Another promising HD300 Replacement

[stefano540]

Not sure about what you are asking. I am running audio through the HDMI connection, but my TV does not do surround sound.
There is also an optical s/pdif output.
Stefano

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by stefano540

Not sure about what you are asking. I am running audio through the HDMI connection, but my TV does not do surround sound.
There is also an optical s/pdif output.
Stefano

As mentioned, the Zotac unit's drivers do not provide an HDMI Audio Out playback device, and in Sage audio is restricted to PCM ...

[mikejaner]

Yeah, I kind of don't understand either. When I had it plugged into my monitor with speakers via HDMI, sound worked fine. Web browser with YouTube, XBMC, PLEX, SageTV (although with shuddering on MPEG2)....

[mikejaner]

Ok, I just got the Lenovo today, and SageTV client runs much better. MPEG2 recordings use about half of the processing, ~50%, and MKV/MP4's at full resolution are at ~20%. It is much bigger, than the Pico, but still a very small PC. The Bloatware is typical, McCrapafee, and a few others, but all in all a nice PC. I have more testing to do with other apps, but I see this being a capable SageTV Server/Client. I wouldn't recommend Comskipping during waking hours, or transcoding, but it seems plenty fast for HTPC Playback, and Recording.

[wayner]

The Lenovo says it has a 500GB hard drive. Does it use a regular mechanical 2.5" hard drive? I would personally rather have a 60GB SSD.

[mikejaner]

Yes, it's too slim to have a 3.5".

[wayner]

I figured that but when I first saw the specs it almost seemed to small for a 2.5" drive.

To me a 500GB drive is kind of wasted as it is an in-between size. It is too small to hold my media so I will still have to connect into a server of some sort to get media. And it is too big to be a system drive. And mechanical drives are too slow once you get used to an SSD.

I think this would be better if they made it a bit smaller with just room for an mSATA or other SFF drive.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by wayner

I think this would be better if they made it a bit smaller with just room for an mSATA or other SFF drive.

As you probably already know, that's what the Intel NUC is at this point. Since the base one is ~$129 on amazon, adding an mSata and 4GB probably puts it in this price range too.

[wayner]

I hadn't seen the Thin Canyon NUC before but I guess you're right as it is $129. Adding in the memory and small SSD should only be about another $80. But my point is also that they shouldn't worry about making it big enough to hold a 2.5" drive since those drives aren't that useful in an HTPC context since an mSATA is all you need for the system OS.

[Dargason]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

As you probably already know, that's what the Intel NUC is at this point. Since the base one is ~$129 on amazon, adding an mSata and 4GB probably puts it in this price range too.

The Lenovo includes an OS, which is worth about $100 and makes it a much better value, IMO.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by Dargason

The Lenovo includes an OS, which is worth about $100 and makes it a much better value, IMO.

Also it has 4 USB2 Ports and 2 USB3 Ports. I Gig Nic and Wireless . I have one and it is worth it... also have the Lenovo Light up mini keyboard.
I have Openelec with KODI (NEXTPVR plugin) for live tv and playing all media on it .... also use it as a NAS since openelec auto shares USB drives.

[Skirge01]

How are you controlling the Lenovo? It doesn't appear to have an IR sensor. Are you using a kb/mouse or did you attach something like a USBUIRT?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

How are you controlling the Lenovo? It doesn't appear to have an IR sensor. Are you using a kb/mouse or did you attach something like a USBUIRT?

https://flirc.tv/ Works with any remote commands are programmed in memory can be moved to other pc's no need to reprogram if using the same HTPC product on a another machine. CFG files can be saved and loaded as needed. I also have the Lenovo mini keyboard attached to it when I got it ... it came with the keyboard.

The Flirc can be used on linux xbmc or windows xbmc with having to reprogram it.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

How are you controlling the Lenovo? It doesn't appear to have an IR sensor. Are you using a kb/mouse or did you attach something like a USBUIRT?

Some of the HT software now supports HDMI-CEC so it can actually be controlled by the TV's remote control. I am playing around with Rasplex right now (essentiallly the Plex Home Theater client on the Rasbperry Pi) and the TV remote controls it perfectly well. I think Kodi also supports HDMI-CEC as does the PHT client for Windows.

However I don't know how this works if you have an AVR in the picture as well.

[Skirge01]

I've already got everything set up on my current computer with a Harmony 890, USBUIRT and EventGhost, so I'm not sure I'd want to go to a completely different solution. I think it would be a lot easier for me if I got another USBUIRT and copied my Harmony setup to a new Activity.

Back to the Lenovo itself, does it do HD audio or bitstreaming? I ask because I believe that's currently still an issue with the NUCs.

[Skirge01]

This seems to be the more active thread for HD300 replacements, so I'll post this info here.

I wound up buying an Intel NUC D54250WYK, which is the i5 model. While it's working, it is definitely not able to handle everything with ease. For instance, although it can play back any recorded content I throw at it (720p, 1080i, 5.1, bitstream), fast forwarding and rewinding are problematic, causing banding and pixelation. It does recover from this and is able to resume playing the content. 1080p is another story entirely, especially when it comes to VC-1 files encoded in MKVs. I had to use the LAV video decoder in order to get those to play at all. Without the LAV decoder, fast forwarding/back and skipping forward/back is even more problematic with banding, tearing, and stuttering. Still, even with the LAV decoder, fast forwarding and rewinding 30 seconds actually causes the video to jump double the amount. On the plus side, it is able to do HD audio passthru and play back 3D MKVs.

Also, I found that my Logitech Unifying Receiver cannot be plugged directly into the NUC. Instead, I have it dangling out of it via a 6" pigtail extension cable. If the receiver is plugged in directly, I can't use the keyboard more than 5 feet away; with the pigtail, I can use it in another room.

