NVIDIA Ion Blu-ray Investigation: Not a problem?

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• crimson117 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  In a realistic usage scenario, atom PC's are in netbooks, and they never have internal optical drives.
  
  So testing blu-ray on a netbook requires the use of an external optical drive. Unless a netbook comes with an eSATA port, you're stuck with USB 2.0.

• mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  If a netbook has all the same attributes of other netbooks but a 12" screen and enough room for an optical drive, is it still a netbook? It will be good to know if Atom can handle Blu-Ray, even if it seems unlikely that a system with a low-cost Atom would have a high-cost Blu-Ray drive.
  
  Also remember, many might want to stream video instead of directly reading off a disc. I don't carry discs around when there's a lan or sufficient internal HDD storage for a rip, and more and more people are feeling the same way.

• overzealot - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  Network activity also has a CPU overhead, it would be a neat addition to the article to test that.

• VaultDweller - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  The article wasn't about netbooks, though, it was about possible HTPC applications for the Ion platform, which is what NVIDIA has been hyping.
  
  BluRay on netbooks is already pointless, slow processor or not. 1080p video on a 7-10" low resolution screen? Why would you?

• RubberJohnny - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  "BluRay on netbooks is already pointless, slow processor or not. 1080p video on a 7-10" low resolution screen? Why would you?"
  
  So you can take it to a friends/family members house and show them how good their large 1080p screen can look with the right source material? Netbooks do have a video out feature...

• nycromes - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  Please see the pictures here http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=4813">http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=4813
  
  Regardless of whether this is about netbooks or the ion, there is no built in drive. To use a Blue-ray drive with the Ion platform, you would have to use USB or an e-sata drive. Trying to find a pre-built Blue-ray drive with an e-sata interface is quite difficult at best. The test was done with currently available hardware and what at least 90% of the people using this device for Blue-ray playback would probably use to play their movies.

• someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  The only way pulling the article would be justified if Ion can't handle Blu-Ray via USB-2 is if all USB-2 Blu-Ray players were to ship to big stickers on the front that say "not for use with the Atom processor", and even then it would be worthwhile to put up an article showing why those stickers exist.

• aguilpa1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  SSD are the way of the future but give me a 500GB SSD thats only at around a $50 premium to an equal size HD, than I'll buy one and herald the age of SSD, until then..., an interesting expensive toy.

• Rob94hawk - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link

  Yes! SSD's are much more exciting! HDD's are slowly going the way of AGP. The only thing HDD's have going for them is that they are cheaper per Gigabyte. SSD's already destroy HDD's in speed, now I'm waiting for SSD's to go down in price and increased capacity.

• Martimus - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link

  They have been saying that for at least 15 years, and probably longer than that. It only now looks like it may actually happen. Even so, rotating media could still come up with a few tricks up its sleeve, just like it has done for years now. Either way, I am happy that the biggest bottleneck in the system is really getting much better.