Habey intros Atom-based HD video PC
updated 04:25 pm EDT, Wed March 11, 2009
Habey Atom-based HD PC
Habey on Tuesday announced its 1080p HD PC, the BIS-6550HD, powered by a 1.6GHz Intel N270 Atom processor. HD video decoding is handled by a low-power AVC/VC-1/MPEG-2 hardware decoder that can play back HD movies in real time from Blu-ray discs as well as HD files in the H.264 and VC-1 formats at up to 40Mbps and MPEG-2 files at up to 125Mbps. Habey says playing back H.264 1080p video uses less than 15 percent of the N270's processing power, with WMV HD videos using up even less.
Total claimed power consumption of the system is rated at under 13W, which is much lower than conventional GPU on standard HD-capable video cards, and half of the NVIDIA ION reference design, Habey says. Solid state drives are supported and optional, making the system even more efficient.
The small form factor box is fanless, making it quieter, and sports standard connections that include VGA, HDMI 1.3, composite and S-video outputs, along with four USB 2.0 ports, a gigabit Ethernet connection and two SATA II ports. There are also CF and SD memory card readers. Wi-Fi is optional, as is an HDTV tuner.
No pricing information or specific shipping dates for the BIS-6550HD are yet known.
