[DecK]

Not much (i.e none) details on the technical specs, but it sure looks pretty...

Dell Inspirion Zino HD

Hopefully the HD in the name means that it has a real processor

[Geeba]

Yep this is a sweet box!

Hopefully spec will be leaked soon....

[kizer]

The only thing I don't like about it right off the bat is there is no optical out. Sure you can run everything through the HDMI, but its always nice to have that option. Of course the only reason I'm complaining about the Optical out is because I currently use it.

I suppose I could HDMI into my tv then HDMI into my amp, but hey I have to have something to complain about.

Otherwise I'm waiting for specs too.

[HAT3 MACHIN3]

So Dell currently has this PC at $199 + $60 Dell Gift Card and free shipping, per slickdeals.net... I recently built an Acer Aspire Revo with XBMC Live, and I'm wondering if the same thing will work for this PC? It seems to be a WAY better deal and WAY better PC... what do you guys think?

[tedbone]

I'm liking this thing more and more. I am considering ordering one of these, but I am not sure if XBMC will run on it out of the box. For example, I installed Win 7 64 bit on my older Dell XPS 710 and updated the Nvidia Driver and XBMC works great. It's the huge size and loud pc/fan noise fromn the XPS 710 that is leading me to ditching it for a Zino.

Here are the specs:
Inspiron 400 Inspiron Zino HD
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Processors AMD Dual Core Athlon™ Neo X2 6850e (1MB L2, 1.8GHz)
Memory 6GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2 DIMM
Keyboard Dell USB Entry Keyboard
Video Card ATI Radeon HD 4330 512 MB
Hard Drive 1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Ctl 1st Piano Black
Mouse Dell USB Optical Mouse
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 Multi-Language
CD ROM/DVD ROM Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
Sound Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio - Software Enabled
Wireless Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card

I am choosing the ATI Radeon HD 4330 512 MB over an integrated card because..well I think they suck. I've never had a good experience with themm iin previous laptops. But I digress; I am getting concerned about OpenGL and DirextX, and all of these things I know little about. I just read about the Boxee Beta that specifically mentioned the Dell Zino:

"As part of the Beta we also changed the underlying graphic library on Windows from OpenGL to DirectX, and we’re now taking advantage of DXVA, which means Boxee for Windows just got faster and can play 1080p without your CPU breaking a sweat. There is now a long list of affordable Windows-based devices that can turn into a kick-ass media center (e.g. Acer Revo, Dell Zino, HP Mini)"

MAybe one of you brilliant "techy" guys can explain a little of this to me (the dumbed-down version).

Thanks,
Ted

[tedbone]

Ok. Maybe I found th eanswer via Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_...sing_units

So the ATI Radeon HD 4330 is capable of running both DirextX and OpenGL (like my Nvidia 8800 GTX on my XPS does).

So is the DXVA used for Integrated Video cards?

[saratoga]

MAybe one of you brilliant "techy" guys can explain a little of this to me (the dumbed-down version).

It won't work with XBMC, so you can't use it, except maybe with Boxee or some other player.

[crash123]

So is the DXVA used for Integrated Video cards?

No it's used for the Nivida cards.

[tedbone]

It won't work with XBMC, so you can't use it, except maybe with Boxee or some other player.

No way?! I was thinking that this ATI card could do it. Do you know of a link (wiki perhaps) that might help me?

Boxee is cool, the Beta looks even better. I used the Alpha for a while, but decided to "figure out" how the eff to use XBMC because these skins are so damn sexy. I don't care to go back to Boxee - mostly b/c I don't care for the social aspect and no TV shows in ISOs.

Anyways, keep me posted if you know of ways to get XBMC working on the Zino. I really want this machine!

Thanks for the quick replies!

[Livin]

DXVA can be used on both NVidia and ATI (don't listen to the noobs saying otherwise).

If you CPU is powerfull enough it will not matter anyway.


I just ordered a Zino today (with the X2 CPU) and will post my results with both DirectX & DXVA. I expect it to run just fine.

[tedbone]

DXVA can be used on both NVidia and ATI (don't listen to the noobs saying otherwise).

If you CPU is powerfull enough it will not matter anyway.


I just ordered a Zino today (with the X2 CPU) and will post my results with both DirectX & DXVA. I expect it to run just fine.

Awesome! Please keep me posted. I will probably order one too. And since Boxee mentioned that the Beta can work on little machines like this, AND I just saw that there is a Clicker App for Boxee, I might just go back to Boxee now. XBMC is awesome as far as skins go, but Boxee just keep making things easier for what I want.
Or maybe this:
Boxee for the living room (TV and Movies)
XBMC for the Media Room

[CrashX]

Can an op please merge this post with http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=61427 ? It has bit more information on the topic ...

[tedbone]

Can an op please merge this post with http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=61427 ? It has bit more information on the topic ...

Good call.