Windows on a stick...

Wow, holy shit. I'll buy the 64 bit variant if it's worth any amount of damn when it comes out, if for no other reason then just to mess with it.
 
That look interesting, however it's not entirely "new", as in there are already a fair amount of Android running sticks for TV and such available.
Granted they are not Windows, but there's no reason it couldn't be done.
Still interesting, but I'd got with a NUC instead I think.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
This is totally different from a NUC. You can buy 4 of these for the price of a NUC and you can probably also fit 4 of these inside a NUC.
Of course, performance will be in a completely different level, but for media center tasks (and no gaming) the BayTrail should be more than enough.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Sell-Mini-PC-with-both-Android-Windows-8-system/2044898752.html
Click to expand...

Never said it was. And yes performance is an issue, playing 1080p x264 movies while decoding Dolby Surround (or any other demanding codec) is taxing, I read NUC reviews to see what they could do, and not all of them are as good with video playback/decoding.
 
There's also the minor issue of streaming 1080p over wi-fi, which often doesn't end in rainbows and unicorns.
 
nutball said:
There's also the minor issue of streaming 1080p over wi-fi, which often doesn't end in rainbows and unicorns.
Click to expand...

I can stream HDTV @ 25mbps over my wireless-n which is much higher bitrate than most 1080p movies I also stream over wifi. Your point is valid in that I wouldn't use this as a main HTPC for a living room which I definitely use over gbit network but the fact that this is x86 in such a tiny formfactor is crazy.
 
Malo said:
I can stream HDTV @ 25mbps over my wireless-n which is much higher bitrate than most 1080p movies I also stream over wifi. Your point is valid in that I wouldn't use this as a main HTPC for a living room which I definitely use over gbit network but the fact that this is x86 in such a tiny formfactor is crazy.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Intel is improving a lot, wonder how it will end up, maybe they'll get that smartphone/tablet market they are after...
 
Rodéric said:
Never said it was. And yes performance is an issue, playing 1080p x264 movies while decoding Dolby Surround (or any other demanding codec) is taxing, I read NUC reviews to see what they could do, and not all of them are as good with video playback/decoding.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying you only want to use software decoding?
Pretty much every mobile/low power SoC launched within the last 2 years has full hardware acceleration for x264 decoding, and the BayTrail SoCs are no exception:
We also downloaded Media Player Classic – Home Cinema along with two 1080P H.264 MKV video clips (one at 10Mbps and the other at 40Mbps) to see how how the DN2820FYKH would perform. Both played back the clip just fine and looked to be around 7-11% CPU usage. It looks like the Bay Trail NUC has hardware decoding here since the CPU usage is so low.
Click to expand...

Also, I'm not sure what kind of Dolby Surround you're talking about, but the regular old Dolby Digital also has hardware acceleration according to the specs. I don't know if it also supports the blu-ray formats though, but I'm pretty sure the CPUs are enough to handle those if the video is being handled through the dedicated module.

My 2 year-old Tegra 3 tablet plays 1080p x264 streams with Dolby Digital or DTS audio just fine from an external drive or SD card. Playing them through a network disk is also fine, most of the time. More often than not, I'm only limited by the tablet's inability to use a 5GHz WiFi.
 
I'm thinking of something else entirely...

BayTrail and the integrated HD4500 graphics, even in the lower class model, should be able to do H.264 deconding at 1080p. It's a Pro operating system, so why aren't we talking about the cheapest (so far) way to Steam-stream to your bigass TV (TM) from your gaming rig elsewhere in the house?

THat's what I'm talking about!
 
Albuquerque said:
I'm thinking of something else entirely...

BayTrail and the integrated HD4500 graphics, even in the lower class model, should be able to do H.264 deconding at 1080p. It's a Pro operating system, so why aren't we talking about the cheapest (so far) way to Steam-stream to your bigass TV (TM) from your gaming rig elsewhere in the house?

THat's what I'm talking about!
Click to expand...

Dedicated Steam streamer you just plug into your AVR and sits there always in Steam Big Picture on standby. Star Citizen class graphics on your big TV for less than $100.
 
I had a bit of trouble interpreting your message, but I think you're agreeing with me? :D

Seriously, this thing completely crushes that segment. Not only that, but it's still a Pro operating system, so toss the PLEX metro app on it and stream from your HTPC. PIn the Netflix metro app to your start menu and do the same. Drop an NES emulator on it, or MAME, and pin those to metro too.

