[x5tjf]

I was looking for a small quiet PC to use for web browsing and for BBC iPlayer etc. for my home cinema room. I have a dedicated Blueray player so BD/DVD playback is not a requirement and Sky+HD handles the PVR side of things. I found and have ordered one of the new Acer Revo boxes with the dual-core Atom CPU, 4GB RAM and a 500GB disk with Nvidia ION graphics and Win7, this has HDMI output at 1080p and so should feed into my Denon amp. A review of the previous Revo model with the single core Atom CPU with 2GB RAM seemed fairly positive saying that it could play 1080p video without a problem but was a bit sluggish on some computing tasks, so I am hoping the dual-core +4GB will fix this.

Just wondering if anybody has had a chance to try one of these out yet and if so what they thought of it ?

[x5tjf]

Well the Revo 3610 arrived today and I am actually quite impressed. It's a little slower than a desktop PC as you might expect but still quite acceptable I feel, for what it is intended for. It is the 330 dual core CPU with 4GB RAM and 500GB disk. I have used the HDMI out to feed the Denon 1910 and then onwards to the Panasonic 50" TV again via HDMI. The output is set to provide 1920 x 1080p with a 50Hz refresh rate and then I have set the desktop to use a larger font/icon and have the browser set for 125% to get something that is easily readable from 8 foot away. All of the BBC/ITV/CH4/CH5 iPlayer solutions work well but the picture quality reflects the fact that these came over a limited bandwidth connection - my BB only gives me 4.2Mbps or so. Watched the new episode of Spooks on-line tonight as I missed the 9pm broadcast, quality reminded me of the old pre-digital days. Glad to see that the stereo audio comes straight over the HDMI link with no issues, haven't had a chance to try out any DD yet to see if the 5.1/7.1 works OK over HDMI.

There appears to be a SPDIF optical output socket but this was covered up with a white paper label (as if it should not be used) and the specification does not mention it. Though there is a small plastic SPDIF dust plug included in the kit to cover the socket - rather odd. Maybe the original intention was to include this output but there are still issues with it? Maybe the label/plug are there for some health and safety reason (it is a laser output!) and perhaps it does work? I will try it later.

The unit is smaller than I thought so is nice and compact, not much bigger than the Wii box. It comes with a nice small gloss white wireless (bluetooth I think) keyboard/mouse. The original cheep looking clear plastic stand has been replaced with a much smarter white one. Windows 7 Home Premium is ready loaded. One issue was that I had to plug in a USB mouse/keyboard to get through the Windows setup screens before it would recognise the wireless mouse/keyboard. I did not plug the supplied wireless USB dongle into the Revo until after I had powered it up so perhaps this was where I went wrong - the minute dongle is actually housed inside the battery compartment of the mouse and so you need to read the small print which tells you to remove it from there and plug it into a USB port on the PC. Which reminds me that the documentation leaves a lot to be desired, there is not much of it. It looks OK when you unpack the box but then you realise that there is the usual 20+ languages and so the 40 page manual suddenly becomes a 2 page manual.

Anyway, if anybody is interested in this unit, I will try to answer any questions that are asked.

Terry

[winny]

Thanks for the insight Terry. It's useful to know as this is the exact model I have my eye on.

How are you finding noise levels with the Atom 330 based model?

Does Windows "see" the whole 4gb of RAM?

I don't suppose you've tried running Virtual PC on it have you? I know it sounds like a bit of a poor fit for this kind of machine, but it would be handy for me if it were capable of running 1 or maybe 2 VMs (nothing intensive)

Paul

[wilbur-force]

Took delivery of an acer revo 3610 on wednesday - only the 2gb/250gb model but still the dual-core 330/ION.

The unit is EXTREMELY quiet - especially compared with our laptops and PS3. Had no problems getting the wireless mouse/keyboard working - i just put the dongle in after power-up but i agree it took me some time to decide i needed to read the instructions

played divx full screen (1080p) on a 46" tv and all seemed fine.

iPlayer and youtube (standard def) worked no probs at all, however HD on iPlayer had problems. dont think its down to my connection as i actually downloaded some HD from iPlayer and it still struggled a bit. Apparently Flash 10.1 should fix this sometime soon(ish).

I have read some people dont have problems with HD iPlayer so i will need to google some more to see what I can do.

Windows 7 seems fine on it bearing in mind its basically replacing an old (huge and noisy) Athlon 1.26.

Used utorrent a bit and CPU usage remained low. Not had a chance to try too much else yet though.

