VIA Nano trounces Intel Atom in HD video playback? Not quite.
By Donald Melanson 
posted August 4th 2008 3:33PM
posted August 4th 2008 3:33PM
As a recent VIA promo video would have you believe, the company's lightweight Nano processor is capable of soundly beating Intel's competing Atom CPU when it comes to playing HD video. Or is it? Not willing to take VIA's word at face value, jkkmobile decided to try out the very same 1080p video on an Eee PC with the same Atom processor that VIA used in its test and -- surprise, surprise -- they found that the video played just fine. Now, it is entirely possible that the Nano can beat the Atom in playing video under certain circumstances (and given the raw benchmark numbers, that even seems likely), but when it comes to basic HD video playback, it seems that the Atom can at least hold its own. Head on past the break to see for yourself.
So these new Atom chips don't seem that bad. I mean compared to a 3 or 4 year old machine that runs at 1.6GHz, that would probably fumble really bad with full HD video
I don't understand! You went from funny pink dinosaur to annoying pink dinosaur so quickly...
:(
I didn't reply to this comment! I swear!
I meant to reply to the pink dinosaur one below :(
I "Hate" my Yellow Teeth
Thank youuu.
I thought I was the only one entertained by that.
http://adblockplus.org
@phanbouy
If that program works so well, why do you know what we're talking about?
because i'm just wily and clever enough to surmise you're talking about banner ads? good try though
Defensive, sarcastic insults that end in "nice try." I do like how you threw in the word "surmise" but completely ignored punctuation and capitalization.
The entire comment had all of the makings of a 13 year old trying to sound older. And smarter.
Maybe 14.
What good is whining going to do? If you hate your Yellow Teeth so much, why don't you do something about it? I mean, other than advertise on Engadget. No, I'm not going to click your link. Probably just leads to more whining.
Pochi, your initial comment was funny, but you've let success go to your head. Chill.
at the risk of ruining it, will someone explain the joke
@Loonie
Sorry man. Phanbouy just makes me very sad.
awww poor Pochi. i wasn't raining on your little joke parade, simply inserting a link for a firefox add-in that, actually, does work, but then you had to turn it into a pissing match. how pathetic
"how pathetic"
...13.
VIA just took a serioues credability hit. shame on you.
Wasn't this posted earlier? O.o
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/04/via-nano-whoops-intels-atom-again-on-video/
This was posted by Thomas Ricker.
wow.
How much more or less are the Nano?
I just voted you up for that
That was a reply to Pochi of course, oh crapy comment system
@Behhur
Shame on you? Sounds like they are a little more evenly matched, and if you did the research the total power draw during these exercises and other tests showed that the VIA processor pulled less total* power than the ATOM. Each processer sacrifices something for the other, but VIA did not lose credibility on ONE small test that you and your geek friends could reproduce in a barn. Shame on you*
what would geeks be doing in a barn
"what would geeks be doing in a barn"
hey if it's good enough for Dwight K. Shrute...
@Phanbouy,
Get out of my Offive.
"inside joke"
and so was that one
(well, that was actually supposed to be a reply to myself)
You have got to be the biggest failaholic I've seen all year.
he can't compete with Steffen Jobbs
Im sick of stupid people on here. That was the engadget test, the first test. Now, listen children, this is ANOTHER test by jkkmobile. Crappy that they had to re-run a similar topic, but wow does you mom tie your shoes too?
No need. Your mom usually offers to tie them.
SK, are you mad as hell and not going to take this anymore?
@phanbouy
I can't even begin to describe how tired I am getting of looking at your screen name and ridiculously unintelligent comments.
Esteban: Thank goodness you came along with your intelligent post to tell us all!
@Esteban
I can't begin to tell you how little of a shit I give what you think.
This is apples to oranges!
The current Atom CPU trounces VIA in terms of its LOW power consumption and performances taks equally as well.
A faster Atom CPU will be rolled out soon and it likely performance tasks "better" also likely at a higher power drain than the first Intel Atom chipset.
numbers and source or your post is conjecture
So not only was the marketing video dodgily produced it was also based around a false concept? They should sack the entire marketing team involved at VIA.
Well, in the promo video, they were using WMP 11 while the guy in this computer is using WMP 10. Do you think there could be such a performance hit between the 2 versions of WMP?
I agree, the stuff I had read said that in real tests, both could do 720p playback but 1080 was pretty much a choppy mess.
What's the point of playing a 1080p video on a screen that isn't even 720p?
To test the hardware..... specifically the processor/chipset.
You can hook it up to a TV. BAM! Portable media player.
aren't these the processors meant for low-end work like surfing the web and working on office apps? running HD movies on EEE pc and acer one would be so cool
I personally tried this on my EEE PC 1000H this morning, with WMP 11, and it failed miserably. The 720p runs fine, but the 1080p is skiptastic crap.
Maybe it does much better on WMP 10, or maybe the white plastic helps the PC run cooler than the black? :-)
Hating to commence in 3...2...1...
Exact same results here on my 1000H with WMP11, but I can play a 1080p movie in Media Player Classic with only a few hiccups.
I agree wholeheartedly -- even if VIA was showing their capabilities on the HP 2133 with a 1280x800 screen, it's going to be down-converting 1080p anyway.
I'm perfectly happy with the 720p (down-res) on my 1024x600 EEE PC.
For those wanting apples to apples, does either the original comparison or this new one mention the codecs being used? I would imagine that would affect processor use quite a bit, and might even favor one or the other due to specific instruction set support.
Tech guys help me out here?
My Asus 901 couldn't even handle 720p! It plays fine for the first few seconds before the audio starts to go out of sync.
WHO IS THINKING ABOUT THAT HOW MANY HORSE POWERS CAN INTEL MAKES BY A +20 WATT PROCESSOR? WHY NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS? YOU MUST COMPARE THE VIA NANO PROCESSOR BY STANDARD INTEL CORE 2 DOU NOTEBOOK PROCESSOR IN RANGE OF 20+/-5 WATT POWER CONSUMPTION. THE PRICE IS NOT THE ONLY FACTOR IN MOST CASES.
I concur.