Apr 2 Podcast #419: Dell Inspiron Zino HD
Podcast, Review Tags: Blu-ray, HTPC, Media Server 
By now you know that Ara has built himself a nice HTPC out of a Mac Mini. We've received a bunch of email asking us to define a similar system using a PC. There far more options using a PC than a Mac and they come in all shapes and sizes. Ara touted size and quiet operation as a major factor in his love of the Mac Mini. So when we saw that Dell had a box that was roughly the same size as a Mac Mini we ordered one and put it through its paces. The Dell Inspiron Zino HD we bought cost $747, about $150 more than the Mac Mini. The Dell comes with something you can't get on a Mac, a Blu-ray drive.
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
News:
- LG aims at 25 percent of global 3D TV market
- DIRECTV to Launch ESPN 3D to Millions of Customers Nationwide
- iPhone HD rumored to include double resolution display and A4 processor
- UHDTV - See It Soon?
Other:
- Check out: noagendashow.com and noagendastream.com
- EatFreeLunch.com - There is such thing as a free lunch!
- Eric's Basement Home Theater
The Dell Inspiron Zino HD we bought cost $747, about $150 more than the Mac Mini. The Dell comes with something you can't get on a Mac, a Blu-ray drive. Our Zino was configured with the following:
- AMD Athlon 3250e (1.GHz, 1MB)
- 3GB DDR2 SDRAM AT 800MHZ
- ATI Radeon HD 4330 512MB Graphics Card
- 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
- Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo Drive (BD-ROM, DVD/CD Burner) and DVD+/-RW
- Mouse and Keyboard
- Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Setup
Setup was fairly straight forward. We are all HDMI so it was as simple as connecting power, keyboard, mouse, Ethernet and HDMI to the Pioneer receiver and turning the thing on. Once you get through the initial boot-up you are greeted to a Windows 7 desktop. Since the Zino does not come with a tuner you'll have to provide your own. Since its the same story with the Mac Mini, Ara has an HD Homerun already installed on his network. We downloaded the drivers for Windows 7, scanned for digital channels and were up and running in about 15 minutes. Since we already had the receiver setup up for a Blu-ray player the entire setup process took about 45 minutes. We literally removed the Blu-ray player and placed the Zino in its place.
Use
We have already reviewed media center so we won't be deep diving into its use. Instead we'll focus on what was not available when we did our original review. The biggest new feature is that this device support Blu-ray. That's the good. The bad is that its not well integrated into Media Center. When you play a Blu-ray disc PowerDVD is launched and unlike playing a regular DVD its obvious that it is not Media Center. The other issue we had was that we repeatedly tried to upgrade Power DVD from within Media Center to no avail. It wasn't until we launched PowerDVD from the desktop that we could do the upgrade. It seemed like some of the free software included on the Zino was preventing the installation from within Media Center.
As far as playback of Blu-ray movies go, it was OK. We would get stuttering frames every so often. In general we felt that the hardware was underpowered to support Blu-ray. DVDs and Backed up DVDs played fine. The latest version of Media Center does a great job of finding meta data and cover art for ripped discs that have VIDEO_TS folders in them. It makes the Windows plug-in "MyMovies" unneeded. But for completeness we did download and install MyMovies. While it include more features than Windows it did not rock our world. Prior to this version of Windows 7 MyMovies would have been a requirement. With this version not so much.
TV played nicely even being upconverted to 1080p. Windows Media Center has a nice built in tuner/DVR package. There is also a Netflix watch it now feature that is easy to navigate and use. We were able to add our account and select movies in a matter of minutes. The picture looked good but Ara still feels that the best video quality of "Watch it Now" is on the Xbox 360 (of course, Braden would argue that it's the PS3).
Audio
Since we used HDMI we were able to get 5.1 audio out of DVDs, OTA HD and Blu-ray movies. One thing that dissapointed us was that we could not get Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio out of the Blu-ray discs. We can't tell if this is an issue with PowerDVD or the Zino. We've read on some forums that PowerDVD does not support Dolby True HD. You can get 5.1 out of the Zino without HDMI but you need make sure you upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 4330. The audio sounded great but we'd expect nothing less with the receiver we were using.
