ASRock ION 3D - A Next Generation ION HTPC
by Cameron Butterfield on January 14, 2011 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- ION
- ASRock
- Media Streamer
- HTPC
Picture Quality: HQV Testing
HTPC enthusiasts are often concerned about the quality of pictures output by the system. While this is a very subjective metric, we have decided to take as much of an objective approach as possible. Starting with the Core 100 review, we have been using the HQV 2.0 benchmark for this purpose. The HQV 2.0 test suite consists of 39 different streams divided into four different classes. The playback device is assigned scores for each, depending on how well it plays the stream. Each test was repeated multiple times to ensure that the correct score was assigned. The scoring details are available in the testing guide [PDF]. In the table below, we indicate the maximum score possible for each test and how many points the ASRock ION 3D was able to get.
| ASRock ION 3D : HQV 2.0 Benchmark | ||||
| Test Class | Chapter | Tests | Max. Score | ASRock ION 3D |
| Video Conversion | Video Resolution | Dial | 5 | 5 |
| Dial with Static Pattern | 5 | 5 | ||
| Gray Bars | 5 | 5 | ||
| Violin | 5 | 3 | ||
| Film Resolution | Stadium 2:2 | 5 | 0 | |
| Stadium 3:2 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Overlay On Film | Horizontal Text Scroll | 5 | 5 | |
| Vertical Text Scroll | 5 | 5 | ||
| Cadence Response Time | Transition to 3:2 Lock | 5 | 5 | |
| Transition to 2:2 Lock | 5 | 0 | ||
| Multi-Cadence | 2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 0 | |
| 2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video | 5 | 0 | ||
| 3:2:3:2:2 24 FPS Vari-Speed | 5 | 0 | ||
| 5:5 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | ||
| 6:4 12 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | ||
| 8:7 8 FPS Animation | 5 | 0 | ||
| Color Upsampling Errors | Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP) | 5 | 5 | |
| Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE) | 5 | 5 | ||
| Noise and Artifact Reduction | Random Noise | SailBoat | 5 | 5 |
| Flower | 5 | 5 | ||
| Sunrise | 5 | 5 | ||
| Harbour Night | 5 | 5 | ||
| Compression Artifacts | Scrolling Text | 5 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | ||
| Upscaled Compression Artifacts | Text Pattern | 5 | 3 | |
| Roller Coaster | 5 | 3 | ||
| Ferris Wheel | 5 | 3 | ||
| Bridge Traffic | 5 | 3 | ||
| Image Scaling and Enhancements | Scaling and Filtering | Luminance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 |
| Chrominance Frequency Bands | 5 | 5 | ||
| Vanishing Text | 5 | 5 | ||
| Resolution Enhancement | Brook, Mountain, Flower, Hair, Wood | 15 | 15 | |
| Video Conversion | Contrast Enhancement | Theme Park | 5 | 5 |
| Driftwood | 5 | 5 | ||
| Beach at Dusk | 5 | 5 | ||
| White and Black Cats | 5 | 5 | ||
| Skin Tone Correction | Skin Tones | 10 | 7 | |
| Total Score | 210 | 149 | ||
As stated before, video quality benchmarks are very subjective; however, it appears that the GT218 GPU in this system is performing very close to the GT 425M found in the Vision 3D system. This is not so surprising as both are NVIDIA PureVideo capable and the drivers used on both are very close in age to each other. There are a few items of note.
The NVIDIA noise reduction algorithm did reduce noise and artifacts, and the difference was apparent when enabled vs. disabled. In my observations, during still scenes the noise reduction worked very well; however, when moving objects were on the screen sometimes the noise filter had a difficult time and the noise did leak out a little. The drivers do not have a specific skin tone correction mode that is user configurable in the NVIDIA Control Panel, but there are color enhancement toggles that did adjust color and tones, but it was not enough to give it a full score with regard to skin tone correction.
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jabber - Friday, January 14, 2011 - link
Pretty much, just a refresh really.icrf - Friday, January 14, 2011 - link
It seems one of the most recommended boxes from the XBMC community is from the Acer Aspire Revo family. It sounds like $350 gets you something similar, the biggest loss is BD, but it is over $100 cheaper.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Any plans on one of these finding their way into your testing labs?
vol7ron - Friday, January 14, 2011 - link
It says it has Component A/V, but I don't see any; but I do see DVI.About the USB3 Comment:
They probably included it for marketing, even knowing it isn't full USB3. The more people you can mislead, the better your sales.
krumme - Friday, January 14, 2011 - link
"And indeed, the Brazos platform decimates Atom in single-threaded apps, still manages to beat it decisively in more parallelized programs, and embarrasses it in anything having to do with graphics"All for less money. How obvious can it be.
As stated before go to:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asrock-e350m1-...
What was this review about anyway?
silverblue - Friday, January 14, 2011 - link
Until Cedar Trail, Atom isn't a viable platform. I'm interested in seeing how Cedar Trail performs, though, especially if it performs as rumoured.pirspilane - Friday, January 14, 2011 - link
I have a Core 100HT, and it has proved problematic. When I turn off the TV, the HDMI audio stops and a reboot is required to bring it back. Playing a Sony PS3 through the same setup, I don't have this problem.I don't want to run my 600w plasma just to listen to iTunes. It defeats the purpose of having a low power HTPC.
The problem I suspect is with the HDCP handshake. While the PS3 recovers its sound after the TV is switched off, the ASRock's Intel chipset/drivers can't.
A workaround is using the Toslink output. But even then, the ASRock sometimes hangs when the TV is switched on again. Today, I had to power it down with the front panel button. But when I restarted it, the Bluetooth transceiver didn't come on and I had to get a USB keyboard to get the thing working again. So it took me about 15 minutes to get a youtube video to play.
thewhat - Saturday, January 15, 2011 - link
"USB 3.0 devices may not be needed by the target users of this device"Huh?
I was under the impression that you can copy files to/from this device. How is a fast transfer speed not needed?
I'm personally hesitant to get anything that stores data without USB 3 nowadays.
Spacecomber - Saturday, January 15, 2011 - link
I skimmed through this article, but I didn't really see what I was looking for, which is some idea of how well this would work for handling live streams of video of off the internet. Just playing around with different computer set ups that I have in the house, I've been surprised at how much processing power this kind of content seems to use. For example, I'd have thought that Pentium 4 @ 3.4 GHz or an Athlon XP at 2.3 GHz would do a better job. I'm getting the impression that a dual core is needed for these online flash video streams.Any thoughts on what the minimum amount of processing power is that would be needed for this kind of work (leaving aside GPU acceleration, since I find that rather iffy and perhaps best not counted on at this point)?
Jello1o - Sunday, January 16, 2011 - link
I have an older Atom dual-core (the 510) server running and while it is capable of playing back standard-def flash, there will be a bit of choppiness in the video. Without GPU acceleration I would not recommend any Atoms for flash playback at the moment. Even my Core 2 Duo(technically Pentium) E5200 desktop is usually at %60 with flash video and sometimes up to %80 with the high quality flash video.I'm using my Atom D510M0 based system as a web/email and DLNA server. It seems to be adequate for those uses.
schlos - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link
hi,i just wanted to check and confirm that, you can still send TrueHD and other DTS variations via the SPDIF optical out, and an AV receiver can decode it instead, correct?