Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:11 pm by jim501
I just ran a test on my old laptop that has an AMD TL-52 Turion processor, about 1.6GHz dual core, with a Passmark score in the mid 700 range (Basically like a new Atom dual core). I'm using it as a Windows 8 Pro test PC. I streamed hulu and cbs.com over a wireless network to my Sony Blu-Ray DLNA DVD player.
The draw on the CPU was nearly not noticeable! The show played perfectly. Over wireless G, no less. (Technically, Wireless G from old laptop to Asus router. To DVD player from Asus router over 5GHz wireless bridge ... WNDR3400 using DD-WRT). CPU percent of use ranged from about 15% to 23%. In other words, not quite idle but certainly not stressed. I suspect this PC will eventually become a dedicated Serviio server for times when I want to catch up on some reruns. Later I will test transcoding of movie files, although I am less interested in that.
I'm still hoping if someone knows if a Synology DS213 or 213+ can support hulu streaming as described above.
Edit: 2013-02-18
I also activated wake-on-lan on the old laptop, plugged it into my router, put it to sleep, and summoned it from my sony blu-ray DLNA. It woke up (slow since it's a very old laptop) but it woke up! Then it played some hulu and cbs reruns. This just opened up some great possibilities. As a used laptop, it's worth maybe $100 if I am lucky. It's a perfect serviio server and spare emergency laptop. I put a new 3rd gen i5 laptop on order to replace it. I got it for 25% off list because it was a closeout ... it still has only Win 7 pro on it with Win8 pro on a dvd in the box. While I like certain aspect of Win 8 pro (the tiles are wretched), finding a loaded 3rd gen i5 Win 7 pro machine new at a closeout 25% discount counts as a lucky day. Later, I'll experiment with remote desktop to see if I can wake up the old laptop to modify the selected feeds.