daniel Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 Hi, At the moment I am trying to help my family setup the home network but I am not sure which is the best way to go. We are looking for a computer to connect to a 55" inch LCD tv, normally we use this to watch movies, youtube, internet TV streams, listen to music. Currently we have a Dell Zino HD connected to the TV, but the computer feels sluggish when playing high definition movie files. So we are looking for an upgrade in this area. We have a budget of around 1000, and we are looking for a smaller form factor that can handle large movie files and can interact with the current network with out problems. - Mac Mini - Alienware X51 - build something Setup (whole network) - 1 Windows PC - 2 Mac laptops - 2 Iphones - 1 IPad - 1 Apple TV - 1 HP media server so any help and recommendations are greatly appreciated, Thanks, Daniel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 (edited) What are the specs for the Zino? Also, when playing HD movies and experiencing sluggishness, are you watching streaming HD? Edited November 5, 2012 by El_Capitan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EuroFight Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 (edited) I wouldn't recommend an Alienware - they are so overpriced you could generally build an equivalent system yourself for less than 3/4 of the cost Edited November 5, 2012 by EuroFight Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_bowtie Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 As El_Capitan said how are you handling the media... is it from the web? Another PC? or how? USB Thumb Drive? It makes a difference.... If you are pulling media over your network from another PC I'd say your network is lagging.... but then again it all depends where the media is coming from Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 You can build a small HD streaming box for around $500 or less with ease. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 When I was diagnosing the sluggishness I tried to remove all other factors, and tried reading the movie file directly from the local hard drive and it still had issues (it was an .mkv file around 9 gb) The specs of the current computer are the following AMD Athlon Neo X2 6850e dual-core processor 1.8GHz 4GB DDR2 system memory ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics With 512MB graphics memory 1TB 7200rpm hard drive Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 What media player are you using? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 What media player are you using? VLC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 Have you tried enabling hardware accelerated decoding? It can do wonders on less-powerful hardware. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel Posted November 5, 2012 Posted November 5, 2012 Have you tried enabling hardware accelerated decoding? It can do wonders on less-powerful hardware. I will try that, and comment on results Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
d6bmg Posted November 6, 2012 Posted November 6, 2012 (edited) Don't you guys think that athlonn neo x2 is a bit slow for HD decoding? Edited November 6, 2012 by d6bmg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted November 6, 2012 Posted November 6, 2012 Don't you guys think that athlonn neo x2 is a bit slow for HD decoding? The GPU can do that work. If what he has can't even a VERY cheap card can. I ran full HD on a GeForce 210 using hardware accelerated decoding. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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