But to confirm, its VERY quiet - the 'low powered CPU' (which according to benchmarks is a huge amount better than my old Athlon !) doesnt get very warm so no annoying fan required. Id imagine that once i fit it behind the TV I wont hear it at all.

oh ... and according to the acer website it does have a functioning SPDIF - will try it out tonight.

for info the unit cost me £250 with free delivery - and you can get a 2gb memory upgrade from ebay for about £35 apparently.

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by wilbur-force

oh ... and according to the acer website it does have a functioning SPDIF - will try it out tonight.

Interesting, the 3600 definitely didn't have one so it looks like an upgrade- the german Acer site confirms this.

[x5tjf]

Originally Posted by winny

How are you finding noise levels with the Atom 330 based model?

As Wilbur says, it is very quiet and no problem when watching quiet TV.

Originally Posted by winny

Does Windows "see" the whole 4gb of RAM?

I only took a look at the Computer Properties page and that showed memory as 4GB but had a comment beside it that only 3GB was available. If I remember correctly, on a 4GB machine Windows takes 1GB as System memory and so this may be what it means. Maybe somebody else can explain this better.

Originally Posted by winny

I don't suppose you've tried running Virtual PC on it have you? I know it sounds like a bit of a poor fit for this kind of machine, but it would be handy for me if it were capable of running 1 or maybe 2 VMs (nothing intensive)

Sorry but I don't use VM so cannot say.

One comment on the price, I paid £299 for this box with 4GB/500GB. Given that the 2GB version probably comes with 2x1GB DIMMs which have to be replaced by 2x2GB ones then it is probably false economy to buy the 2GB version and then upgrade memory - remember that you get another 250GB of disk as well for the extra £50. Just my thought on this.

Terry

[criggy]

Am looking in treating myself to one of these.

Could any owner confirm if the optical out works please?

If it does it would be perfect to connect to my active avi speakers.

*crosses fingers*

[winny]

Well, mine's now ordered. I actually went for the 2gb/250gb version which as you say, is false economy if plans are afoot to upgrade the memory, but I figure 2gb should run my requirements just fine.

The 3gb or so limitation is generally found with a 32 bit architecture wherein the system can't physically address more than around 3.3gb. I did think the Atom 330 was 64 bit though so wasn't really expecting this!

Thanks, Paul

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by jensrow

Interesting, the 3600 definitely didn't have one so it looks like an upgrade- the german Acer site confirms this.

Hmm this is slightly confusing, the Acer Revo with the Atom 330 released in Canada a couple of months ago with Vista does not seem to have the SPDIF, only models with Windows 7 have it (R3610), the SPDIF can be seen in the brochure here next to the card reader.

[wilbur-force]

confirmed SPDIF working on my win 7 model

just removed the tape and fully functional ! the glowy red light underneath the tape was a bit of a giveaway i guess

however just also twigged that my 46" samsung LCD has a huuuuge VESA mount ... anyone got any thoughts for VESA adapters ?

[Oraclegod]

Got the 2GB /250GB model a few days ago from Simply Acer.
VERY impressed only problem to date was clipping the revo into it's VESA mount on the back of a 22inch monitor (1360 x 768), it needed quite a bit of force.
Connected to LCD via Dsub rather than HDMI as I believe text etc will be far superior and video just as good.

For those who are interested in power figures:

Playback of 720p video (*.mov) 25 watts
Sleep : 2 watts
Shutdown : 1 watt

Noise is not an issue, its supremely quiet.

One tweak I've done in bios:
Disabled wake on USB. If you don't do this and put it to sleep, any (accidental) signal recieved from mouse or keyboard will wake it up again.
Really like fact that mouse has an off switch.

Not using optical..but noted it does glow red through the white sticker.

Also set machine for best performance and it seems much more responsive.

A great little machine. Apart from lack of optical drive it does more than the noisy 10Kg monster pc I normally use.
Might buy another !!

[Stephen Neal]

The Flash player doesn't currently use any GPU acceleration - so iPlayer HD stuff isn't a go-er on ION platforms at the moment.

However nVidia and Adobe are working on a Flash player that WILL use the GPU - so that could bode well for the future.

[Rob_Quads]

Flash 10.1 is expected out by the end of the year which should have accellerated flash and then you will be able to have all the joys of HD iPlayer and youtube on the Revo without any problems. The final part which makes it IMO one of the most ideal HTPCs around

[winny]

Mine is now up and running. Took me quite a while to uninstall all of the pre-installed cr*p as I want a lightweight footprint with just Media Center and iTuns being the apps it will be running.

