2014-02-06, 04:38
Running openelec gotham nightly, 4gb ram and 120gb ssd with this new baytrail nuc DN2820FYKH.
In terms of the menus, they are relatively snappy when scrolling through them. Art loads instantly and certainly doesn't trickle in as if its struggling. It certainly outperforms the old XIOS box i was using. Using the old Frodo aeon nox skin is also a pleasant experience. I don't notice any huge performance loss when scrolling through my library.
It's worth mentioning that aeon nox is not optimised for gotham, and you will certainly encounter some weird glitches. This is no way the fault of the NUC, its a skin issue. These problems include: red curtains appearing randomly instead of the movie art (occasionally). Losing your position in your library if you exit and then re-enter the library, or view other libraries. Menu headings appearing in the middle of text on the settings page. Downloading subtitles using any subtitle addon will require some XML tweaking. And a few other minor issues.
Video playback on this NUC has been hit and miss. It plays back my 720p content fine. 1080p is a different story. Most of my 1080p content plays back with dropped frames in high action scenes. Some of my high bitrate 1080p content [with HD audio] plays back even choppier with dropped frames during the whole playback, while others just during high action scenes. This could just be my isolated issue, so i would love to hear other peoples experiences with high bitrate content on this NUC. I also have the new Haswell i3 NUC and have none of these issues with the same files.
The only other problem i have found is the NUC refuses to enter suspend/sleep mode without sometimes crashing. When i select suspend from the XBMC menu, theres a 50% chance the NUC will 'lock up' and go to a black screen in a 'frozen' state with the fans still spinning, requiring a hard reboot by holding the power button. Then there is a 50% chance the NUC will properly suspend. If it properly suspends, it can then be woken up by pressing the power button on my MCE remote which is a good sign. I have a similar problem with my i3 NUC (except with that NUC the problem is a little different, instead of crashing on suspend, it will always wake up from suspend after 2 seconds of entering the suspended state)
Anyway, these are my experiences with this NUC. I'm interested in hearing how this NUC performs for other people.
Update: To prove to myself the problem is the NUC and not some of my specific 1080p encodes, i used the jellyfish bitrate tests over USB 3.0 and a gigabit LAN and here are my findings:
15Mbps - plays fine without any dropped frames
20Mbps - hiccups during playback with dropped frames.
25Mbps and above - is completely unwatchable with frames dropping almost every second
These are disappointing results to say the least. Bearing in mind these files do not have any audio overhead, it's no wonder the NUC struggles with my high bitrate1080p rips and bluray remuxes. I find it strange that the guys over at legitreviews claimed that the NUC played back 20mbit DTS-HD rips without any issues. Hopefully we can get a few NUC owners here to do their own tests, especially with these jellyfish test files, and see whether our results are consistent.
http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-nuc-dn...w_135053/6
In terms of the menus, they are relatively snappy when scrolling through them. Art loads instantly and certainly doesn't trickle in as if its struggling. It certainly outperforms the old XIOS box i was using. Using the old Frodo aeon nox skin is also a pleasant experience. I don't notice any huge performance loss when scrolling through my library.
It's worth mentioning that aeon nox is not optimised for gotham, and you will certainly encounter some weird glitches. This is no way the fault of the NUC, its a skin issue. These problems include: red curtains appearing randomly instead of the movie art (occasionally). Losing your position in your library if you exit and then re-enter the library, or view other libraries. Menu headings appearing in the middle of text on the settings page. Downloading subtitles using any subtitle addon will require some XML tweaking. And a few other minor issues.
Video playback on this NUC has been hit and miss. It plays back my 720p content fine. 1080p is a different story. Most of my 1080p content plays back with dropped frames in high action scenes. Some of my high bitrate 1080p content [with HD audio] plays back even choppier with dropped frames during the whole playback, while others just during high action scenes. This could just be my isolated issue, so i would love to hear other peoples experiences with high bitrate content on this NUC. I also have the new Haswell i3 NUC and have none of these issues with the same files.
The only other problem i have found is the NUC refuses to enter suspend/sleep mode without sometimes crashing. When i select suspend from the XBMC menu, theres a 50% chance the NUC will 'lock up' and go to a black screen in a 'frozen' state with the fans still spinning, requiring a hard reboot by holding the power button. Then there is a 50% chance the NUC will properly suspend. If it properly suspends, it can then be woken up by pressing the power button on my MCE remote which is a good sign. I have a similar problem with my i3 NUC (except with that NUC the problem is a little different, instead of crashing on suspend, it will always wake up from suspend after 2 seconds of entering the suspended state)
Anyway, these are my experiences with this NUC. I'm interested in hearing how this NUC performs for other people.
Update: To prove to myself the problem is the NUC and not some of my specific 1080p encodes, i used the jellyfish bitrate tests over USB 3.0 and a gigabit LAN and here are my findings:
15Mbps - plays fine without any dropped frames
20Mbps - hiccups during playback with dropped frames.
25Mbps and above - is completely unwatchable with frames dropping almost every second
These are disappointing results to say the least. Bearing in mind these files do not have any audio overhead, it's no wonder the NUC struggles with my high bitrate1080p rips and bluray remuxes. I find it strange that the guys over at legitreviews claimed that the NUC played back 20mbit DTS-HD rips without any issues. Hopefully we can get a few NUC owners here to do their own tests, especially with these jellyfish test files, and see whether our results are consistent.
http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-nuc-dn...w_135053/6