Picture Quality
DVD looked nice, ATSC looked even better and as you would imagine Blu-ray looked the best. But when compared side by side with the Oppo dedicated Blu-ray player we prefered the image quality of the Oppo. However, since we were going through our receiver we had and issue with underscan. We could not figure out a way to get the image to stretch from side to side and top to botton. There was about an inch of space all around the picture. There is probably a setting to fix this but we could not find it. If you have a solution please post it to the comments section.
Odds and Ends
Hard to believe that this computer that has so many features designed to be used as a HTPC (Dell does not call it a HTPC however) does not come with a remote control. In fact we couldn't find any reference to an IR Port on the Zino. That means if you really want to use this as a HTPC you'll need to buy a USB remote control. They go for about $15 to $30. The Zino is pretty quiet and it definitely won't be heard while watching TV. However, when everything is off it does make sound. Enough that it could keep lighter sleepers awake at night. The Zino comes with plenty of ports for expansion including an eSATA port so that you can add hard drives to store all your movies.
Our Recommendation
The Dell Zino is a good device for basic HTPC use, watching TV (with and external tuner), ripped movies, music, and photos. But when it comes to Blu-ray you'd be better served with a stand alone Blu-ray player or a more powerful HTPC. Save your money and go for a Zino without Blu-ray player.
Reader Comments (20)
Nice video guys. I considered buying this but after looking at the specs I chose not on account it's not powerful enough to be a gaming PC. So I built custom PC out of an old emachines PC. I'll send pics to guys
Thanks for the review guys. Even though I'm a long-time Mac guy (started doing Mac development way back in 1985!), I've mostly migrated to PCs these days. Don't get me wrong, in general I prefer the Mac UI and overall approach to things. However, one thing that Microsoft has done pretty well at is the Media Center, even though Front Row is much cleaner in appearance and approach.
I seriously considered the Dell Zino for an HTPC (I am currently working at Dell under contract!), but just this past weekend I ended up buying an Acer Aspire Revo AR3610 (doesn't quite roll off the tongue like "Mac mini" or "Dell Zino"!). I picked it up at my local Fry's, and it took me about 2 hours to remove all the crapware and get it tweaked to my liking. Once I added the plugins for Hulu and Boxee, plus my previously-purchased ATSC USB tuner, I was all set. Bearing in mind that I had previously purchased the tuner, and that this model doesn't include any kind of optical disc, my cost was about $255 out the door with tax.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased. Even though this is a low-end PC, it comes with Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit - which occasionally creates some driver issues), has a dual-core Atom processor, and features the Nvidia ION graphics chipset. We currently don't have a Blu-ray player, but I did test it against a couple dozen hi-def clips from various sources and everything played without a hiccup. Backed-up DVDs played with no problems. Typical DVR functions work as expected - shows record without Media Center running, you can pause live TV, you can watch a previously-recorded show while recording at the same time, etc.
As a side note, my son wanted to see if it was playable for any kind of games. I'm not that much of a gamer, but I did get Steam's Orange Box a couple of Christmases ago, so I downloaded the Half-Life 2 series on it. Surprisingly, everything was fairly smooth with most of the eye-candy turned on (anti-aliasing is out of the question, however). Even though this game is 6-ish years old, it still looks and plays pretty nicely and happens to be my favorite FPS. I've not yet tried more demanding games, but that's not really why I bought this machine anyway.
So - I didn't really mean to sneak in another mini-review, but since I had seriously considered the Zino and got this one instead, I thought I'd share my perspective on an alternative. Bottom-line: if you don't require an optical drive up-front, the Acer Aspire Revo AR3610 is a lower-cost alternative with a pretty decent graphics chipset.
I use to use My Movies which was ok, but I found it to be a bit intrusive in terms of having to load visual basic .net and having to run essentially a database on the htpc. Also every folder of video conttent wound up with around 400K of mymovie xml files.
I found a much better free solution called Media Browser. You really ought to take a look if using Media Center. This plugin is not so intrusive, smaller footprint and the user interface is very nice. It loads a hidef slideshow of the movie and plot and cast info .
I have turned all my friends on with this Media Browser software who have media center and they like the look and feel so much better than My Movies they havent looked back.
I think it would be a worthy show topic, but try the Media Browser software first and draw your own conclusions.