I have the R3610 - 2gb RAM/250gb HD with Windows 7 Home Premium. Ordered from Ebuyer (£249.99) and good service from them as usual. I opted for a Saturday delivery which only cost me an extra tenner too.

For the moment, I'm just running it at 720p, but will be switching to 1080p later today. I noticed with my setup, it will allow me to run 1080p24, I play blu ray in this mode but would I see any benefit running this instead of 1080p50hz from an HTPC?

Multi channel audio over HDMI is working very nicely and I'm actually fairly impressed with the sound quality even though it's not up to my previous setup (that was capable of 192khz output though)

Played a couple of SD movies (mpeg 4 of slightly differing type) and was pretty impressed with the results. Very nice quality playback, no artefacting, stuttering or what-have-you. The acid test is probably when I try throwing some 1080p content at it.

Performance is respectable. It's no powerhouse by any stretch, but it was building my iTunes library (6000+ tracks) while playing an h264 video from my NAS and fetching/installing Windows updates without missing a beat.

It's a great little PC, particularly for the features/price. I think I will be getting at least one more of these! (Missus/funds permitting of course!)

Thanks to those whose postings helped me take the plunge. It was a toss up between this and the Sony Vaio TP3E (at double the price) and I was struggling to decide. Just need a suitable TV tuner now that will take an S video feed from my Sky HD box...

Paul

[Oraclegod]

A friend gave me a 1080p *.mkv file.
I've compared the REVO with my media pc + laptop.
The video is 1920 x 800 pixels VLC reports it as 23.9Hz. I calculate average bitrate to be 14.8 megabits/sec.
All 3 pc's were playing from their HDD. All have latest graphics drivers.
The revo (atom330/2GB/nvidia 9400 Win7) won't touch it. A mass or random squares every 5 sec or so.
Laptop (Intel T7300/2GB/nvidia 8400GS Vista32bit) plays it perfectly.
Media PC (AM2 5200+/2GB/Ati3200 Vista32bit + 42" plasma) Is a bit stuttery..might be because the plasma is a bit old and can't cope with the 24Hz, might try it with a spare 1280x800 monitor later.
The revo played a 338MB 1280 x 720 *.mov 25Hz file perfectly. Bitrate for that one was 9.8megabits/sec.
So what's with this *.mkv file?
Any experts out there? Maybe this file does not use GPU acceleration and relies on processor grunt??
Should I try a different player?
Note that the laptop was rubbish until I upgraded VLC from 0.8.6 to 1.0.3.
I've the 2GB revo..I don't know if the 9400 GPU has dedicated memory or uses a big chunk of main memory..is 2GB enough for 1080p?

The revo is still a great pc..but it does have limits (at the moment).

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by Oraclegod

A friend gave me a 1080p *.mkv file.
I've compared the REVO with my media pc + laptop.
The video is 1920 x 800 pixels VLC reports it as 23.9Hz.

The revo is still a great pc..but it does have limits (at the moment).

The error you are making there is using VLC, VLC does not use the GPU to decode which is a big no-no on an Ion based system for 1080p files. You need to install an mkv splitter i.e. Haali or install one of the Windows 7 codec packs i.e. klite or shark 007 (both include latest haali) and then try and play the file in WMP, WMC, or MPC-HC/Zoom player.

[Rob_Quads]

I found all I needed to do was a Windows 7 64-bit install and DivX Preview and now the Revo plays all the files I throw at it. The DivX codec does the mkv playback with hardware acccellation.

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by Rob_Quads

I found all I needed to do was a Windows 7 64-bit install and DivX Preview and now the Revo plays all the files I throw at it. The DivX codec does the mkv playback with hardware acccellation.

AFAIK DivX does not do acceleration, what CPU usage are you getting?

[Rob_Quads]

Originally Posted by jensrow

AFAIK DivX does not do acceleration, what CPU usage are you getting?

To clarify i mean to play .h264 in mkv containers rather than traditional divx files. Its just Divx have delivered the codec which does h264 in mkvs.
It varies between 20-30%. It is gettin acceleration as before I installed it, it had not hope of playing the 1080p video and after it plays it without missing a beat.

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by Rob_Quads

It varies between 20-30%. It is gettin acceleration as before I installed it, it had not hope of playing the 1080p video and after it plays it without missing a beat.

