An Atom N270-powered rig that can handle 1080p content? Say it
ain't so! The relatively unknown HABEY has stepped forward with a minuscule media PC that includes a fairly weak CPU and a potent hardware decoder that can supposedly handle 1080p content and even
Blu-ray flicks. The BIS-6550HD is meant to be one of the most energy efficient machines on the planet to adequately play back 1080p material, with the entire system sucking down under 13 watts. Complementing the 1.6GHz processor is a single SODIMM slot for carrying up to 2GB of RAM, wireless / HDTV tuner options, a slew of video outputs, multicard reader, gigabit Ethernet and four USB 2.0 sockets. Unfortunately, pricing and availability both remain undisclosed, but we get the feeling you'll be paying dearly for the chance to see 1080p sans stutter on a machine this tiny.
posted Mar 11th 2009 3:05AM
Isn't 13W the same amount Apple listed for the new Mac Mini (which can also play 1080p content)?
Apple listed 13 watt at idle. This is most likely to use 13 watt's at full capacity. BIG diference.
From the looks of it, it's not just the antenna, but the entire back (or is it front?) panel.
D'OH! clicked the wrong reply button. Comment above was reply to mrpysnik
Actually, 13W is idle here as well. It goes up to 18W under load. Still very impressive.
I agree. This seems a much more sensible purchase than an Apple. But waht isn't ?
Yeah but it doesn't run xbmc so its not attractive to me.
They are an OEM. We buy embedded boards from them.
Is that WiFi antenna coming off of there funny, or is it just me?
Yeah... I definitely call "shopped" on that one.
to think they just had to horizontal-flip that fake antenna and people might've believed this...
i wonder, is there any sort of policy at Engadget to red flag this kind of thing, or could it be that Darren noticed this and went ahead with the story for no reason other than because it's about a company claiming to do something, and it's better to present the complete article as taken-at-face-value rather than to jump ahead to sleuthing... i guess that is up to us.
patiently awaiting followup story that this is a hoax/PR stunt.
Looks like someone has again goofed on Photoshop.
All of the ports, and antenna, are "stickers" with the wrong perspective.
How hard would it have been to build a mock-up of this? Seriously... I have an antenna and all of the ports (except HDMI) lying around my office in scrap bins. A metal project box is what, ten bucks? For cryin' out loud, even the website's promo pics of the motherboard are hack Photoshop composites! Vaporware and shenanigans!
It’s interesting that they decided to use an external decoder chip as opposed to implementing a chipset platform that natively supports HD content (aka ION). However it is great that someone is doing something new with the Atom processor rather than the stagnant same old same old standard Intel package.
Slice
Seeing how they say about 1080p makes me think its unable to play games and stuff, only able to play back blu-ray.
And the price will be what? $999+?
Lets see some Ions and some Competition! I'm sick of these Nettops that can't play back 720p and yet cost $500+, waiting for Ion for $300.
Why do I want competition? Price drops, better hardware ect
I like it when computers are mocked up on Google Sketchup...
Um.. ethernet and USB ports on front side? Or is that the front?
Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel for mock-ups. Ouch. The connector are just stretched and rotated 2D bitmaps!
Yeah, this is a true shoop.
I doubt it's going to be very expensive. Plenty of low-power low-cost 'PCs' already support 1080P, such as the Popcorn Hour.
The big question would be if it runs XBMC, or maybe the other way around if XBMC will support the external decoder chip.
XBMC will most definitely not support the decoder chip.
Bluray playback is nothing. Playing back 1080p MKVs encoded with x264 smoothly will be the biggest challenge.
Click the link. Check the screenshot. HD filenames end in .wmv, .mkv, .mp4. I strongly believe this thing is x264 and mkv enabled. :-)
Also, from the site:
Hardware decoder video format support:
H.264/AVC SP, MP and HP at Level 4.1 up to 40 Mbps
SMPTE VC-1 SP, MP and AP at Level 3 up to 40 Mbps
MPEG-2 MP at ML and MPEG-2 MP at HL, up to 125Mbps
Beats me re: linux support, though. But the only major chips I see on that board come from winbond and intel, so you might be lucky.
Hey intel, next time you release a CPU for small cheap portable devices add some sort of license that disallows it to be used in desktop devices and possible also 'notebooks', thanks, I'm starting to hate the atom more than freaking iphones...
Cheers to that. Atom needs to die.
I doubt it's as energy efficient as the WD TV HD media player, which plays 1080p MKV x264 files with DD/DTS for only $99.
Western Digital Media Player doesn't decode DTS.
It does DTS passthrough.... It's not like it won't play DTS at all.
I'm happy with my iStar HD, which decodes DTS =)
What do you bet it uses totally cheap audio.
I saw this at their CES booth. They mentioned the price would be under $400.
For 400 dollars i'd rather buy a cheap dell PC and hook it up....
looks like garbage compared to the Nvidia Ion boxes that will be soon coming out.
All of the connectors including the antenna look flat like they are stickers. Or a really bad photo shop job. Wasn't it just posted the other day that Intel said the Atom processor could not do Blu-Ray 1080p.
No.. it was their new chipset in combo with atom that could not do 1080p bluray
My company received an evaluation unit last week. The picture looks accurate.
So nobody's seen a mini-ITX system before??? Why is this such a big deal that people think it's fake? Mini-ITX boards that can do Blu-ray have been out for a while.