Found a great motherboard for your next PVR

[5058]

I was just building some PC's for a client and recently started to use the ASUS M2NPV-VM board. It uses AMD AM2 cpu's but what really caught my attention is that besides being a nice small mATX board with passive chipset cooling and onboard Firewire, it also has on-board Nvidia 6150 video and comes with 5 video outputs on the board!! It has VGA, DVI , S-Video,Composite and has a component output as well (RBG). These boards are @ $110 CDN and I think I will pick one up and put a low cost Sempron chip in it for my next GBPVR upgrade.

FYI

[soccerdad]

I just finished building my new system with that board. So far so good. I am using the S-video and the quality is pretty good. I now am trying to find the best settings so I can watch racing without stutters. I am using an AMD2 3600+ and a gig of memory so it should do what ever I need it to. The only downside of the board is it has available spdif, but it does not come with the module . That will cost you another ~$20 US with shipping.

[5058]

I record a lot of racing with my current setup (Athlon 1800) and the only adjustment I made was to change the capture settings to Constant and set it at 6000 Kbps. That took all the stutter/lag/blur out of racing and hockey - mostly anything with fast camera panning.

[dneprrider]

I just finished building my new system with that board. So far so good. I am using the S-video and the quality is pretty good. I now am trying to find the best settings so I can watch racing without stutters. I am using an AMD2 3600+ and a gig of memory so it should do what ever I need it to. The only downside of the board is it has available spdif, but it does not come with the module . That will cost you another ~$20 US with shipping.

Regarding the S/PDIF if the motherboard has the 3 pin S/PDIF header you can easily build your own bracket to hook up the coaxial S/PDIF output to other components.

See here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview....id=1803985
This is just one example. I saw a better site once but couldn't find it today.

Building a coaxial S/PDIF Bracket Yourself

What you need (except for tools) to build a coaxial S/PDIF bracket are:

* An empty PCI bracket that comes with your case
* RCA COMPOSITE VIDEO 2.5' - PANEL F TO 1X3 F (buy it from FRONTX. $6.60 shipped.)

Or solder up your own using an RCA connector and a small 3 pin header from a computer fan. That is what I did. Cost me nothing as I had all the spare bits.

Drill holes on the PCI bracket and attach the RCA panel mount jack to it with the supplied two screws. Change the pin assignment according to your Manual.

Remark

The motherboard's S/PDIF out and in connectors support only coaxial cables. If you want to use optical cables, you need to buy a coaxial to optical converter such as Cables to Go COAXIAL TO OPTICAL DIGITAL AUDIO CONVERTER.

Or again there are some internet sites that describe how to make your own.

[cameluk]

Not enough PCI slots for my tuners

[roadkill401]

I just got the board, but am running into some major problems with getting live TV working.

I have the latest PureVideo drivers from Nvidea, but the screen keeps on setting itself to the wrong aspect ratio. It is like I have a small display in the middle of the screen, and a red/blue blur at the top and bottom of the screen. If the display is supposed to be full screen, then I get the picture squished into 1/4 size vertically, but the full width of the screen (sort of like a bad Anamorphic transfer.

To try out a different decoder, I downloaded the CyberLink dvd trial. This somewhat fixes the problem except you cannot change channels up or down. If you do you get a black picture.

With the Nvidea driver, it works just fine to play in Media Player 11. I am lost for what to try next. Is this a bad board, or am I doing something wrong

Matt

------
AMD X2 4200+, Dual AVerMedia A180, Asus M2NPV-VM, Thermaltake Tenor case

[-stattik-]

I've been looking at this board for a frontend but it would works as a server as well:

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/prod...&model=339

HDMI interface(1080P), 7.1 HD audio, passive cooling and ATI RX1250 video with AVIVO (It should be able to decode pretty much anything including 1080 h264.). It supports Core Duo CPU's.

[soccerdad]

I just got the board, but am running into some major problems with getting live TV working.
AMD X2 4200+, Dual AVerMedia A180, Asus M2NPV-VM, Thermaltake Tenor case

I don't know what to say, Mine plugged and played right out of the box. What video connection are you using? I am using the Svideo out to a CRT TV. When I started, I only had the decoder that installed with the Hauppauge install. Now I have tested several. They all work a little differently, but none give the symptoms you are giving. It works on overlay and all VMRs. Try posting all of your specs (tv type, output type ETC) and maybe someone has an idea.

[Smoker]

you all (or Y'all lol) might also look at the mb in my sig... micro, 3 pci's, s-video out, pcie, etc....

[roadkill401]

I don't know what to say, Mine plugged and played right out of the box. What video connection are you using? I am using the Svideo out to a CRT TV. When I started, I only had the decoder that installed with the Hauppauge install. Now I have tested several. They all work a little differently, but none give the symptoms you are giving. It works on overlay and all VMRs. Try posting all of your specs (tv type, output type ETC) and maybe someone has an idea.

I was about to throw the box out the window, but decided to give it one more try. I slipstreamed my XP Pro with SP2. Did a new clean install without putting any of the "Microsoft Fixes" onto the box. Reloaded my PureVideo driver and it started to work. (For about 3 hours)

Last night it decided that it was not going to display or record anything. I might also say that when I did a re-scan of all the TV stations, I was getting programming from Rochester, than normally you should not be able to get as it is too far away. So I went to bed.

This morning I got up and gave it a try, and it seems to be working just fine. I think it needed to get some of the cobwebs worked out and the packing grease burnt off as it was just too new an install. I will see if it develops some of the same problems again.

Thanks for the help.

Matt.