I'm pretty sure DivX does not do DXVA or CUDA, it is just it is a lot more efficient than the H.264 codec in VLC, as long as it works go for it.

scrap thatit looks like it may be DXVA capable after all, there are very few direct confirmations I have found of that, but it states on hack7mc:

"Beyond enabling playback through your Windows Media Center Extenders, the picture quality of the Windows Media Foundation solution is incredible and contains complete DVXA hardware acceleration support"

[Rob_Quads]

Yup thats the puppy. They only released a 64-bit version fairly recently but it works like a charm.

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by Rob_Quads

Yup thats the puppy. They only released a 64-bit version fairly recently but it works like a charm.

Just had a look on the divx site, it states:

"Watch 1080p HD video on an Atom powered netbook? Oh yeah. Watch DivX Plus HD video using the built-in hardware acceleration capability of any Windows 7 computer. You've never seen such amazing video quality on such a low-powered computer."

strictly speaking any Windows 7 computer doesn't necessarily have built in hardware acceleration capability, it depends on the gfx chip, I'm still not 100% certain it is not just using a DivX mkv splitter combined with the Microsoft Media Foundation codec, can anyone confirm either way?

answering my own question

post from divxlabs forums:

"Lastly, this tech preview enables DXVA (hardware accelleration) via MS Media Foundation, so that means you can have an old or low end CPU (e.g. Atom) because the decoding will take place on the GPU vs. the CPU (for supported cards). The DivX Codec is not used in this case; in fact, our tech preview doesn't even include our codec, even though you can optionally install DivX 7 first. "

so it looks like when DXVA is used, the actual DivX decoder is not used and it is the MS codec doing the work.

[Oraclegod]

There's a few choices out there to improve Acer Revo 1080p *.mkv playback.
Did some searching...

What do the experts think of this guide using 'Media Player Classic'...?

Accelerate x.264 1080p movies over the GPU Guide

[arfster]

Originally Posted by jensrow

so it looks like when DXVA is used, the actual DivX decoder is not used and it is the MS codec doing the work.

That's exactly right. The divx tech preview is just a splitter, that then feeds win7's h264 decoder, through media foundation, and thus you get hardware acceleration.

You can also get acceleration by using Haali splitter, or MPC-HC with its internal mkv splitter. The only real difference is this uses DirectX rather than Media Foundation.

[Oraclegod]

Originally Posted by arfster

That's exactly right. The divx tech preview is just a splitter, that then feeds win7's h264 decoder, through media foundation, and thus you get hardware acceleration.

You can also get acceleration by using Haali splitter, or MPC-HC with its internal mkv splitter. The only real difference is this uses DirectX rather than Media Foundation.

Hi, which 'route' to playback should give best picture quality DirectX or Media Foundation..mainly interested in minimising dropped frames..

[Oraclegod]

Downloaded Media Player Classic, and without changing any settings, this 1080p mkv file now plays!

Bit of a jittery picture, but watchable.

Will try some more tweaks.

[jensrow]

Originally Posted by Oraclegod

Downloaded Media Player Classic, and without changing any settings, this 1080p mkv file now plays!

Bit of a jittery picture, but watchable.

Will try some more tweaks.

Did you download media player classic or media player classic home cinema as only MPC-HC has an inbuilt decoder that uses GPU acceleration.

[oxfordyankee]

Hi

I've just setup my new Revo R3610. The reviews I have read describe the machine as "whisper quiet" but I have to say I am very disappointed. Its as loud as my xbox 360!

As I sit here this morning its bloody freezing in my study yet the machine is running loud with cpu temp of 63 and sys temp of 53. Fan is at over 3000. Its just in the BIOS at the mo, not playing anything.

Anyone have any ideas? That sound normal to you? Am I being over picky?

I have moved from a mac mini to this (using xbmc live as its simpler for the kids and wife) and I am regretting the decision mightily. The mac was silent!

Cheers

[lowercase]

Does the Revo 3610 come with a HDMI cable? Also i've seen a few unboxing videos that show an included webcam on a stand.

Also my parents have a 42" Samsung plasma with a resolution of 1024 x 768, via HDMI, would the revo be able to display correctly on the TV?

[oxfordyankee]

Mine did not.

Originally Posted by lowercase

Does the Revo 3610 come with a HDMI cable? Also i've seen a few unboxing videos that show an included webcam on a stand.

Also my parents have a 42" Samsung plasma with a resolution of 1024 x 768, via HDMI, would the revo be able to display correctly on the TV?