Get a simple USB wireless keyboard + touchpad from the likes of the Logitech K400 and you're rocking.
 
Albuquerque said:
I'm thinking of something else entirely...

BayTrail and the integrated HD4500 graphics, even in the lower class model, should be able to do H.264 deconding at 1080p. It's a Pro operating system, so why aren't we talking about the cheapest (so far) way to Steam-stream to your bigass TV (TM) from your gaming rig elsewhere in the house?

THat's what I'm talking about!
Click to expand...

People have been using the Asus Transformer T100 with a BayTrail with Steam Home Streaming quite successfully.. But that's on 1280*720 and when they use the 5GHz band in their WiFi routers.

Based on some tests I did at home with Limelight (hacked version of nVidia Shield Streaming) in my HTC One, for 1920*1080p@30Hz stable I think you'd need a 2x2 802.11ac connection in the 5GHz band.

From what I can see, these Mini-PCs have no ethernet port (neither does BayTrail AFAIK) and they use a RTL8723BS WiFi+BT chip, which only does single stream 802.11n at 2.4GHz.
The way I could see this happen is if you use a USB -> Ethernet adapter, but even then this only has USB 2.0 so the latency may be too big.


So, sorry. Off-the-shelf, this thing won't be able to do Steam Home Streaming, not even at 720p.
 
It wouldn't have to be a lot bigger to incorporate wired networking - I mean it says it needs an AC power adapter, so in some senses it's only small if you ignore half of the package :)
 
nutball said:
It wouldn't have to be a lot bigger to incorporate wired networking - I mean it says it needs an AC power adapter, so in some senses it's only small if you ignore half of the package :)
Click to expand...

Power supply is done through a standard USB 5V/2A input. I think some TVs should have USB ports with enough current to power this.

The BayTrail SoC does have an embedded USB 3.0 controller, it's just not implemented in this solution. Perhaps a competitor will launch a similar device with USB 3.0 and then a gigabit ethernet adapter could be used.
I'm guessing that USB 3.0 should have lower latencies, since the clock is much higher. I may be wrong, though.
 
I'd rather just get the dual core NUC for the same price if I actually wanted to run real software on it ... or one of the streaming sticks for streaming.
 
Indeed a NUC is barely more expensive. But the special draw is a Windows license also costs about the same, for an end user.
Now we can wait for Microsoft to sue them? It's a desktop PC with shitty I/O (but better than the Raspberry Pi since the USB isn't buggy), not a at tablet. Or a zero inch tablet. It does meet tablet specs (SoC and only wifi, BT, HDMI, USB, SD) though perhaps not all (touchscreen? accelerometer or gyroscope?)
 
For wireless game streaming the best bet would be with 5.5GHz and H265 support (both ends) me thinks.
Or even 60GHz wifi (which I guess you would extend with "mirrors" if you don't have near line-of-sight..)
Or 100BaseT solves it better.

Streaming over 2.4GHz seems horrible if it does take off in a big way. In dense housing that will pollute the band even more. Your neighbor leeching of the semi-public hotspot on your ISP provided router will have to connect at 4AM just for basic browsing to be possible.
 
Blazkowicz said:
Now we can wait for Microsoft to sue them?
Click to expand...
If Microsoft and Intel and come together to "give away" their stuff in $160 tablets, they probably can do so for a $100 PC-on-a-stick as well.

I wouldn't be too surprised if devices like this turned up by way of more recognized brands and guaranteed properly licensed channels.
 
A check on the Atoms ; Bay Trail-T is the one not supporting PCIe, SATA and gigabit Ethernet, and not vanilla Displayport (though maybe you can adapt eDP to DP easily?, there's at least converters to get HDMI, DVI, VGA out of it)

http://wccftech.com/bay-trail-t-intel-atom-quad-core-soc-ship-september-11/

So it's kind of fair, as the limited I/O is more by constraint than choice.

To muddy the water, why not make a board with Bay Trail-T and 2GB or 4GB, dual video outputs, a USB 3 hub with ethernet and SATA controllers, USB 2.0 hub if necessary to provide four ports, then "Free Windows" (requires the eMMC to ship it I guess)

I'm not complaining :), that would be nice for "green" (power saving) desktops and third-world desktops, but I have a feeling of grey market about it.
 
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