Correction on my post above (I re-read that thing like 3 times before posting - D'oh!):
My out-the-door price was $355, not
$255. Sorry for any confusion. You can get it cheaper at NewEgg if you're not in California. I had intended to do that, but I rationalized paying the sales tax at Fry's for the easy return should I need it.So far it's performing pretty well. I did have to wrestle with the resolution like you guys did with the Blu-ray player, but I've got it pretty close to what I want now.
QUESTION: Have you guys purchased the cheap IR remote you have linked in your article? I'm mostly curious about Harmony integration. You guys got me hooked on the Harmony remote, so using the keyboard/mouse (albeit wireless - included with the AR3610) is getting a bit irritating. Anyway, maybe you guys could comment on whether you've done that yet or not. THANKS!
Thanks for the great Zino reviews (audio and video). So it plays 720p HD fine but sometimes has problems with 1080 HD. I guess I will look for something else to use as a media PC.
I believe the limitation for HD audio is due mainly to the video card. I believe the video card is a 4XXX series ATI card while the ATI cards with HD audio compatibility are in the 5XXX series. Check ArcSoft Total Media Theatre for an arguably better software solution for Blu-ray.
I use a home built server running Windows Home Server. I'm running SageTV with the HD200 media extender box in the A/V system. It works well and plays about everything. Will play ripped Blu-rays and DVDs (not ISO files), but not HD audio as the HD200 is only HDMI 1.2. I have 4 tuners - HDHomeRun & AverMedia Duet with the Duet giving me better reception. I also have over 2TBs storage in the server.
I'm in Canada, so I'm limited to OTA. I would have gone with Windows 7 instead of SageTV and saved the cost of the software and extender, but MS doesn't play nice in Canada with OTA. In addition, no cable card access in the deprived Great White North.
Hey guys, I would like to start off by saying I have been listening to the podcast for the last couple months and it has been very informative. Keep up the great work. I have a question on home automation, I am finishing my theater and have purchased a few insteon dimmers to control the lighting. My question is which computer controller software/hardware do you recommend to manage my insteon setup through a web browser. I am a PC user, and unfurtanetly there is not AT&T coverage in my area so I have an android phone that I would like to use to control the lighting over wick and a web browser. I have been on the Smarthome site and they have a couple of different controller options, so I wasn't sure which to pick. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!
The interesting thing about comparing this Dell device to the Mac mini is the processor. An AMD processor that is 1 GHz is really underpowered and I'm not even sure if the AMD processor is a single or dual core. it is too bad that the Blu-Ray player was not better I talked with some Macintosh guys at the Mac store and they said that Mac will never put a blue ray player on the Mac mini. that is too bad. I am still unsure why they do not convert the mini HDMI pourt to standard Hdmi
Hi Guys,
Thanx for the review. Was impressed at your broadband speed.
One question. Do you know if this item is or can be made region free for both DVD and BD??
Hi Andy,
Braden uses the INSTEON Central Controller ($129) which has support for any web-enabled PC, PDA, or smart phone.
Ara
Hi PaulW,
There is no way that I know of to make the Zino region free. There may be some hacks out there but I have not gone looking for them.
Ara
Hey guys great video.
Where did you get the stan laurel and oliver hardy masks?
only joking, caff pal on its way .
Nice review and GREAT podcast that you guys put out.
I've been using the Zino (basic specs as you have with the exception of the blu-ray drive) for about 4 months now as my HTPC, hooked to my Onkyo surround system and Optoma projector - (over 100" screen for some serious movie and sports nights!). I am running MediaBrowser (excellent product) and have gotten good performance from the Zino that meets my needs.
I could not quickly get my hands on my original price, but I think it was in the $500 range, with the upgraded video, sound card and 4GB of memory.
The only issue I have had so far is that of the wireless adapter needing to be reset periodically - every couple of days. No time to troubleshoot in depth yet, but it has become a nuisance.
Overall the Zino proved to be the right option for my needs and has performed wonderfully - small form factor, quiet and runs MediaCenter/MediaBrowser without issue. Seriously thinking of getting another one for the BR to act an as extender.
In the video, Ara mentioned that the Mac mini doesn't have a Blu-Ray player. I think it's also important to point out at $599 it doesn't have a mouse and keyboard either.
Enjoyed both the Video review and the Podcast great set up, editing and presentation I hope it doesnt take much longer for you. I also watch a few UK hiFi vodcasts again I point anyone to the Bat Barn setup that one UK viewer had. Maybe a few vodcasted US homeowner setup walkarounds might be another way to go - even encouraging mailins by viewers. Also I think the Vodcast format is ideal for the more technical bits like setups hookups, calibrations, software tuneup
HT Guys,
Thanks for the review. When I read the specs, I was not surprised by your conclusions.
