposes.

[coopstah13]

I don't see why an atom wouldn't work for HD video, especially one of the dual core ones with an nvidia ion chipset. All the reviews I've read for them on newegg point to 1080 res video running without a hitch.

[HROAdmin26]

Have you used an Atom netbook? Installed multiple versions of Windows and Linux on one?

Example - Broadcom is designing an offload chip to help video playback on this type of system for the *next generation* of Atoms - Intel Atom processor N450, Intel NM10 Express chipset (formerly known as Pine Trail.)

[coopstah13]

i'm not talking about a netbook (i've used one, only with XP) i'm talking about a desktop ITX such as this Newegg.com - ZOTAC IONITX-A-U Atom 330 1.6GHz Dual-Core 441 NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo or Newegg.com - ZOTAC IONITX-G-E Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz, dual-core) NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo

plenty of people on here reporting using them as HTPC with no issues

[HROAdmin26]

No.

Anandtech Review

The HD stream is unplayable at stock frequencies but not because of scaling issues, since there's actually much less scaling being done from 720p to 1360 x 768. The HD stream falls victim to the Atom's limited CPU power, which overclocking helps overcome. I do still think that HD Hulu playback is too much for even an Atom 330 unfortunately.

Granted this was on Windows, but this mirrors my own testing with *HIGH QUALITY* video playback on both Windows/Linux and Atom systems.