Intel is moving hard into small, low power devices and that was evident in what they were showing at CES this year. We started out with tablets, but the really interesting stuff started when the new Broadwell NUC came out. First we saw a demo of it running an incredibly slick picture/video manager that used to require a quad-SLI system […]
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If you use Intel HDMI audio with the Windows 8.x “Metro” Netflix app you know that Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) output has been broken for, um, forever. Thankfully, they just released an updated audio driver that solves the issue! Huzzah! Unfortunately at the moment it looks like they’ve only updated it in the Ivy Bridge GPU driver package for the […]
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I don’t usually post about BIOS updates, but it looks like there was a recent update for the D54250WYB, D54250WYK, D34010WYB, & D34010WYK NUC that fixes an issue with IR wake from standby when using OpenELEC. Update
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A small home theater PC (HTPC) driven by an Intel Atom is not a new idea. Both NVIDIA’s ION and Broadcom’s Crystal HD offered solutions that coupled the chip’s TDP with specialized hardware that overcame its shortcomings–one with a complete GPU, the other providing just hardware accelerated video decoding. Neither of these products truly delivered on the concept of a […]
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For home theater PC (HTPC) “small” is another word for “compromise”. Thankfully, the amount required by our miniscule content consumption devices has decreased exponentially over the last few years. There is still a price demanded however, tiny systems require slower mobile integrated processor graphics (IPG) to drive them. We have to choose between size and performance; it is simply not […]
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I can’t claim to be the first to notice when HEVC decoding popped up in a recent Intel GPU driver update for Haswell (HSW) systems, and I was prepared to write it off as a mistake until an off-hand remark about the feature coming in a future driver update came up in conversation with a source well positioned to know. […]
Read moreI was really excited when I found out Intel had placed the HDMI-CEC enabling Custom Solutions Header (CSH) on the D54250WYK NUC. It was exactly the kind of feature that belongs on this near-perfect mini-HTPC. Unfortunately, as we can see in the gallery, something isn’t right with its ability to maintain 3.3V under load. What this means in practice […]
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When I talked with Intel about the DN2820FYKH Baytrail based NUC at CES, I wasn’t shocked by the “No” when I asked if it supported Intel QuickSync (hardware accelerated decode and encode). What is surprising as I looked more closely at the Intel Celeron N2820 is that it appears to not support Intel Clear Video HD (hardware accelerated decode) either. […]
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When Intel brought out their Haswell Next Unit of Computing (NUC), inclusion of features like SATA made it clear that they had bigger things in store for the little system. They were honest that some of this promise will require 3rd party case OEMs to fully realize, but Intel quickly announced that they would be creating their own chassis with […]
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One of the frustrating things about many desktop motherboards is that they don’t come with a built in TPM module. I can understand why, as this is more useful for enterprise and mobile installations. Many do come with the necessary header, like the Intel DH87RL, but I haven’t been able to find a module to plug into it. Until now… […]
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