XBMC running on nVidia ION reference box
May 23rd, 2009
nVidia have been kind enough to loan one of our devs (motd2k) an ION reference box that we can use to showcase XBMC at Linuxtag.
It has what appears to be an Atom 230 processor, so compilation of XBMC took just over an hour, but thanks to hardware accelerated video decoding, performance while running XBMC is awesome
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More pics are available in the forums, and if you want to see it in action, get to Linuxtag in Berlin, June 24-27.
I want one!
Mmmm, nice. Kudos to XBMC and Nvidia…
Notes! This is the NVIDIA Ion reference box configured with XBMC for Linux and VDPAU GPU hardware accelerated video decoding enabled, running high-definition content from Apple Movie Trailers, BBC iPlayer HD, and the infamous ‘killa bird-scene’ sample (40Mb/s 1080p) from Planet Earth.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/sff_ion.html
XBMC for Linux supports VDPAU on all NVIDIA 8 and 9 Series GeForce adapters, as well onboard integrated graphics (8200/8300/9300/9400), however for guaranteed playback of 1080p videos you want a card or motherboard which supports 512MB of graphics RAM. Linux support suspend and hibernate to resuming takes only a couple of seconds from that, just try out XBMC Live which supports all this. Sorry, but there is not yet any support for ATI/AMD graphics, nor any hardware accelerated video decoding on Mac or Windows, nor is it planned anytime soon as no developer have yet to step up. So only NVIDIA and Linux for now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU
The skin in the video is by the way MediaStream by Team Razorfish.
http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream.html
PS! Acer Aspire Revo is based on the NVIDIA Ion platform and is already available to buy, and NVIDIA has promised that at least 40 based ION platforms will be available before the end of 2009:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/29/nvidia-40-atom-based-ion-platforms-by-end-of-2009/
Sweet, i’ll get one othe boxes as soon they started selling them, but i think the Atom 330 could do a huge diference in performance.
I’ve just ordered myself the new Zotac ION platform, with the Dual Core Atom 330. With 4gb of RAM, (minus 512 allocated to the graphics) I’m expecting it to run absolutely sweet with XBMC and GPU offloading.
I think those with the two 230 will be disappointed. Personally, I’m aiming to run it from a USB stick for near silent operation and will stream from my file server. Miles better than the Revo, in my opinion.
to: Dan
Have you considered booting XBMC Live via PXE Boot from i.e. a NAS / Server? I have. But I’m not in the possession of an ION platform or any other nVidia godliness yet.
I don’t know if the ION NIC supports it though.
To: Xdaddy,
May I suggest this little gem for your “usb” maindrive for XBMC Live:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_throttle_esata_flash_drive
I am using the 8g model in esata hooked via adapter to sata on mobo, powered by onboard usb. absolutely silent, and runs great in playback mode, install was a tad slow, but very bearable, first time library scans are slow too, but the smooth, fast read is awesome for XBMC Live and totally silent! She’s abit goofy looking, so I’m toying with the idea of cracking the outer case and make another setup for it to be more organized in it’s hacked fashion haha, I couldn’t just let it stick out the back tho, didn’t look right.