[cflynt]

I am waiting for one to come in to play with, but it has USB Ports, so even if it doesn't include an IR sensor, any USB IR sensor should work just fine. I don't see any reason it won't run OpenElec, it is an x86 based system. As far as what chip is in there for the graphics, I would totally guess Intel HD 4000. But I don't know for sure.

As far as one of the other NUC options, I feel they all should perform pretty much the same, some of the i3 and i5 NUC's obviously doing more. But by the time you add RAM and Hard Drive, I don't see how you can beat the price. Plus Keyboard/Remote!

[JesusOnEez]

I have a USB IR Sensor hooked up via USB. The rather bog standard remote detects as a HID wireless keyboard/mouse and 90% functions work out of the box with XBMC. So all the navigation options work, plus it has a mouse controller and right/left click buttons. Play/Stop/Pause/FF/RW all work a treat. There are a couple of other buttons that I keep thinking I should map (right click context menu for example) but I tend to use the mouse functions of the remote instead so it's not a priority.

I think the one I have has Intel HD 3000 but I wouldn't swear to it. I have a first generation device.

[READER84]

Hi people, ive just bought the Lenovo Q190 as a fist HTPC, i bought the Celeron 1017U version with FreeDos. Ive installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and am now in the process of finding and installing drivers. Ive searched the internet to find the right Intel HD driver for my system and installed it but just doesn't right, the image quality is just not HD! Does anyone know which driver i need? Thanks

Dean

[JesusOnEez]

Frankly, it can be a bit confusing as to which graphics driver you need. The one on the Lenovo web site looks wildly out of date, and the generic Intel ones (whilst up-to-date) don't really help with determining which one you need for your particular model of Q190 (as there are multiple models with multiple chipsets). As such, try this;

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect?iid=dc_iduu

Intel's 'detect-the-drivers-you-need' tool. Hopefully that'll do the hard work for you.

Also, when you say it doesn't look HD quality, what exactly do you mean? HD is, essentially, just a pixel resolution...

[READER84]

Picture and video quality is poor. I tried an intel driver analyzer yesterday and said it was upto date, but didnt exactly say it was the right one

[JesusOnEez]

Hmmm...as far as I can tell, the below one is the latest one for that Celeron, which is Ivy Bridge architecture;

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_...ldID=23405

Whether that fixes your problem or not is another questions. Might need some more details other than 'picture quality is poor' as it may even be a TV setting. Setting to 'Game' or 'PC' mode or something can help with blur, turn sharpening off and so on...

[JesusOnEez]

Lenovo should be a good option and the most important thing in buying a laptop is the specs and features offered, as more and more our needs in a laptop of course the features of the laptop should be sufficient.

You know the Q190 isn't a laptop, right?

[READER84]

The picture is just grainy, like watching standard definition tv programmes even with hi res video files.

[timantheos]

Good afternoon. I have a question about a home setup I just put in place. I'm running the following:

1. Lenovo Q190 running Windows 8.1 / XBMC Frodo connected to a ASUS RT-AC68U router by wired Gigabit Ethernet. Very little software installed...A/V and a couple media related apps like VLC.
2. Synology 4-disk NAS (DS4xxx series that's a couple years old). The NAS is set up in RAID 5 with 4 disks and is also connected by Ethernet cable to the ASUS router.

I'm storing my media on the NAS and have a share mapped to the appropriate folders to the Q190. I have a directory set up for TV and another for movies. So far everything looks and sounds great if it's 720p. A couple things which are 1080p are ok, but only with files around 3-4 GB in size, max.

I have quite a bit of ripped/compressed 1080p blu-rays which are in the 7-10 GB size and they heavily freeze/stutter if I try to play them back. I haven't yet copied them locally to the Q190 to try that, but even if it does work it won't be a workable solution for me. Should the Q190 be capable of handling this scenario and/or is it possibly a network bottleneck? I've read a few threads and played with some XBMC settings, but so far with no luck.

Just looking for thoughts or suggestions about how to optimize this.

Thanks.

[milli]

Good afternoon. I have a question about a home setup I just put in place. I'm running the following:

1. Lenovo Q190 running Windows 8.1 / XBMC Frodo connected to a ASUS RT-AC68U router by wired Gigabit Ethernet. Very little software installed...A/V and a couple media related apps like VLC.
2. Synology 4-disk NAS (DS4xxx series that's a couple years old). The NAS is set up in RAID 5 with 4 disks and is also connected by Ethernet cable to the ASUS router.

I'm storing my media on the NAS and have a share mapped to the appropriate folders to the Q190. I have a directory set up for TV and another for movies. So far everything looks and sounds great if it's 720p. A couple things which are 1080p are ok, but only with files around 3-4 GB in size, max.

