I picked up a couple of those mini-optical SPDIF connectors for my old laptop's PCMCIA Sound Blaster. The connector has metal connectors on the sides for normal headphones and such, but also an LED at the back which the adapter focuses on. Allowing it to do double-duty. It's a good way to save on space.



If you're wondering why I have this open and why the connector looks kinda ugly, it's because the headphone cord got pulled out accidentally at bad angles too many times. And this was to replace the onboard sound on the laptop that had the same thing happen to it's headphone jack. =(

Anyone know if this little guy can handle a 1080i mpeg2 video from a OTA broadcast? Nearly all my content is 480i, 720p, and 1080i mpeg2 from OTA and cable broadcasts, yet nobody seems to test this on these systems because mpeg2 is considered "easy." Yes, mpeg2 is pretty easy for modern systems but this thing has a processor equivalent to a 800mhz Pentium M so it is very questionable whether it could handle it.

very nice looking setup.

If it had a CD/DVD drive id pick one up for my brother for the holidays.

Post links to some of these 1080i files. I'll try them out. My guess is that they should be no problem. It does 720p OK, so....

I was surprised that it couldn't do 1080p. People have reported the Eee 901 (with an Intel Diamondville N270) is up for the task - at least with a good decoder and when the power profile is correct - on power save (800 MHz) it skips, but on "high" (default, 1.6 GHz) or "super performance" (1.8 GHz) it's fine. Use CoreAVC if you can. I have an Intel Atom-equipped Eee now, the newest 900A, but I haven't had the time to install anything in it yet (it's a linux version, and the default distro has some bugs this time. Will probably switch to Kubuntu like I did on my 701 4G).

One error I noticed: "If the video (and/or audio) skips or freezes, we conclude the board's IGP (in conjunction with the processor) is adequate to decompress the clip properly." Should probably be "inadequate" instead.

My understanding is that the D945GCLF uses the 945GC chipset.

The B202 uses the 945GSE chipset, which is a mobile chipset with much lower power consumption.

I wish I could buy a mini-ITX board with that chipset!

Nevertheless, the following statement in the article appears to be in error:



Thanks for the excellent review. Can you tell me if there is a BIOS option to power the PC back up once power is restored from a power failure? If so, I can think of several embedded applications where I may use these machines.

This arrangement is quite common in notebooks, such as the MacBook Pro.

You're right! Bad miss. Not sure why I was so blind about that. In any case, thanks for the catch. I've made a number of changes here and there to reflect this info. For those who've already read the whole piece and don't want to scour just for the changes...

I'm not sure why you think this is sleeker looking than a Mac Mini. The Mini's hidden WiFi antenna gives it the win, in my book. But such things are subjective . . .

I'm also surprised you make such a big deal about the mini-SPDIF adapter and analog/digital 3.5mm jack. As others have noted, these things are nothing new. Indeed, dual analog/digital 3.5mm jacks have been around for years and have been heavily used by Apple. The Airport Express has one, as does the Mac Mini.

I think this would have been more compelling at the original prices. But given the apparent demand vs. parts availability, you can hardly blame Asus for upping the price.

They're also common on laptops.

its a shame companies aren't using Poulsbo chipsets...as they're lower power consumption and can alledgedly handle 1080p as the graphics chip (from Power VR) has hardware acceleration (though i think you need powerDVD for it to work)

I can answer a question you pose in the review:



No. Unless the application being used to decode was multithreaded, you'll notice no difference to performance in that regard.

I have a D945GCLF2 so can personally vouch for this.

As far as I know, CoreAVC is the only multithreaded decoder. That's part of the reason it's the fastest. The Atom's Hyper-threading might already be of some help with it as well.

Hey Mike,

Good review, man. Thanks.

I was really interested in the Eee Box as a perfectly silent, no moving parts PC for my office.

With the chipset only pulling 11.8 watts TDP is a fan really necessary?

What about swapping the HDD for solid-state, either SSD or CompactFlash? In fact I'm surprised a solid-state alternative isn't being sold by Asus.

TIA,
-jp

You're right, looks are always subjective. My bias is for thin stuff, and the minimac is not thin, it's too symmetrical & blocky and the optical drive forces you to keep it visible where all those cables in back make a mess. I love that it can be installed on the back if the monitor. All small PCs should have this feature.

