Iszimation - ViewSonic VOT132 and XBMC Review

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Technical Reviews

I recently purchased the ViewSonic VOT132 Nettop PC after hunting around for a low power consumption PC that would be capable as a multi-tasking and media center-centric device which would easily integrate into a somewhat older entertainment setup such as that which occupies my folks current living room entertainment system. My requirements were specifically oriented toward something that would be small, use little power, require little mantenance, and still able to handle High Definition content pulled from various sources, to include a wide array of digital formats such as MKV. My folks have a number of DVDs that they wish to copy onto a home server where the rest of my content resides so they can get rid of the DVDs but still enjor them from time to time and know that they aren't likely to be destyoed over time due to the lack of resilliency of the optical disk.

The VOT132 fit the bill, and then some, so it seemed. For starters, it is a very stylish piece. A black piano finish, small form factor, and all the right inputs and outputs, to include one of my favorite, TOSLink. This one threw me for a loop at first, as its a non-standard cable, but apparently you can purchase a 3.5 mm TOSLink optical cable that will attach to a standard TOSLink (ADAT for audiophiles) which can be found on many modern receivers. Yes, HDMI is present too, and it will carry sound as well.

But when my purchase arrived, I plugged it in and fired it up I found that it would not play HD MKV files out of the box. In fact I thought I had been deceived, even after reading several reviews. one of which suggested I install a Windows 7 MKV support driver, playback was seriously fragmented. But all was not lost. I had recalled readin on the XBMC site, on the home page was a posting about an upcoming release of XBMC that would support a new technology on Windows 7 that would offload the video from the CPU to the graphics controller. Well, this technology, at the time of this writing, was not yet in a final release of XBMC, but it had been coded into a nightly build. So what the heck, I am a "brave user", lets try out a nightly build. So I downloaded xbmc-r27758-trunk.exe. Within the system setup, Video Settings - Playback, there is some new functionality that allows the user to select how video is decoded. I selected from the Render Method, the option called DXVA. Once I did this, I went back to play 9 (2009) and the playback was crystal smooth. There was none of the stutter, audio mismatch that I had formerly experienced. I was now very happy again.

For the record, I am very much an XBMC advocate. With the upcoming release, and planned new features, such as PVR inegration with TV servers such as Media Portal TV Server, I believe we will finally have the gestalt entertainment experience XBMC has set out to achieve.

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