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Neuros LINK Mixes Quiet, Aesthetics, and Ubuntu
jonniee writes with a link to Dr. Dobb's Journal's look at a rather cool living-room-suitable media-centric computer from Neuros (presented as being suitable mostly for developers and serious hobbyists for now), excerpting: "The Neuros LINK is essentially a quiet x86 PC running Ubuntu Linux with an ATI graphics card delivering video via VGA, DVI, and HDMI output. ... What makes the LINK such a compelling platform for these folks and Linux/open source developers in general is the recognition that a real business entity is stepping forward to spend the money necessary to market and commercialize what tech enthusiasts have been doing for years."
One of the main things I look for in my entertainment systems is that they run quietly, and its promising to see a company develop a system capable of 1080p in a low sound output system. It is however disappointing to see that the system is just a reorganized PC, including multiple fans for cooling, which add the majority of decibels. As it takes on load (say, for running video in 1080p) and the fans kick it up to cope with the added heat, its going to increase in volume substantially, and as the system ages, it will start to make a fair bit of noise... not sounds I really want to be hearing as I'm engrossed in some sort of cinematic masterpiece.
Ideally, I'd like a system much like the PS3 to use for a entertainment hub, something the PS3 is actually quite good at doing and doing quietly as well. Its just too bad that its a Sony product.
The price is fine and all that. Unfortunately, at least according to my (personal) doesn't it doesn't look good in the literal sense. It looks like one of those cheap PCs back in the time when they were put on the desk below the monitor. The keyboard looks horrifying, too. Are all good industrial designers working for Apple?
What's wrong with XvBA from AMD/ATI? What does vadau offer that XvBA doesn't?
The problem with h264 "benchmarks" is that every h264 file can be different and
the fact that you managed to get one particular sort of high res file to play on
a particular system doesn't necessarily mean anything. Playing BBC or Apple web
content is a bit different than playing and HD-PVR captures or BD rips.
A $200 popcorn hour will play everything you throw at it.
So will a $300 Revo running Ubuntu or Windows.
This Neuros box is an interesting idea that was obviously flawed and
somewhat behind the curve the moment it was announced.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Specifically any Nvidia chipset that will let you use VDPAU.
mplayer now supports it and you can easily drive 1080p with an underpowered PC, as long as the video card is up to the task.
(And if you're into that sort of thing, off hours you can be contributing to projects that use CUDA to offload to the GPU and thus do stuff much faster).