Intense PC as media player and use of external sound card

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Steaky360
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:54 pm

Intense PC as media player and use of external sound card

Post by Steaky360 »

Hello everyone,

Never heard of intense pc's until today! Very impressed with what I have managed to glean from my brief trawl of the forums and website.

I have noticed a few threads about using the intense PC as a media centre, I understand this is possible I would just like to know a bit more, ie if I were to use it connected to my tv (via hdmi) would I be able to play full 3d quality media (for example) through the intense PC or would the graphics onboard not be sufficient?

Has anyone had any experience with using the intense PC as a media centre/htpc?

Also in terms of sound, is it possible to attach an external (USB) sound card to the intense PC to allow for full surround audio? Or is this not required if connecting through the hdmi cable? I would like to connect it to my home surround system if possible.

Thank you in advance for the advice and support.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: Intense PC as media player and use of external sound car

Post by vtailor »

By "external sound card", you could mean a USB-powered sound card or a USB-powered sound card with an S/PDIF input, both of which connect to a high-quality pair of computer speakers or a high-quality surround speaker system. I know from looking at the internet that there are a few such sound cards. On the other hand, the Windows 7 or Windows 8 installation on an Intense PC gives a genuine Intel built-in HDMI sound system that provides a pure neutral sound signal to your HDMI television device, which in turn has built-in settings for the gadgets connected to the HDMI device.

I think Asus makes one of those adapters, with separate outputs to earphones and to surround speakers, at a moderate price.

Also, the "pure" Intel Sandybridge graphics driver for Windows 8 (32 or 64 bits) is available from downloadmirrors.intel.com, as is a comparable NUC driver. In other words, even generic Intel Sandybridge has stopped supporting analog surround sound and the like.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: Intense PC as media player and use of external sound car

Post by vtailor »

I should add that a few of the higher-quality USB sound card devices actually list "studio quality" sound capabilities.

csimon
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:07 pm

Re: Intense PC as media player and use of external sound car

Post by csimon »

I've got an Intense Pro (core i7 mobile processor with HD4000 graphics) with Windows 7 and using it as a HTPC with JRiver Media Center. Yes, it will manage HD Video OK but it is not able to achieve JRiver's "HQ" mode which it uses Madvr as the renderer (instead of LAV?). Video stutters. It will only manage standard mode.

I have another PC also with an Ivy Bridge core i7 bu it's a desktop processor and is able to handle the HQ mode. I was a bit confused/disappointed by this as I thought the graphics level HD4000 was a fixed spec across all processors. but obviously performance of the Intel on-board graphics is dependant on the performance of the host processor.

The audio output options for the Intense PC are extremely limited, even though the Intel processors have on-board "HD" audio, it's not possible for example to have both digital audio and downmixed 2-channel analogue audio at the same time, so I've bought an external USB DAC for this purpose.

You can use HDMI audio if this is appropriate for you but for music only it may not be convenient.

Steaky360
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:54 pm

Re: Intense PC as media player and use of external sound car

Post by Steaky360 »

Thanks for the replies, I'll have to do a bit more digging I think.

Cheers again!

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