ZOTAC ZBOX Blu-ray HD-ID33/ID34 Video Podcast

[Zareste]

guess who's flagged

[mahchymk93]

Vizusuauzuzuzlaizations.

[SquirlKiller]

each core is 1.8 ghz?

[ZOTACglobal]

@SquirlKiller Yes

[111olbap]

@SquirlKiller (head bang) As opposed to what, chief? Jebus on a cracker...

[Kha1eed]

I really want one ! But i dont know where to buy it in Europe .

If you have a sample to sell ,contact me ;)

[jz120376]

OK after owning this product now for a couple of weeks and working out most of the bugs with XBMC I think this might be the best component in my home theater setup. Have not had a probelm with it yet. It runs XBMC perfectly. I did a reinstall of XBMC with XBMC Freak Live CD version and most (not everything) works fine. I STILL think the advertising is misleading though being that XBMC doesnt support BluRay and the machine is advertised as the perfect match for XBMC .

[jz120376]

5.1 wav files just output white noise and 5.1 flac files get downmixed to stereo. This is a huge disappointment.

I called Zotacs customer service line and tried to resolve the HDMI audio and Blu Ray playback problems but the reps that I spoke to seemed

to know less than I did and were no help whatsoever.

For $500, and for a machine that is ADVERTISED as "the perfect match for XBMC Media Centre" I would expect these basic operations to work out of the box.

[ZOTACglobal]

@jz120376 Blu-ray playback was never supported with XBMC-Live or Linux. Windows is the only OS that supports Blu-ray playback, which is why we used a tweaked XBMC Windows (Dharma) build to in the video.

We are still working with the XBMC team to have HDMI audio output working out of the box. However, the Dharma build is still in beta2. We hope to have it working out of box with the final release of Dharma.

[ZOTACglobal]

@jz120376 As for your 5.1 FLAC files getting downmixed to stereo, that is an XBMC problem, not ours. It worked fine with your XBOX because the XBOX had a built-in hardware Dolby Digital encoder in the chipset that took all audio and encoded it into Dolby Digital AC-3.

XBMC for x86 does not have that capability. There are software AC3 converters, but XBMC does not incorporate them. Some sound cards feature Dolby Digital Live technology, which only works in Windows, and not available on our ZBOX

[ZOTACglobal]

@jz120376 Please also check the XBMC forums for support on their software. We only manufacture the hardware. They will be more helpful with your problems with their software.

[jz120376]

And this brings me to the next problem....

Like I said, I installed XBMC Live on the 250 GB hard drive. XBMC DOES NOT support Blu Ray! Unless you install Windows AND Cyberlink Power DVD

(which comes with the system), you WILL NOT be able to watch Blu Ray discs.

Last problem. I have many 5.1 audio albums in FLAC and WAv format which I had NO PROBLEM playing on XBOX with XBMC in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. These files WILL NOT play on the ID34.

[jz120376]

There is a fix. I did hours of searching and unless you are a computer whiz dont even bother. I was reading the instructions and I might as

well have been reading another language because I have NO IDEA what I was looking at. This isnt a very big deal though. The only reason I would want HDMI

audio is to be able to listen to the HD audio tracks (Dolby True HD and DTS-MA on Blu Ray discs) which this machine doesnt even SUPPORT. Why add a Blu Ray

drive to a machine that CANNOT output HD audio?

[ZOTACglobal]

@jz120376 The ZBOX Blu-ray can output LPCM audio, when decoded by a software player and still considered high-definition loss-less audio.

[jz120376]

I just got this the other day (ID34 with Blu Ray drive). First thing I did was install XBMC Live onto the 250 GB hard drive. Everything went smoothly.

Navigating the menu is very fast. MKV and all other video files play perfectly. However, there are 3 MAJOR problems with this machine.

1- There is NO HDMI audio with XBMC Live. I had to use the optical out jack for audio. Unless you install windows, you WILL NOT have HDMI audio out of

the box.

[JayJapanB]

Good work ZOTAC! Since it is nice and cheap it seems well worth it. It's important that you removed it from the price range of blu-ray equiped laptops

[Wurzelzwerg1212]

Is it powerd by ION Gen1 or ION2?

[MrMatatron]

Yo dawg, i herd you like Zotac Video Podcast, so at 5.25 we put a Zotac Video Podcast in your Zotac Video Podcast, so you can watch while u watch.

[JayJapanB]

price?

[rushhug]

519 on newegg.com

[growingup2204]

Very cool product, I think I want it.

[dragolith13]

5400 RPM what the hell? I mean why would any smart company use a 5400 RPM HD those are so obsolete!!

[smittty1911]

@dragolith13 thats wut the esata is for i guess

[virusiidx]

@dragolith13 They are not obsolete. It's a 2.5" notebook drive, which as of today are still pretty common at 5400rpm within notebooks, net tops and other low power devices. This is not a high-performance device that really needs 7200rpm+.

[JASON9948]

Will there be a SKU that will have ddr3 Ram slots?

[ZOTACglobal]

@JASON9948 We do not have any plans for DDR3 at the moment. There is little performance difference between DDR2 and DDR3 with the Intel Atom.

[Harlekin2101]

Is this aluminium on the top? Thanks for the video!

[ZOTACglobal]

@Harlekin2101 Yes. The silver parts are aluminum. The black part where the O LED is is made of acrylic.