Lastly, the integrated IR receiver only seems to work with Eventghost as an HID device, meaning it simply emulates the keyboard. This creates a problem when you leave a program controlled by EG because the commands will still be captured by it. I needed to set up conditional macros to disable the HID plugin anytime I leave SageTV (or MPC, VLC, etc) and re-enable it when they become active again.

Given the price of the NUC and the requisite hardware you still need to add, I'm a bit disappointed by these findings. Perhaps Intel will be able to improve the video performance with further driver updates. Also, this NUC has Intel HD Graphics 5000, while the Lenovo Q190 mentioned in this thread uses the Intel HD Graphics 4000. This leads me to believe that the Lenovo would have even more trouble than I'm experiencing.

I'm also wondering if a Broadwell-based mini-PC (NUC or otherwise) would be able to overcome the issues I've run into. Thankfully, such a NUC does appear to be in the cards.

[wayner]

Something must be wrong somewhere with codecs or something because an i5-4250U should be plenty powerful to play anything and to FF and REW without breaking a sweat, especially with hardware acceleration.

Have you tried other software like VLC and MPC-HT to see if they can play back these 1080p files?

Here's a post where someone was having issues with that NUC which were caused by codecs. He is able to play back 4K files with 10% CPU utilization.

https://communities.intel.com/message/219128

[Skirge01]

Heh... so, if one person on the internet says they can do it, then it's possible? I kid. Thing is, though, playback does work fine, as that person said. It's specifically fast forwarding/rewinding or skipping forward/back which is the issue. Yes, everything plays (and skips/FF/RW) fine in both VLC and MPC-HC. I believe VLC uses its own codecs, doesn't it? Does MPC-HC? Is there a way to use those codecs outside of their respective programs?

For the record, I didn't just start installing codecs/packs from the beginning. I started out with just the standard Windows 7 stuff, installed Sage and tried to get things working for a few days. When that failed, I moved on to other codecs, restoring Windows to "uninstall" them if they didn't improve anything.

Also, my CPU usage doesn't get above 20%. With an IGP, does CPU usage represent IGP usage? I didn't think that was the case, but I could be mistaken.

[jchiso]

Well, after living with the pico I'll say that it can [emphasis added] reasonably replace an HD-300. I've installed SageTV server, attached an HD-PVR, and added a tuner from an HD Homerun device, so I can also use it in standalone mode, and it works quite well using a micro-sd card or external USB drive for live storage.

More importantly, or back to the matter of this thread, I've run this system in Client mode with several of my home servers. Video playback is fine in 1080p resolution. I had difficulties in getting this system to output a 720p signal. Perhaps it would have done so with a native 720p HDMI display, but I don't have one at my disposal. As I mentioned in an earlier post it simply would not work in my media room setup in which I have an HDMI-to-component video adapter that maxes out at 720p.

I also mentioned the chipset limitations that prevent the HDMI audio device from passing AC-3 and DTS multichannel signals within SageTV, even though one can do so in Kodi (XBMC). I don't understand the logic behind the chipset driver, but apparently it's well known and has been discussed in various forums for a couple of years now. If I were using this as a dedicated Client I'd use an external USB audio device for multichannel audio.

As the pico does not contain an infrared receiver you'd have to choose a control option that works best for you. I'm using an RF-based USB keyboard with trackpad, and a Flirc USB infrared receiver. The Flirc works quite well; certainly as well as the infrared on the HD-300. If you prefer you could opt for Bluetooth controllers for keyboards, mouse, or remote.

So, in summary, the unit would work as an HD-300 replacement, but to match the funtionality you'd have to add an audio device and controller(s), which would add another $70 - $100 to the $199 purchase price. Of course, if you put SageTV Media Center (server) on it you'd have more flexibility than you would with an HD-300, plus you'd have a very capable Windows desktop system on which you could install other multimedia apps (such as Kodi) that run superbly on this platform.

I usually take an HD-300 with me on vacation and business trips, but I think I'll take this instead, since it provides the featureset of the HD-300 along with the functionality of a Windows desktop system ...

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Heh... so, if one person on the internet says they can do it, then it's possible? I kid. Thing is, though, playback does work fine, as that person said. It's specifically fast forwarding/rewinding or skipping forward/back which is the issue. Yes, everything plays (and skips/FF/RW) fine in both VLC and MPC-HC. I believe VLC uses its own codecs, doesn't it? Does MPC-HC? Is there a way to use those codecs outside of their respective programs?

For the record, I didn't just start installing codecs/packs from the beginning. I started out with just the standard Windows 7 stuff, installed Sage and tried to get things working for a few days. When that failed, I moved on to other codecs, restoring Windows to "uninstall" them if they didn't improve anything.

Also, my CPU usage doesn't get above 20%. With an IGP, does CPU usage represent IGP usage? I didn't think that was the case, but I could be mistaken.

I have the same model and haven't seen any problems with playback or skipping. I have gone through and updated my BIOS and all drivers. I've spent a bit of time tweaking the video playback (somewhere in there there's a Quality vs Performance option and I'm now set to quality)
I'm using the FFDSHOW decoders and I was sure to set use hardware acceleration. I did have to add LAV as a supplement because some MP4 files wouldn't play back correctly. My biggest issue with it is that it doesn't do 5.1 sound through the HDMI port (I've got it plugged in to my AVR)

I'm using a USB UIRT to do my sage channel changing and I've found something similar to your finding with regards to Bluetooth keyboard/mouse. When I plug the Bluetooth dongle in directly I have very limited range but it came with some sort of extension piece that now allows me to sit on the couch and control it.

I have seen issues with using the SAGETV player so I have it set to use DirecTshow Player instead but I notice that I can't seem to switch audio streams or get close captioning to work. Everything seems to play smoothly and without issue otherwise.