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Zotac ZBOX BI320 *Opinion please* Too good to be true?
I'll take a screenshot of what Windows shows for HDMI audio capability and instructions how to get to that section when I get home tonight so you can see what your system shows.
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In windows player sound settings it shows the TV as being stereo. So it might be a driver needs to be added or replaced.
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Right click on the volume icon in the corner of your taskbar and select "Playback devices". Pick the one for "Intel® Display Audio" and click "Properties". Then click on the "Supported Formats".

Here's how my Samsung TV shows up:
Image

Here's my how my Sherbourn Pre-Pro shows up:
Image

Edit: I should probably point out that the TV really does accept Dolby Digital / AC3 via HDMI despite what Windows / Intel drivers report says. It does not accept DTS via HDMI.
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I guess, since my amp (Yamaha HTR-5830) has no HDMI inputs my only way to get passthrough is the optical inputs on the amp from the Zotac.

I just think it strange that the crappy little android box I had was fine with the setup I have. I'll just have to program a new Activity into the Harmony 880 remote for the Zotac.
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Hello, There seems to be a need to clear up he model and specs.
Zbox-BI320-B/E/U/J/TW is a bare bones unit, no hard drive, ram or OS. (US uses the U, Europe the B, and etc)
ZBOX-BI320-B/E/U/J/TW-W2 (important part is the W2, the rest is regional codes)

W2 (windows models) comes with a stick of 2 gb ram, a 64gb Msata, and Window 8.1 w/bing.
And its important to note that these unit come with a MSata and not the traditional 2.5, that slot is left open for customer to add HD capacity.
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Update all. I have since decided to keep it and replace a revo rl70 that is wanted by a friend. upgraded it with 4gb ram and 120gb ssd. Current running a dual boot with openelec and windows 7. Openelec is default as it will be mainly used as media player but nice to have windows also for other stuff you cannot do in openelec. Currently runs very smooth. Will test more over the next few days.
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Hey Mark142....did adding the extra 2gb of RAM make a noticeable difference?

Yesterday I pulled the 1TB drive from my WDTV Live Hub, it is now retired, and installed it in the Zotac. Didn't format it but did have to delete a small partition for WDs stuff and then expanded the remaining partition into it. Works like a charm! I did back it up first, but everything remained in tact!

My passthrough issues won't end until I update my sound system. No HDMI inputs on this amp and so I try to run in reverse and it just isn't going to work. So I will be using SPDIF out on the Zotac to get what I want for sound. If the damn driver from Intel for the LG TV would see that It can support more than stereo it would work.

What won't work:

Out from Zotac on HDMI to HDMI-2 in on LG TV. LG TV SPDIF out to Yamaha SPDIF-1 in.

What does work:

SPDIF out from Zotac to SPDIF-2 on Yahama amp.
HDMI out from Zotac (for video) to LG TV HDMI-2.
Now I have to switch TV and Amp inputs to view Zotac.

Guess it's time to update the sound system Wink
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I got the barebones so no ram was included. Mine is running single 4gb ram. May upgrade later but it's only needed when I use Windows.. 2gb is plenty for openelec. I'm not really interested in running kodi on Windows as I know it will perform a lot better under openelec. Windows is more for other stuff which you can not do on openelec.
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Today I tried Kodi under Windows 8.1 and like flhthemi I was not able to get it to pass Dolby Digital to my Samsung HDTV. I guess it honors what the Windows drivers think the device's capabilities are. The SPDIF output run to my Pre-Pro worked fine.
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Would a driver update fix it? This processor is supposed to be able to do HD audio under windows unlike the bay trail 2820/30 processors.
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(2015-01-11, 20:26)gangstarrrrr Wrote: Would a driver update fix it? This processor is supposed to be able to do HD audio under windows unlike the bay trail 2820/30 processors.
Let clear one things up here... It does bitstreaming of HD audio over HDMI under Windows just fine. I've confirmed this with my Sherbourn pre-pro and Pioneer Elite receiver. What it doesn't seem to allow under Windows is Dolby Digital "passthrough" to a TV over HDMI. It reports the TV is not capable of accepting Dolby Digital (see the screenshot in post #123) and therefore won't send it. With OpenELEC (Linux) it will send Dolby Digital to the TV (and the TV decodes it). I don't know if this is potentially a driver issue incorrectly parsing the EDID, or if the EDID data returned by the TV indicates it doesn't support Dolby Digital.

For my usage this doesn't matter because I'm not trying to send Dolby Digital over HDMI to the TV. Further, I'm not using Kodi in Windows. I'm using HDMI directly to the TV and optical SPDIF to the Sherbourn pre-pro. Since I only have a 2.1 system in that room and I use it almost exclusively for listening to music and not watching video SPDIF is just fine.
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Hey guys....

Just found this post from another post....does this Zotac include some sort of IR receiver? I've got a Harmony One remote that I'd like to use to control everything, ie projector, av receiver, zotac.

Thanks!
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Unfortunately no.
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Ok....I guess I can get around it by getting one of those USB IR receivers...but another question. How is the performance of this box with Windows 8.1 and XBMC? I'm planning on running a 120GB SSD and 8GB RAM with the BING version of this Zotac...if I stream a 20GB .mkv with DTS audio over CAT6 will it stutter?
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(2015-01-13, 18:20)syncronized77 Wrote: if I stream a 20GB .mkv with DTS audio over CAT6 will it stutter?
Only if you've got HEVC video in that .mkv file.
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Zotac ZBOX BI320 *Opinion please* Too good to be true?1