I have quite a bit of ripped/compressed 1080p blu-rays which are in the 7-10 GB size and they heavily freeze/stutter if I try to play them back. I haven't yet copied them locally to the Q190 to try that, but even if it does work it won't be a workable solution for me. Should the Q190 be capable of handling this scenario and/or is it possibly a network bottleneck? I've read a few threads and played with some XBMC settings, but so far with no luck.

Just looking for thoughts or suggestions about how to optimize this.

Thanks.

I assume you are using wi-fi from q190 to your NAS which could be causing the issue. You will have to copy it locally to eliminate network related issues first and then look for other alternatives.

[timantheos]

Good afternoon. I have a question about a home setup I just put in place. I'm running the following:

1. Lenovo Q190 running Windows 8.1 / XBMC Frodo connected to a ASUS RT-AC68U router by wired Gigabit Ethernet. Very little software installed...A/V and a couple media related apps like VLC.
2. Synology 4-disk NAS (DS4xxx series that's a couple years old). The NAS is set up in RAID 5 with 4 disks and is also connected by Ethernet cable to the ASUS router.

I'm storing my media on the NAS and have a share mapped to the appropriate folders to the Q190. I have a directory set up for TV and another for movies. So far everything looks and sounds great if it's 720p. A couple things which are 1080p are ok, but only with files around 3-4 GB in size, max.

I have quite a bit of ripped/compressed 1080p blu-rays which are in the 7-10 GB size and they heavily freeze/stutter if I try to play them back. I haven't yet copied them locally to the Q190 to try that, but even if it does work it won't be a workable solution for me. Should the Q190 be capable of handling this scenario and/or is it possibly a network bottleneck? I've read a few threads and played with some XBMC settings, but so far with no luck.

Just looking for thoughts or suggestions about how to optimize this.

Thanks.

I assume you are using wi-fi from q190 to your NAS which could be causing the issue. You will have to copy it locally to eliminate network related issues first and then look for other alternatives.

No. As noted in my post all devices are connected by wired Ethernet to Gig ports in the ASUS router. No wi-fi is inolved in this set up.

[milli]

Good afternoon. I have a question about a home setup I just put in place. I'm running the following:

1. Lenovo Q190 running Windows 8.1 / XBMC Frodo connected to a ASUS RT-AC68U router by wired Gigabit Ethernet. Very little software installed...A/V and a couple media related apps like VLC.
2. Synology 4-disk NAS (DS4xxx series that's a couple years old). The NAS is set up in RAID 5 with 4 disks and is also connected by Ethernet cable to the ASUS router.

I'm storing my media on the NAS and have a share mapped to the appropriate folders to the Q190. I have a directory set up for TV and another for movies. So far everything looks and sounds great if it's 720p. A couple things which are 1080p are ok, but only with files around 3-4 GB in size, max.

I have quite a bit of ripped/compressed 1080p blu-rays which are in the 7-10 GB size and they heavily freeze/stutter if I try to play them back. I haven't yet copied them locally to the Q190 to try that, but even if it does work it won't be a workable solution for me. Should the Q190 be capable of handling this scenario and/or is it possibly a network bottleneck? I've read a few threads and played with some XBMC settings, but so far with no luck.

Just looking for thoughts or suggestions about how to optimize this.

Thanks.

I assume you are using wi-fi from q190 to your NAS which could be causing the issue. You will have to copy it locally to eliminate network related issues first and then look for other alternatives.

No. As noted in my post all devices are connected by wired Ethernet to Gig ports in the ASUS router. No wi-fi is inolved in this set up.

My bad...I missed that part. Have you checked if hardware acceleration(dxva2) is turned on? Have you tried playing them in vlc?

[JesusOnEez]

Agree. I have pretty much the same set-up (albeit a DS2xxx JBOD setup with only a 10/100 switch). Everything up to 720p plays fine, but I have to switch on DXVA2 for smooth playback of 1080p files of around 7 to 11+ GB.

The only other difference I can see is that I don't have drives mapped on the Q190, I use SMB shares from XBMC to talk to the NAS. Whether this makes a difference or not is another question. Finally, a simple check. Can you swap the network cable from the Q190 to the router to check it's not a faulty cable?

[husky55]

@timantheos, I also have a similar setup. The Q190 has no trouble playing files greater than 4 gb, i.e. BD rip up to 23-25 GB. I have the Asus RT-N66U which is N only. However I keep hearing that the Asus RT-AC68U with dual CPU is much faster, with the wired gigabit then it is almost an ideal setup. Your problem could be the the file system on your NAS. I am using Unraid, a version of Linux. If you want a better HTPC then may be a NUC is a possibility. I just bought a NUC D34010WYK for a second setup.

[polly]

Can someone tell me what are the video audio configuration of this q190 windows 8.1 model? I read over this post but skipping through pages. Can't find it. I know it was somewhere here a screenshot showing best setup for audio/video to configure in xbmc using a hdmi cable.

Thanks