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Intel Compute Stick

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Re: Intel Compute Stick

#321

Post by kllrnohj »

wilhil wrote: post #297
greggman wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was forced to use NUCs for a project. They were under powered for me. All I needed to do was draw 5 fullscreen quads at 1920x1080 but all they could handle was 4 fullscreen quads at 1280x720. I'm sure they're great for some things so YMMV

To be fair, that is a big requirement... Loads of mid to high end graphics cards from just a few years backfail at dual QHD screen. I power 2x 1920x1080 screens off of a NUC and am very happy.

No, it isn't.

1920 * 1080 pixels * 5 * 60 = 622MPixel/s of fillrate required.

Radeon 9700 Pro, high end from over 10 years ago, had a fillrate of 2600MPixels/s

Let's take a high end graphics card from a few years back, say... GTX 480? A 2010 card? That has a fillrate of 33,600 MPixels/sec.

5x 1920x1080 quads is child's play for any reasonable desktop GPU part. In fact high end cards from 2009 could game at 5760x2160 (that's 6x 1920x1080 displays) off of a single card.

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#322

Post by baldfat »

wuliwong wrote: post #299
k-mcgrady wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my Chromecast but I think the major reason it has done well is the price. $30 is still fantastic.

It is an interesting comparison. You could buy 5 Chromecasts for the price of one of these Intel sticks, so it seems not a fair comparison. BUT, chances are you really are going to only use one or the other, so in that way it is necessary to decide.

They are apples vs oranges.

Chromecast = Media Player

Stick = Computer

I am still thinking I want a NUC though.

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#323

Post by larrybolt »

_b8r0 wrote: post #233
larrybolt wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the box, but a small plastic enclosure with some very cheap electronics (I believe they even used a led as a light sensor) and the battery lasts very very long. I wouldn't know on the impact of that on the ecology though. When it comes to recycling I remember from long long ago that PCB's have a pretty large ecological footprint, but than again, it's not part of the packaging, so it can be easily taken out a…

I was a little sad when I took mine apart to find that the chip was epoxied. I was hoping it would be something easily reprogrammable that I could give to my girlfriend to use at school (she teaches 3,4,5 year olds, so having a box that makes a noise when you open it is something that gets their attention).

That would have been too good to be true, haven't even thought about that!

I remember way back I was trying to make a cheap wifi-powered box with a display that could play short video's and stuff. The base idea came from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywr0A2aC_Jk, and I'd use a very cheap 3g-wifi router running openwrt as base. But in the end the firmware changed and made it impossible.

But nowadays with an arduino mini pro, i2c, cheap small displays or audio modules you can get a long way! It does however require you to purchase a lot of stuff like resistors, opamps, breadboards.. etc. And in theory, with the ESP8266-module you could make any device internet-connected.

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#324

Post by yellowapple »

commandar wrote: post #313
yellowapple wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally found the Chromecast to be a little underpowered in a lot of circumstances, particularly when it comes to mirroring a tab with a video playing. I ended up ordering one of those Fire TV sticks because Gary Busey told me to, and because it has way better specs; still waiting for it to arrive, but a couple of family members have already tried it out with a lot of success, and I imagine it'll go well with…

>particularly when it comes to mirroring a tab with a video playing. That has nothing to do with the processing power of the Chromecast and everything to do with the casting system. It's all just a video stream to the Chromecast.

True, but I wouldn't have had to resort to tab mirroring if Chromecast supported Amazon Prime Video.

Which, admittedly, is also not a Chromecast issue per se, but since the Fire TV stick does support it (for obvious reasons), and since I ought to be watching videos and justifying my Prime membership, it'll probably end up being the more useful product to me. An Intel stick would probably end up being even more useful, since I wouldn't be at the mercy of Amazon to provide support for things (and would instead be at the mercy of XBMC or Kodi or whatever the hell it's called now to provide support for things).

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#325

Post by toyg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #287
toyg wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's just so many different options for computing these days. It's like information overload, but with hardware. Yeah. I have two Dreamplugs lying there unused at the moment, plus a CuBox used as NAS/TimeMachine, and a MicroPython waiting for some free time... so many options, so little time. They are also getting so powerful, I'm seriously considering a few "enterprise" scenarios. Remember when IT meant mainfra…

> between mobile and these little bad boys, there's plenty of power around to run a number of applications that would have required a rack server 5 or 10 years ago. Now John Accountant could just buy a little silent box and put it on his desk, without having to go through hellish rounds of IT approvals. Which would be nice, if we had the hardware of today with the IT practices of a time when enterprises might exert c…

Today, I was working at the HQ of a major UK telco. I connected my personal MBP to a random ethernet cable and lo, I could RDP on servers and do everything I wanted, without any prior authorisation. If you think all enterprise networks are as locked down as the ones found in banks, you're sorely mistaken. BYOD is a reality.

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#326

Post by morganvachon »

Roodgorf wrote: post #294
tankenmate wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux version has only 1GB RAM and only 8GB onboard flash.

Sure, but Linux can also generally run much more efficiently than Windows. I think having Linux on the cheap version could conceivably be both a cut in licensing fees and also a way to make economy hardware specs viable.

I mentioned it above, but there is no license fee for Windows 8.1 with Bing. It's completely free for OEMs to sell on their hardware, they just can't modify the search settings at install time. The user can do whatever they want with the search settings, and it's a full 8.1 install from a technical viewpoint.

Basically, the difference in price between the two SKUs is purely hardware based. So, buy whichever hardware you need, and install GNU/Linux.

On a side note, I have an HP Stream 7 tablet with an Atom CPU and 1GB RAM, and it runs 8.1 very well. I'd imagine even the lower spec SKU of the Intel stick would run it fine. Storage space would be the only real issue for that OS.

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#328

Post by DigitalSea »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #231
DigitalSea wrote: post #227

This is fantastic. As a car PC enthusiast, this kind of device is going transform the car PC community once again. Up until now, small form-factor PC's have been somewhat unaffordable.

A Dell Venue 8 Pro with Windows 8.1 is about $150-$200 (and is a damned nice machine, surprisingly enough.) I'm having trouble seeing the use case(s) for a headless Intel PC.

The headless Intel PC has the benefit of being easier to conceal in the car. I could put this thing in a nice fan enclosure and put it under the passenger seat or equivalent out-of-sight place. Not to mention, the Intel headless PC looks smaller than that of any laptop out there. Each to his own though.

The Dell Venue 8 Pro sadly is $300 here in Australia. Obviously given the low Australian dollar, buying it overseas and shipping it will cost over $300 for me.x

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#329

Post by rebootthesystem »

undersuit wrote: post #307
rebootthesystem wrote: post #289

I've been looking for a board like this that has HDMI in and out for real time image processing. It seems nobody makes such an animal.

Your dream board would have far to small of a market because no one is going to license a hackable system that can sit between two HDCP devices for HDCP. If the board doesn't have HDCP why would you pay the HDMI royalties. Would be much simpler to use DVI capture card and HDMI->DVI adapters.

HDMI is separate from and does not require HDCP. You can have an unencrypted HDMI signal from, for example, an industrial video camera.

Yet, I do agree with you: It's a small market.

Re: Intel Compute Stick

#330

Post by kolev »

asynchronous13 wrote: post #125
Alupis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's overpriced and the specs are poor (when compared to other embedded-like solutions)

I'm quite happy with an edison board for $50. Is that overpriced?

Haters gonna hate. Microsoft, Intel, Google - these brands are never cool for some ungrateful as where we are today is in big part thanks to those three.
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