Heres what I was looking at in terms of a Media Center PC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119026 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136449 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145180 Figured id throw a lightweight version of linux on there and install some sort of media player. I realize it only plays 720, which is fine. I have a PS3 so on the rare occasion I want to play back something in 1080 I have the ability.
AFAIK, there is no way to use digital cable or sat with Linux. As to the GMA, you would be very lucky to get 720P without lag, audio separation, or extra pixelation. I have used laptops with better versions of the GMA, and they can't even play DVDs without pixelation. Of course, different formats need different amounts of power to decode; I'm sure there are a few 720P formats that will work fine...but they look like crap to begin with.
I think there is actually, but I've got no idea how you do it, I'm not a Linux guru unfortunately. Pretty much everything Linux can do is on a Linux forum of some kind though, so have a look around. The GMA chipsets are so slow it's faster to turn GPU acceleration off, it comes down to what the Atom CPU is capable of. Last I heard it could do 720, but not 1080, so that would match what Xplorer said.
The reason I don't think that you can use digital cable or sat with a linux system is because of the DMCA. There are a few grey areas that allow the use of boxes like the ATI cablecard tuners with windows PCs, but these don't apply to linux systems unless someone is making a linux system with such a cablecard device included...and I have not heard of such a system. As for supporting HD, Intel's own website says it can't do it... http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/quick-reference-guide-to-intel-integrated-graphics/
I have neither. I live an atp complex that forces us to use "there cable" which is run by a dish network subcontractor. [rant] The picture quality is junk, not because its 480, but just junk, theres no plans to upgrade to enable residents to use HD, and after we had a smart card error, the office said to call the subcontractor. The subcontractor, BlueTop Communications, who are very rude and lazy, said they would give us a new box rather then a new smart card. Good enough. The maintenance guys came out, grabbed the box, put in the track in the office, and told bluetop to send a hit to it to activate it again. This process took 3 weeks. Now before this we got channels worth watching. Turns out, they werent in the channel line up we purchased. After speaking to alot of my neighbors, they said the same thing happened to them. On top of all that the plans are $10 more expensive then the exact same plan through Dish directly. [/rant] So my media player sees a ton of use. As for the Intel, I wasnt expecting much from an Intel chip but the reviews say there is a Broadcom Crystal HD decoder on board. If that true the Broadcom chip supports h.264.
So any ideas if this is true in regards to the Broadcom chip? I am going to explore other options but this looked like a perfect little set up. According to the foxcon site, they make a models with nvidia and intel gpus. So I might see if I cant find another model that has a better Intel gpu. How are the reliability of the Intel GPUs? I know there junk for gaming but obviously thats not an issue.
There's no real problem with reliability, all Intel stuff is well made, it's just the Intel chips are so slow they may as well be broken
