HTPC Credentials
The 2022 Q4 update to our system reviews brings an updated HTPC evaluation suite for systems. After doing away with the evaluation of display refresh rate stability and Netflix streaming evaluation, the local media playback configurations have also seen a revamp. This section details each of the workloads processed on the GEEKOM AS 6 (ASUS PN53) as part of the HTPC suite.
YouTube Streaming Efficiency
YouTube continues to remain one of the top OTT platforms, primarily due to its free ad-supported tier. Our HTPC test suite update retains YouTube streaming efficiency evaluation as a metric of OTT support in different systems. Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video is the chosen test sample. On PCs running Windows, it is recommended that HDR streaming videos be viewed using the Microsoft Edge browser after putting the desktop in HDR mode.
YouTube Streaming Statistics
The GPU in GEEKOM AS 6 (ASUS PN53) supports hardware decoding of VP9 Profile 2, and we see the stream encoded with that codec being played back. The streaming is perfect, thanks to the powerful GPU and hardware decoding support - the few dropped frames observed in the statistics below are due to mouse clicks involved in bringing up the overlay and the transition to different encode resolutions in the initial stages.
The streaming efficiency-related aspects such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption are also graphed below.
The NUC BOX-1360P/D5 RPL-P system is the most energy efficient of the tested lot by a huge margin, but the Rembrandt systems (including the GEEKOM AS 6) slot in right behind.
Hardware-Accelerated Encoding and Decoding
The transcoding benchmarks in the systems performance section presented results from evaluating the VCE encoder within Handbrake's framework. The capabilities of the decoder engine are brought out by DXVAChecker.
Video Decoding Hardware Acceleration in GEEKOM AS 6 (ASUS PN53)
On paper, this codec list is quite comprehensive and should cover most home consumer and digital signage requirements
Local Media Playback
Evaluation of local media playback and video processing is done by playing back files encompassing a range of relevant codecs, containers, resolutions, and frame rates. A note of the efficiency is also made by tracking GPU usage and power consumption of the system at the wall. Users have their own preference for the playback software / decoder / renderer, and our aim is to have numbers representative of commonly encountered scenarios. Our Q4 2022 test suite update replaces MPC-HC (in LAV filters / madVR modes) with mpv. In addition to being cross-platform and open-source, the player allows easy control via the command-line to enable different shader-based post-processing algorithms. From a benchmarking perspective, the more attractive aspect is the real-time reporting of dropped frames in an easily parseable manner. The players / configurations considered in this subsection include:
- VLC 3.0.18
- Kodi 20.2
- mpv 0.35.1 (hwdec auto, vo=gpu-next)
- mpv 0.35.1 (hwdec auto, vo=gpu-next, profile=gpu-hq)
Fourteen test streams (each of 90s duration) were played back from the local disk with an interval of 30 seconds in-between. Various metrics including GPU usage, at-wall power consumption, and total energy consumption were recorded during the course of this playback.
All our playback tests were done with the desktop HDR setting turned on. It is possible for certain system configurations to automatically turn on/off the HDR capabilities prior to the playback of a HDR video, but, we didn't take advantage of that in our testing.
Lower TDP Rembrandt systems fare better in the energy consumption metric. All codecs play back well, except for the AV1 clip. VLC doesn't take advantage of the GPU hardware decoding capabilities for that codec. As a result, the playback for that clip, as well as the energy numbers are not ideal in the GEEKOM AS 6.
The user experience with Kodi is not much different, as AV1 hardware acceleration is again unused. Since the Kodi GUI is kept active at the main screen between the playback of different streams, the GPU remains active and continues to render the UI. This results in the energy numbers creeping up when the full playback period is considered.
AV1 decode acceleration is utilized by mpv. Unfortunately, despite the decoder engine running at full tilt, there is some problem with the video output path resulting in approximately half the frames getting dropped. In terms of energy efficiency, the GEEKOM AS 6 is slotted in the middle of the pack.
The case of the AV1 playback being spotty despite the hardware acceleration is seen here again. The activation of the GPU shaders for rendering in the GPU-HQ case results in relatively higher energy numbers for all the systems.
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