I built a similar box using a 4850e. DVDs play fine, but newer bluray discs don't play at all. I have both PowerDVD and WinDVD running on XP-32.
It is my Netflix and DVD box. I gave up on bluray due to play problems and Netflix delays.
Your conclusions are correct -- go buy a bluray player which supports Netflix.
Hey guys. Good review. The Zino on paper is perfict as a HTPC, but in acutallity it is about 80-95% there. They could use a ATI HD5xxx upgrade option to complement the BD-DVD rom drive option. But the rest is mostly there if you are going to use it for Media Center, web browsing, and maby some light apps. But if you want to game on it, it is a bit light side spec wise.
I have been using Windows Media Center since 2002 with a beta build prior to it launching and have been hooked. I have traditionally built my own HTPC's, but my latest is a Dell XPS 420 so that I could order it with 2 ATI Cable Card tuners a few years ago (could only get it with OEM at the time). I have been loving it and it can do everything I through at it and it is wisper quiet. Only down side is that it is a traditional PC tower. I just upgraded it to windows 7 Home Premium x64 and everyhting works like clock work and the new interface is much nicer than all previous versions.
My current setup is: Core2Quad proccessor, 4GB ram (will add more in the near future), 250GB OS drive, 750GB recording drive, LG BD/HD-DVD dive, ATI HD3xxx HDMI card (want to to update to a HD5xxx). Software is: My Movies (a little clunky but works great. Have a Windows home server that stores my 300+ DVD titles and serves them up quite nicely). ArcSoft Total Media Theater 3. I only use this system for MediaCenter and light web (hulu, nbc, etc...) And now that Netflix has HD streaming, it works great in the MediaCenter interface.
I have the HTPC connected directly to my Pioneer Elete 92thx (memroy is a bit fuzzy on the exact model) though HDMI and that connects to my Optima Projector over a HDMI cable in the celing (112" screen FTW). I control everything though the media center IR reciever using my Harmony 890 remote and it works perfictly. I only need the keyboard and mouse when I pull up IE and/or Firefox which is almost never.
My system has only crashed once on me in the 2 years I have been using it and that was becasue some paper got stuck to the air intake and it over heated. The last time I rebooted it was when I installed windows 7 a few months ago and before that with vista, the last reboot was over a year before that. Media Center is a very stable and reliable DVR solution and very felexable. At least in the senerio I use it in (98% Media center only use). I have loaded Half Life 2 previsoly on it and it ran great.
I also picked up a D-Link Media Center Extender at the Curcit City blowout and use that in the bedroom. I really wish these extenders caught on because I can't see putting, even a small nettop, in the bedroom and not being able to schedule recordings or watch LiveTV from the main HTPC. Also the interface is a bit streamlined over the extender so not all the animations are visable, so the extender is great for a bedroom and not as good for the living room.
Well enough rambeling for now. But defintally try the ArcSoft TotalMediaTheater, much better BD experiance.
The interesting thing about comparing this Dell device to the Mac mini is the processor. An AMD processor that is 1 GHz is really underpowered and I'm not even sure if the AMD processor is a single or dual core.
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Hi, Thanks for the great video review.
since this podcast, Zino has grown up a bit.
what i am trying to figure out is if this will work for me.
I have a 4 year old Sony STR-DA5ES digital amp with toslink in (it has an AUTO mode for switching between DTS, Bolby Digital or PCM)
in addition to doing streaming etc, i want to be able to use it to play itunes in 5.1 or 7.1
I have tried this with my sony vaio fw series, using a gefen hdmi to hdmi and toslink splitter, but i still get 2 channel sound out :(
I even read that in the new vaio F series, the sound menu doesnt allow use of 5.1 sound (options are greyed out)
I also figure that since i already by a playstation 3, i can opt out of the bluray, and that the "wireless entertainment" model option should have as much or more oomph and video card power than your recommendation when the podcast was made. Am i right?
before i buy yet another pc or laptop, i just want to make sure that this doesnt again fall short and that it is compatible with the digital input formats of the SONY STR DA5ES
many many thanks
great site guys