Anyone using one of those Atom PCs as a media player?

[NeilF]

What's your experience of it like?

A friend of mine is looking at using one with XBMC, but I remember hearing concerns if the processor was fast enough to handle some media formats/types?

The alternative of course is a dedicated media player at a fraction of the cost.

 

[NeilF]

I have one I bought from Overclockers - "Verso Ivan" Intel Atom N330 1.60GHz ION Mini-ITX DDR2 System.
They are O.K and will play all media types O.K upto and including 1080P Blu-Ray.
However if there are too many programs running in the background it will slow down from time to time and I have 4gb of memory in there.
I very rarely use it and am thinking of selling at some point
Would proberbly go with a dedicated media player with hindsight or an Xbox 360 as a media extender..

Noise levels?

 

[NeilF]

Fairly Quiet, certanly not noticeable above the volume of a TV.

That's what they said about the XTreamer... And that was diabolical until they passively cooled it!

 

[NeilF]

I use an ASrock Ion 330 everyday for watching tv. It is great, no problems at all. The only thing you can't do is play games.

And that can play bluray media, mkvs etc etc?