My guess is the price will drop quickly -- like it always does -- to below $300. To me it's far more desirable than the Eee PC whose screen and keyboard are laughable.

The visible antenna only looks bad until you connect all the cables, and after that it doesn't matter:

You're welcome.

The fan -- it's needed. I think it might be safe to slow it down even more, but on the back of the monitor, it's about as quiet as a typical iMac, which makes is very quiet. My impression of the HDD is that it's well chosen -- very quiet, quieter than the fan. SSD would kick the price up too much, imo.

The screen was indeed too small on the original Eee PC. All of the newer models have 8.9" or 10" screens though and they are very capable devices for mobile use. I own a 701 4G and the new 900A (Atom-based), and the bigger screen alone makes it a whole different machine. The only remaining issue for some is the keyboard - but a smaller keyboard is the price you have to pay for a small, mobile device. For me it's enough and I would not want a full-size laptop.

These small nettop computers are a great choice for many applications where a normal more power-hungry desktop computer would just go to waste. Netbooks, or sub-notebooks, are a bit similar - they're not exactly desktop replacements but unbeatable in portability, while the Eee Box triumphs in having a smaller footprint and budget requirements.

DivX H.264 decoder is also multithreaded, but still in beta.

Thanks for a great review!

Thanks for sending the 1080i clip -- very good quality, btw. Where do you download these?

The Eee Box had no trouble playing this -- w/o multitasking.

I'm pretty sure it's not lack of desire but a price and/or availability issue. Remember, Intel's intended purpose for Poulsbo is handhelds. Given how many so-called MIDS are supposedly in the pipeline, I doubt there's any production to spare. Even the Atoms themselves are in extreme demand -- I hear some nettop makers have had to switch back to Pentium M variants due to availability issues. Anyway, the Intel roadmap is to eventually embed a derivative of the VR chip as one of the cores in their CPU, making NB selection a moot point.

From what he posted above, I'd guess he records them from OTA HDTV broadcasts. And by "record", I mean "save to disk" since these broadcasts are already encoded in MPEG2. Such an inefficient codec makes sharing stuff rather inefficient, though, so I doubt these are widespread in distribution (see DVD-rips often being ~1GB compared to the 4.5+GB of the MPEG2 original).

They are direct from the cable provider. That clip was a direct feed from HBO "The Wicker Man" recorded on my R5000 using SageTV. It was what was on when I went to grab a file small enough to send you. I tried to get a scene with some panning but I was late for work and that is what I ended up with. The R5000 can pull the 1080i mpeg2 stream over USB from a modified cable box without re-encoding it to something else. Hence, the really nice quality. With an R5000 I can get all the channels I subscribe to.

I also use the HD Homerun for unencrypted QAM cable recording but I only get my local HD channels using this. Still, with these 3 HD tuners I can record all the TV I really want. The premium channels tend to rebroadcast often so having one R5000 is not an issue if you have locals from another source. All these recordings are 15-19 mbps mpeg 720p/1080i straight from the cable provider. They are not really portable because of their size but I would like to buy a Eee PC 1000 and use that as a portable media player. Since most of my content is in mpeg2 i wanted to know if it could play the files without stutter. I don't really torrent any files so Divx and h.264 is not really an issue for me.

There are a lot of people that use a QAM tuner to record cable TV in its native format. I always wonder why more people aren't concerned with HD mpeg2 playback on devices like this.

The new Happauge HD-PVR will make h.264 more of an issue for people like me, but for now, if this Eee PC can play 1080i mpeg2, that is good enough for me and I think I will pick up a Eee 1000 with the 80GB harddrive.

autoboy -- you should be clear, the eee box is the nettop, the eee pc is the laptop.

I think the en vogue term for the Eee PC and its ilk is netbook. It's getting hard to keep up with this stuff. I'm not even sure where the cutoff between laptop and notebook is, let alone notebook and netbook . . .

I was under the impression that they used the same components. Both are using the same mobile 945GSE chipset. I am sorry if I was unclear. I am looking to buy the Eee 1000 netbook.

ah ok. yes they are using the same mobile 945GSE chipset.

Here's a video showing the Eee 901 playing 1080p video. (It was a response to a video from VIA comparing one of their processors to the Atom, and they had the Atom mistakenly running a bit slower than it should have been.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVf3PtNF-j0

It's the Robotica clip (1080p) from Microsoft's WMV HD Content Showcase - could you test it on the Eee Box too?