New; Dell ZINO HD (1 Viewer)

[pierremenard]

Well, I've just finished mounting my new zino HD as MP client.

Everything runs ok, also thanks to SAF.

My complete systems is (a part of TV Server downstairs with 2 digital everywhere DVBS card + Hauppauge for DVBT)

1. 40 inches LCD Samsung TV (HDMI)
2. 5+1 Kenwood amplifier
3. Zino HD (3250e + Radeon 4330)
3.1 Rear USB #1
3.1.1 Microsoft eHome IR Receiver + MCE Remote
3.2 Rear USB #2 -> USB HUB
3.2.1 Logitech Wireless Keyboard receiver
3.2.2 Maya Ex USB Audio
3.2.3 AC Relé for turning on/off the tv & audio

The system is very (very) silent, very few visible cables (hidden behind a wooden panel.

Trouble I encountered

1. Audio

My tv is not able to passthrough AC3 or DTS, so I had to connect Zino directly to the amplifier. Windows 7 seems to recognize the old 5.1 Maya EX USB card I had, but 5.1 works only in analog mode (3 RCA cable) as digital passthrough does not work. I think it's driver related, as under windows xp ac3 & dts passthrough worked like a charme. By luck, maya ex has 6 audio out and kenwood had 6 audio in. Finally I do have 5.1 sound, but I have to use a matrix in ffdshow, for upscaling stereo sound and routing basses from L/R to the subwoofer.

2. Wake up

I am not able to wake the pc, both via remote and WOL. In device manager everything seems ok (allow device to wake up the pc), but in reality it does not. I looked at several forums but no easy solution (even with the latest beta of MCE standby tool). It seems that in S4 the IR usb port get no power and so it can not receive the keystroke from remote. I started thinking it's a bios problem, maybe it will be solved quickly.

 

[fredphoesh]

Hello Pierremenard
I see you have a Zino HD (3250e + Radeon 4330)
I am thinking of getting one too, but am scared to spend such a lot of money and find that it does not play the files i want...
ie
1080 mkv and m2t files and even mov h.264 files without stuttering!?

I would love to know,
Thanks,
Mark.

 

[pierremenard]

1080 mkv +ac3 play smoothly with SAF (30-40% of cpu load). I did not test other HD format, but I expect them not to be different.

As I wrote, I had some problems (yet not solved) with wake up on usb/lan and 5.1 on usb

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

As I wrote, I had some problems (yet not solved) with wake up on usb/lan

For me that would be a deal breaker

 

[fredphoesh]

As I wrote, I had some problems (yet not solved) with wake up on usb/lan

For me that would be a deal breaker

Hi mate, happy easter and all...

at first i thought you were joking, but perhaps i DK what that implies, why would the ability to wake up the system using usb or lan be important? Does that mean if you had a wireless keyboard attached, you could not switch on the machine via the keyboard?

I have the ION/Atom in an Asrock HD form, and it is ok for 720 but not 1080... and need another machine for the living room, so am wanting to be sure the Zino would cope.

Tx
Mark

 

[pierremenard]

Oh, well, now I have 5 steps to go to zino to wake it up, it's not a big problem.
Anyway it's bios related I think. In s4 the usb and lan is powered off, no way to keep power to USB port and so no way to wake the system from them.
I hope it will be updated.

F.

p.s. you are right, it's not possible to wake the system out from s4 with a keyboard. At least not for me.

 

[fredphoesh]

Oh, well, now I have 5 steps to go to zino to wake it up, it's not a big problem.
Anyway it's bios related I think. In s4 the usb and lan is powered off, no way to keep power to USB port and so no way to wake the system from them.
I hope it will be updated.

F.

p.s. you are right, it's not possible to wake the system out from s4 with a keyboard. At least not for me.

lol
yeah
youd have to be VERY lazy for that to be the reason you would not buy this system!
so it is definitely faster than my ION - Atom WRT 1080 playback.
thats the main thing for me.

do you know if it can play 1080 mkv files off a bluray DATA disk?
tx
Mark.

 

[pierremenard]

Oh, well, now I have 5 steps to go to zino to wake it up, it's not a big problem.
Anyway it's bios related I think. In s4 the usb and lan is powered off, no way to keep power to USB port and so no way to wake the system from them.
I hope it will be updated.

F.

p.s. you are right, it's not possible to wake the system out from s4 with a keyboard. At least not for me.

lol
yeah
youd have to be VERY lazy for that to be the reason you would not buy this system!
so it is definitely faster than my ION - Atom WRT 1080 playback.
thats the main thing for me.

do you know if it can play 1080 mkv files off a bluray DATA disk?
tx
Mark.

