Tegra as an HTPC? Discussion

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Zachstar

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With supposedly 2010 being the big Nvidia Tegra ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra ) year. I wanted to get a little topic going about potential uses. Mainly in the HTPC area.

Tegra is not x86 It is ARM which automatically rules out just about all existing HTPC software. And no Windows XP-Windows 7

However ARM does have an extreme advantage in power usage and heat. At full blast with all cores (Including Graphics) running it uses 2 watts. The internal heat spreader is enough to handle. That means always on or in standby operation.

Its been touted as one of the best solutions for mobile video playback. Nvidia seems to be taking video very seriously but there seems to be no serious answer to the question of a version being able to play blu ray bandwidth 1080P files or not. It would seem somewhat unlikely as there is a large difference between a 1080p game trailer and a 1080p blu ray.

But obviously 480p DVD sized files would run right. And you might be able to run XBMC to play them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYq7f-CrnOc Beagleboard has a weaker core and graphics than Tegra so very likely that a Tegra made build will run atleast 720p

So with some of this in mind and lets say cheap 1gb onboard flash 100USD nettop with HDMI and maybe VGA.. What kind of uses can you come up with, Is there a room that this can be useful in?
 
i know the new ms zune uses the tegra chip, and with the dock it makes for a pretty good media solution, upconverting to 720p, with beautiful menus and interface.

something like that could probably easily be integrated into a htpc solution
 
Well the disadvantage to building a regular HTPC with Core2Duos, Athlons, Phenoms, Nano, or Atom is that you're using an operating system that's rather "busy" even when you're in MCE.

I can see the ARM/Tegra solution working if someone program a dedicated media center without all the other stuff running in the background, such as your XBMC suggestion. But you'd have to somehow implement the ability to add Java and Flash and perhaps Silverlight to make it a full fledged media center for Internet TV capability.

Perhaps a heavily gutted Linux distro running MythTV on boot.

Edit: SageTV pretty much does dedicated media center mode without any OS crap running in the background. If a developer can make something like that for ARM/Tegra hobbyist, that would be awesome.
 
The ARM XBMC version is being developed on a beagleboard it has a dsp chip but overall its got to be 3-4 times less effective than even just the Tegra CPU and GPU not to mention Tegra has onboard decode encode chips.

Can you idmagine having most of the features of XBMC and being able to play 1080p video at the same time for under 2 watts?
 
While I have nothing but disdain for how lame XBMC is compared to actual MC apps I will say that, if they can make it into a better extender like device, it could make an nice little system but XBMC needs to improve significantly before it's actually usable for me.
 
CrimandEvil said:
While I have nothing but disdain for how lame XBMC is compared to actual MC apps I will say that, if they can make it into a better extender like device, it could make an nice little system but XBMC needs to improve significantly before it's actually usable for me.
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The only thing XBMC is missing in my view is proper ability to handle Blu ray media and TV tuner cards.

I highly doubt people would want to do that with this anyway.
 
jeremyshaw said:
...
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That is nothing new. They dont have the licence to have the stuff needed for you to stick in a blu ray and go. Sure it might be able to play so called backups but I dont really consider this proper anyway.

There are hacks to allow it to interface with TV tuner cards but nothing is officially supported yet on that front.

Remember folks this software was designed at first to turn a game console into a home video entertainment system.
 
Zachstar said:
The only thing XBMC is missing in my view is proper ability to handle Blu ray media and TV tuner cards.

I highly doubt people would want to do that with this anyway.
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Dude, that's huge. XBMC is the last thing I'd want for an HTPC. It was cool on the xbox that was it.
 
danman said:
Dude, that's huge. XBMC is the last thing I'd want for an HTPC. It was cool on the xbox that was it.
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Exactly. The Xbox is one thing. An HTPC is a completely different beast and XBMC fails hard when compared to your average HTPC frontend (and I'm not even talking about support for TV tuning or Blu Ray. Analog TV is dead and HD TV is bland unless you go CableCard). I have no idea why you mention Blu Ray since that's also full of utter fail on the PC too.
 
danman said:
Dude, that's huge. XBMC is the last thing I'd want for an HTPC. It was cool on the xbox that was it.
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Well if the only uses you have are TV watching and Blu Ray disc playing anything below a powerful Dual core is going to suck.

Have you tried XBMC on the PC? Hell have you used XBMC for anything other than a nice boot screen before one goes to the emulator section (What most people hacked the Xbox for)
 
Zachstar said:
Have you tried XBMC on the PC? Hell have you used XBMC for anything other than a nice boot screen before one goes to the emulator section (What most people hacked the Xbox for)
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I have and the entire experience is annoying. It's very pretty but that's pretty much it.

Hell, Media Portal has left it in the dust a long, long time ago (which is ironic since MP came from XBMC as the first "port" of it to the PC).
 
There is little stopping these open source systems from being ported. I mention XBMC because it has already started that I know of.
 
danman said:
Tegra only works with WinCE.
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False

Tegra is an ARM system and therefore can run any kind of OS programmed for it.

Just a short list of OS's already ported

WinCE, Ubuntu,Chrome,Android etc....


So no it does not only work with WinCE it is just that most systems will come with WinCE upfront. And easily reformatted
 
danman said:
The SDK that is available from nVidia is for WINCE.
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Would that be because the only devices out with Tegra are ZuneHDs and phones that cant be hecked legally? Perhaps so.

There is no nettops are smartbooks out for tegra yet. Once that happens whatever is needed to access the cores will follow shortly. Nvidia isnt stupid.
 
Azhar said:
I wouldn't go that far.
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Windows CE isnt getting all the headlines. Android and Chrome are. Nvidia is not going to say "Hey you cant use the cores on two of the most anticipated mobile OS systems out there"

Fact is there is nothing that you can go out and buy right now with tegra that you can reformat and put a new OS on. Therefore there is no need for an SDK.

Now I am not saying this is a good thing. There should have been a 100 USD MID out by now not to mention the delays on the smartbooks.
 
Zachstar said:
Windows CE isnt getting all the headlines. Android and Chrome are. Nvidia is not going to say "Hey you cant use the cores on two of the most anticipated mobile OS systems out there"

Fact is there is nothing that you can go out and buy right now with tegra that you can reformat and put a new OS on. Therefore there is no need for an SDK.

Now I am not saying this is a good thing. There should have been a 100 USD MID out by now not to mention the delays on the smartbooks.
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I'm just being funny. nVidia's done some nice things, but they've also been really stupid on others. Rebranding old tech for one thing, or saying things like Apple has PC beat hands down, or even saying that they don't need to make a DirectX 11 card are all just.. stupid.

:-P
 
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