HP Support Forum

[#1]

I didn't do any benchmarking before installing the broadcom chip but the battery life still seems pretty good.  I would imagine it has no effect when not watching video and negligible when watching them, especially if you are not using the NVIDIA accelerator.  They put these chips in the HP 110 mini so I would guess it's pretty low power.

[#2]

As of right now flash 10 does not use GPU acceleration.  So if you are streaming a flash video the playback processing goes through your CPU.  And as is notorious for netbooks they have slow CPU's.  Adobe is planning on releasing flash 10.1 which will solve this problem and allow smoother playback by using GPU acceleration

[#3]

so has anyone seen any improvement with the video stuitter? this has to be the biggest dissapointment for me in this product. if i had known the ion wouldnt actually do anything, i probably would have ended up with the lenovo s12 instead. what i'd like to understand better is how the reviewers who tested the mini 311 earlier this year (supposedly with the ion le) were seeing not only smooth playback, but were able to get this smoot playback out the hdmi port. My mini311 starts to stutter if i think of running 720p through it, let alone 1080p.

I would love to see someone from hp support and/or marketing respond to this issue.

[#4]

I agree the ION is a huge disappointment.  It can play a certain type of 1080p file, for example try downloading this one:

http://drop.io/ymi31yu/asset/4377kbps-1080p-24fps-l5-0-9ref-aac-mp4 

but not very many 720/1080 Mp4, MKV, AVI or WMV  files commonly encoded or downloaded.  It all depends on the encoding.   Prospective buyers need to know that the ION is very limited regarding HD playback.  HP tech support is worthless, they know nothing about what their products promise or can actually do.  One guy swore if I increased the RAM (not even an option when I bought the thing in October) all my problems would be solved.  I balked and was escalated to a clueless manager who promised to talk to engineers to figure it out and never got back to me.   

I was ready to return my netbook when I found this:

The only way I've found to have good HD playback is to install the Broadcom chip 970012 ($25 on ebay and really easy to install)  This is what is in the older HP 110.  Whatever NVIDIA told HP to get them to put the ION in the netbooks instead of the Broadcom chip was some pretty good salesmanship.

http://terracode.com/AcerAspireMod/AcerAspireMods_P1.html has info on the drivers

With the ArcSoft Total Media Theater player I now can play every kind of HD content I've come across, and still use the HDMI out to my HDTV. 

[#5]

I don't think the Nvidia Ion is a disappointment at all.  I think you just need to use the right software.  The HP Mini 311 would be a much better computer if it were paired with a 330 and not a 230.  But even a 230 paired with the Ion can play 1080p just fine.  Assuming you are using x86 (32bit Windows 7) try using CoreAVC and enable CUDA.  Use AC3Filter for sound.  I have no problem playing 1080p files that I rip into .mkv files.  I play them within WMP12 and W7MC with no problems.

[#6]

i got an Acer Ferrari One 200. Has 1.2Ghz AMD Dual Core (athlon x2 L310) processor, 4gb DDR2 RAM (@800Mhz), and 250GB SATA hard drive. Has M780G chipset with ATI HD3200 graphics (386MB dedicated, c.700MB shared). All for £450.  Can handle full 1080p movies in any format, and blisteringly fast. Even an option to connect an external GPU of even higher spec. Oh, and a 1366x768 HD LED screen.Now tell me which Nvidia Ion laptop will have those kind of specs...?

[#7]

bda: I'd rather not spend the time re-encoding my entire collection.  I'm sure there's a way to get any given file into the proper encoding but I don't have the patience.  NVIDIA should have offered support for more common encodings. 

Yasin: I'm sure no ION netbook will have that kind of performance, but no ION netbook costs $800. You can get a lot of real computer for that kind of dough.  The broadcom chip is a $25 solution that will make nearly any netbook w/ a free PCI slot into a flexible HD media player.

[#8]

I am a big fan of the broadcom chip also.  I don't think it is anywhere close to the power of the Ion's 9400 chipset, but it has a lot of potential in brining the current stock of Netbooks into the HD age.  Hard to beat the price.  I am curious why it hasn't hit the market yet.  Do you have all Bluray content?  Not too sure why you would have to re-encode all of your content.  Nearly all of my movies are DVDs or in .vob file format.  I just have a few Blu-ray discs that I have purchased so it is really easy to setup the files as .mkv files.  Anyway, I still think the Ion is an excellent computer.  Good luck.

[#9]

FYI - CoreAVC 2.0 (the best HD decoder for playing Blu-ray files in W7MC & WMP12) was just released.  Used to cost $15 which was already cheap.  The new version is only $12.99 and there is a coupon code through Dec. 26th for $3 off.  $9.99 is unbeatable.  Just thought everyone should know.  I have been waiting months for it so that I can play my blu-ray files on my x64 HTPC machines and it works really well on my NVidia Ion machines.

[#10]

GET YOUR HP MINI 311 TO PLAY SMOOTH HD!!!!

Ok got this from a guy on the myhpmini.com forum who did not purchase the HP 311 yet, but knew the answer.

I HAVE DONE THIS ON MY BRAND SPANKING NEW HP 311 WITH 2G MEM AND WIN 7.

I was soooooo frustrated and embarrassed  now it works flawlessly. You would think HP Support would give some friggin' answers!!!

So in order to save all my other HP Mini 311 peers sanity I have provided the instructions from the forum in pdf. (Because that's how I saved it to use)

I uploaded the instructions to my personal site. it is a PDF that will download.Yes its just a PDF 100% safe.

www.anabolicquest.com/hd4hp.pdf

You will need to download 2 files

a version of Directx and Movie Player Classic, follow instructions and you should be in HD bliss!