I do not have a bluray reader, but I can not see any problem as it works with data file from HD.

F.V.

 

[WileECoyote]

Dell ZINO HD - ATI NEWBEE

1080 mkv +ac3 play smoothly with SAF (30-40% of cpu load). I did not test other HD format, but I expect them not to be different.

As I wrote, I had some problems (yet not solved) with wake up on usb/lan and 5.1 on usb

(I would like to preface this post by saying I have never worked with an ATI video card before. All my other PC's have built in Intel video or Nvidia cards.)

Pierremenard,
I am so glad you got yours working, it has given me hope that it can work. I ordered mine 2 months ago and I finally got it last Friday. I have been working feaverishly since to get it working and have it working great with everything except VC-1 encoded videos. I got so frustrated last night, I actually opened the restore disks, was going to restore it and send it back to Dell. But I decided I would do a quick search on the forums this morning before restoring and sending it back. This is the current setup...

Zino HD 400...
- AMD Dual Core Athlon™ X2 3250e (1MB L2, 1.5GHz)
- 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2 DIMM
- ATI Radeon HD 4330 512 MB
- 250GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Integrated 2.1 High Definition Audio
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
- MediaPortal RC 1 (Tried RC 2 last night with the same results)
- Moving Pictures
- My TVSeries
- Maya Skin

Codecs Tried...
- Microsoft DTV-DVD Win 7 Decoders
- Cyberlink PowerDVD 9
- Arcsoft
- FFDShow Tryouts (Beta 7)
- Win7Codecs
- SAF

I have tried several codec (Win7Codecs from WinShark, SAF, FFDShow Tryouts, Cyberlink, Arcsoft and Microsoft) and my main issue is VC-1 does not use hardware acceleration and the CPU runs around 95%. H.264 and DVD's work perfect and run around 12-25% usage. I have tried the video drivers from Dell as well as from the AMD site. ALL my other PC's have Intel or Nvidia cards, so I think maybe I am missing something with the ATI? Does anyone have a clue what I am missing?

Wile E.

 

[pierremenard]

Re: Dell ZINO HD - ATI NEWBEE

1080 mkv +ac3 play smoothly with SAF (30-40% of cpu load). I did not test other HD format, but I expect them not to be different.

As I wrote, I had some problems (yet not solved) with wake up on usb/lan and 5.1 on usb

(I would like to preface this post by saying I have never worked with an ATI video card before. All my other PC's have built in Intel video or Nvidia cards.)

Pierremenard,
I am so glad you got yours working, it has given me hope that it can work. I ordered mine 2 months ago and I finally got it last Friday. I have been working feaverishly since to get it working and have it working great with everything except VC-1 encoded videos. I got so frustrated last night, I actually opened the restore disks, was going to restore it and send it back to Dell. But I decided I would do a quick search on the forums this morning before restoring and sending it back. This is the current setup...

Zino HD 400...
- AMD Dual Core Athlon™ X2 3250e (1MB L2, 1.5GHz)
- 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2 DIMM
- ATI Radeon HD 4330 512 MB
- 250GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Integrated 2.1 High Definition Audio
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
- MediaPortal RC 1 (Tried RC 2 last night with the same results)
- Moving Pictures
- My TVSeries
- Maya Skin

Codecs Tried...
- Microsoft DTV-DVD Win 7 Decoders
- Cyberlink PowerDVD 9
- Arcsoft
- FFDShow Tryouts (Beta 7)
- Win7Codecs
- SAF

I have tried several codec (Win7Codecs from WinShark, SAF, FFDShow Tryouts, Cyberlink, Arcsoft and Microsoft) and my main issue is VC-1 does not use hardware acceleration and the CPU runs around 95%. H.264 and DVD's work perfect and run around 12-25% usage. I have tried the video drivers from Dell as well as from the AMD site. ALL my other PC's have Intel or Nvidia cards, so I think maybe I am missing something with the ATI? Does anyone have a clue what I am missing?

Wile E.

Rules I learnt

1. Never use ATI Drivers, use only the ones supplied by Dell (last update 10 days ago). Ati drivers break DXVA and even when they don't, the playback has several issues (frames skip)
2. Always use SAF, don't mess up with other codecs
3. Refer to the SAF thread for any codec problems.
4. Use MPC-HC to check if DXVA is enabled (you can see stats for DXVA in MPC)

Bye!

F.

p.s. If you want you can send me in some way a clip with VC-1 encoded file and I could check if it works with me