Nvidia ION based x264 playback

[rumpleforeskin]

hi all,

I'm planning to replace my current HTPC (Q6600 platform) with somethnig alot smaller and quieter. Something along the lines of uITX mobo/intel atom + nvidia ion chipset. but have a few concerns.

Currently i rip my blu ray movies on my main PC and use MeGUI to recode them to around 10gig (x264/MKV) using main profile then store the movies on my NAS for easy access.

Would the atom/ion platform be powerfull enough to replay these files, and are the any considerations i should make when encoding, such as limits of what DXVA can handle as it will be the ION that would need to do the work not the Atom.

Are there any other things i should be considering before changing my hardware?

[namaiki]

Is this ION, or ION 2?

[rumpleforeskin]

As i have not purchased anything yet i think the answer to that will depend on what feedback i get here.

Is there any difference between the 2 for my intended purpose? (which will be purely x264/mkv playback)

[namaiki]

For ION:
GPUs with this note may not support H.264 streams with the following widths: 49, 54, 59, 64, 113, 118, 123, 128 macroblocks (769-784, 849-864, 929-944, 1009-1024, 1793-1808, 1873-1888, 1953-1968, 2033-2048 pixels). May or may not affect you.

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/256.35/README/vdpausupport.html
ION is feature set B, ION 2 is feature set C.

[rumpleforeskin]

Thanks for the link, interesting reading.

regarding the width restriction, this should not pose a problem if i continue to recode to 1920 x height to maintain aspect ratio

[namaiki]

I guess it should be fine, also remember that the CPU still has to decode audio and do other things, so if you've got 5.1 channel audio, you might suffer depending how you set it up.

[rumpleforeskin]

I never got round to rebuilding my HTPC in the end, as i first purchased a new flatscreen (lg 50pk350) and to my great delight it has a USB port that accepts almost all my .mkv backups really well.

Im quite supprised by this as it was not mentioned in any of the marketing blurb or even in any of the reviews of the TV i read.

Only downside is it does not read my movies that i have used DTS instead of ac3, so i may recode the few DTS movies i made.

All in all pretty happy, as now i wont need another box in my front room, so a bit tidier and bit of money saved. guess i can treat myself to the 10year remastered gladiater thats coming out. :D