Hong's Cave » nVidia ION

Cheap Low-Power HTPC / HD-DVR Design #5

Hong — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:07:09 +0000

A comment pointed me to another version of the Zotac IONITX board that is a bit more expensive, but also has a few more features.

The prices are based on November 24th, 2009.

Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
Motherboard/Memory Combo: Zotac IONITX-F-E + 2x1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($214.98) – The board has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback. It also has an internal WiFi card (supposedly 802.11n) to make the network connection easy.
Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($64.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit OEM ($104.99) – For Windows Media Center.
Keyboard/Mouse: IOGear GKM561R Wireless RF mini keyboard/trackball ($48.99)
Remote (optional): Anyware GP-IR01BK ($23.74)
Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.

The total is $558.93 (without optional stuff). With 2% cashback, you get about $11.18 back (or one can try to find a better deal with other sites since with NewEgg, I’d have to pay a CA sales tax).

This setup is slightly more expensive than #4 using Zotac IONITX-G-E. But IONITX-F-E has (at least) two advantages. 1) WiFi and 2) digital S/PDIF (one optical and one coaxial).

I decided I really don’t need 64-bit OS and I think I can live with 2GB. Also, I think a wireless keyboard/mouse is a better choice than a remote.

Cheap Low-Power HTPC / HD-DVR Design #4

Hong — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:21:39 +0000

With the announcement of Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta, the nVidia ION system seems even more attractive as an HTPC. Also, it seems NewEgg is carrying the new Zotac ION board. Also, through Bing Shopping, NewEgg is offering some (2%) moneyback.

The prices are based on November 20th, 2009.

Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
Motherboard: Zotac IONITX-G-E ($159.99) – has a 16x PCI-e (update: actually, just a 1x PCI-e) and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($64.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
Memory: 2x2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($85.99) – I believe 4GB is the max for the motherboard.
HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($104.99) – For Windows Media Center.
Remote: Anyware GP-IR01BK ($23.74)
Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.

The total is $564.68 (or $632.67 with the optical drive). With 2% moneyback, it becomes $553.39.

The possible adjustable stuff is the memory and the hard disk drive. With 2GB, you can save about $45. With a 500GB drive, about $30. But I am not so sure if that’s worth it ($495 vs. $565).

Cheap Low-Power HTPC / HD-DVR Design #3

Hong — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:29:31 +0000

Another attempt… Probably closer to what I would do. The prices are based on November 4th, 2009.

Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00, the same as POV ION330) or Zotac IONITX-G-E (MSRP seems to be $159.99, but not yet available in the U.S., it seems) – both have a 16x PCI-e (update: Zotac IONITX-G-E has only a 1x PCI-e) and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($59.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner.
Memory: 1x2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($42.99) – Just in case, I want to add an extra 2GB stick.
HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($109.99) – For Windows Media Center.
Remote: Anyware GP-IR01BK ($24.99)
Optical Drive (optional): LITE-ON BD-ROM ($67.99) – I can do without this initially.

The total is $511.94 (or $579.93 with the optical drive).

The only thing is my TV doesn’t have an HDMI port. I don’t know what the VGA quality will be like. Time to upgrade the TV (and the pre-amp)? :p

Cheap Low-Power HTPC / HD-DVR Design #2

Hong — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:14:54 +0000

After searching around, I found a PCI-e dual ATSC tuner that has a Linux driver (not sure how reliable). The prices are as of October 30, 2009.

Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00) – the same as POV ION330, has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback. There seems to be a linux driver (look at the second and third messages).
Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-DVR-2250 ($99.94) – Dual ATSC tuner with Linux support.
Memory: 2x1GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($39.99)
HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
OS: Mythubuntu (+ XBMC or boxee) ($0.00, but to get guide information, it’s $20.00/year)
Remote (optional): Anyware GP-IR01BK ($24.99)
Optical Drive (optional): LG BD-ROM ($109.99) – I can do without this initially.

So, that’s $413.91 + $20/year (or $548.89 with optional stuff).

The real difference without the subscription fee is the tuner and the OS, so that difference is about $60 between a Linux build and a Windows build. However, considering that Linux can run with a slightly lower spec (RAM, for example), it could actually be close to $100.

I think the guide data used to be free, but now it’s not. So, with $100, that’s 5-year’s worth of guide data… Not so sure about that…

Update: It seems Zotac announced a new ION board with a PCI-e 1x slot, IONITX-G-E “Synergy”. It’s MSRP is $139.99 and supposedly, it’s already released in Europe. This would be a good alternative.

Cheap Low Power DYI HTPC / HD DVR Design

Hong — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:33:04 +0000

I’ve talked about ideas for Atom-based DVR / HTPC before.

Now, it seems we have all the parts needed to build one. Here is an example. The prices were taken as of October 27th, 2009.

Case: Apex MI-008 ($39.99) – 250W is a bit overkill. I doubt this system will use more than 60W.
Motherboard: Pegatron IPX7A-ION 330 ($149.00) – the same as POV ION330, has a 16x PCI-e and nVidia ION (GeForce 9400M) can enable Blu-ray playback.
Tuner: AVerTVHD Duet ($59.99) – Dual ATSC-only tuner. Too bad there isn’t a Linux driver.
Memory: 2x2GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM ($74.99) – Less should be okay.
HDD: 1GB Western Digital Caviar Green ($84.99)
Optical Drive (optional): LG BD-ROM ($129.99) – I can do without this initially.
Remote (optional): Adesso ARC-1100 ($21.99)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM ($109.99) – For Windows Media Center.

So, the total is $670.93 (or $518.95 without “optional” stuff). I would have loved to use MythTV and XBMC on Ubuntu, but the Linux driver support for internal dual ATSC tuners are non-existent.

Not sure, if I will get to working on it right away (I still have one more year of TiVo subscription), but it seems to be a good start.

Atom-based HD DVR?

Hong — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:37:44 +0000

I have been using two Atom-based systems for a while now. One is an N270-based 8.9″ notebook (or a “netbook”). The other is an N230-based Windows Home Server.

Several months ago, nVidia announced ION platform, which is pairing an Intel Atom processor with an nVidia’s mobile GPU for a system that can play back Blu-ray disks.

As for the other component for HD DVR, a dual ATSC tuner, there are already a couple of affordable PCI-e dual ATSC tuner cards (from AVerMedia and Hauppauge). These are supported by Microsoft Windows Media Center (not as much by Linux), so running a DVR software should be relatively easy.

The only required part is for the motherboard to have an extra PCI-e 1x slot. The thing is, I haven’t found an ION motherboard or system that seems to have a free PCI-e slot. I’ve been emailing some vendors about that (and my idea of Atom-based HD DVR), but I don’t know whether it will make an impact soon.

However, I am hopeful for the next 12 months. Toward the end of this year (or early next year), there should be a next version of Intel Atom (“Pineview”) available. And I am hoping that by that time, we would have more ION-like platforms.

I really like the idea of low-power (will be on 24-7, so better be quiet and light on the electricity bill), low-cost HD DVR. I am hoping that I could build one soon.