Which ITX board??

[chockymonster]

I've spent the weekend fooling around with Windows MCE and have realised it's overbloated and slow, GB-PVR seems to be exactly what I need

My main goals are having a method of pulling video from sky+ using composite into my pvr-250, watching said stuff and playing mp3's. I'm currently using an epia 800 which I had lying around, but is far too slow for meaningful use.

Seeing that I already have an ITX case I want to stay with the format as the size of the Morex Venus is perfect for our AV stand. I've got my choices down to 2 boards, The Insight P4-ITX and the EPIA MII-12000.

As both only have one pci slot which is obviously used by my pvr-250 I'm limited to their on board cards. From what I understand the P4 has 4xAGP with 32mb of shared RAM and the M-12000 has 4x with up to 64mb of shared RAM.

If I went with the P4 I'd be using an existing 2.4ghz celeron processor. Both boards would have 512MB of RAM.

Any suggestions?

[MrM]

I'd go for the EPIA board, even though the P4-ITX has a more powerfull cpu. But I think it can be a lot harder to keep the celeron cool withouth adding a lot of noicy fans. But on the other hand, if you don't mind about the noice and want to be able to play games or things like that the P4-ITX is probably a better choice.

[chockymonster]

No gaming etc and seeing as it will be on 24x7 in the front room, quiet is very important.

Fortunately the sky + box isn't the quietest thing in the world so it does mask some noise, so I think the EPIA is going to be the best shot.

[web_maven]

I would use the VIA EPIA 800 and get the Hauppauge PVR350 which has on board Mpeg2 encoder/decoder so the VIA EPIA will not work too hard.

I am about to use the EPIA M9000 900Mhz and was looking at the PVR250 the only problem is MPEG2 decoding (It does not have it) which other people are use the Xcard (for video out and Mpeg2 decoding). The only problem is everything that goes out except for video is 256 colors like pictures and the OSD.

As for the PVR350 I have heard of some output issues too but it looks like Hauppauge just released new drivers to fix the issue.

I like the PVR350 because it has the encoder/decoder, FM radio and a remote. Note if your EPIA has video out don't use it you will need to use the PVR350 video output. If you don't then you will use a software decoder and CPU usage will be high although I use an EPIA M800 for playing DVDs and it seems to work fine.

Raymond.

[fini]

Kind of hijacking the thread and all, but does anyone know if Microsoft has set a date for MCE coming out non OEM? I've heard people talk about mid-November, but beyond that...

fini

[jquinlan]

Everything I have read is Microsoft will not release it as non-OEM, they want to control the install base for stability.
The latest news I've seen is "Windows Media Center 2005 To Support High Def TV" possible release mid to late October. The link was not working at the time I posted this.

[lagrian]

Hi Chocymonster,

I have used most versions of the EPIA boards and the only one I think that runs it comfortably enough is the MII 12000 (1.2Ghz) and maybe the MII 10000.

On the others the menu speeds were a bit slow to it not to annoy you in everyday use.

With the MII 12000 this is my list of key selling points for GBPVR.

* Small (good for under TV)
* Silent through BIG heatsink for processor. (Not a peep comes from this box except in times of lots of disk writes)
* TV-out using on board tv-out
* 5.1 Sound using SPDIF (when you have installed ac3filter)
* Wireless via PCMCIA (Doesn't take spare PCI slot for use with PVR card)
* The onboard MPEG2 Accelerator (Better than nothing)

Couldn't recommend a better board for the job all in such a small box.

However with EPIA's if you ever want to do transcoding on the fly then you can think again, the processor still isn't great.

[sub]

I'm with lagrian on this one. Get the fastest board you can. Either the MII-12000 or a P4-ITX would be fine. Although, I suspect the P4-ITX would require more cooling and probably a larger PSU (more noise).

[web_maven]

Does anyone know of a place to get a good heat sink for the 1GB units and above without using a fan?

Ray

[stmok]

There's also Pentium-M Mini-ITX mobos.
(It'll be faster than any VIA EPIA, but won't need a fan!

It maybe too expensive though, but here's Lippert's Thunderbird. At 1.1Ghz, it can be made fanless
http://www.lippert-at.com/index.php?id=21

It will spank any VIA CPU by a considerable amount. (Heck, its using the same chip as those found in those "Centrino Mobile Technology" notebooks)

This company will sell to end users, so send them an email asking for a quote.

It also supports 2 slot PCI riser! So you can have 2 PCI slots!
http://www.lippert-at.com/index.php?id=270 (Scroll to the bottom)