pico itx

[stangdaman]

I realize that PVRX2 would probably not work on something like this but do you think that the older gbpvr would work well on one of these.

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/artigo

I'm considering trying to build basically my own UMPC/PMP out of a pico board and I would like to use GBPVR as a front end on it. I was thinking about buying a raeon everun or oqo model 2 but more and more I'm thinking it might be more of a fun project to buy one of these kits and then mod my own case for it. What do you guys think?

[gazoo]

I was briefly looking into these. If you really need a picoatx form factor you might have some trouble. I'm just guessing though, and I'm mainly referring to HDTV.

However, over at mini-box.com that same motherboard does say the following:
- Integrated VIA UniChrome Pro II 3D/2D AGP Graphics Controller, w/ MPEG-2/4 and WMV9 Decoding Acceleration

So it is quite possible that SD works fine and maybe even HD. There are also the nano atx and mini ITX form factors to look at. I believe in the mini ITX and maybe also the nano, you can get intel dual cores with them.

If you go forward with this, please post to let us know if this actually works. If this is for a car application and the output screen is small, you could probably pull it off no problem.

[stangdaman]

I was actually thinking of going with a battery operated hand held device. Like my own UMPC. I recently installed linux on an old mp3 player of mine and it got me thinking how cool it would be to have a pocket sized extension of my PVR to carry with me. Unfortunately my old m:robe though it has a nice sized vga touch screen doesn't have the processing power to handle video really.

I definitely think that HD would be out of the question for a device like this. No matter what VIA says about their boards capabilities but it's more procssing power then my Zune or your typical ipod has so I would imagine given the right format it should be able to handle those kind of things. It can handle a full windows xp setup. I'm trying to find parts and figure out exactly how they would work with a mobo like this. For instance I've found some small touch screens but how to hook them up to the pico board is something I've never done before so there's a lot of research involved. This mobo is about the size of a playing card though so if I can get the hardware figured out I think it can be done. I'll definitely post back if I end up doing it.

[bgowland]

I'm trying to find parts and figure out exactly how they would work with a mobo like this. For instance I've found some small touch screens but how to hook them up to the pico board is something I've never done before so there's a lot of research involved. This mobo is about the size of a playing card though so if I can get the hardware figured out I think it can be done.

I spent a lot of my life in an R&D environment. One Golden rule is never design backwards. In other words, many (possibly most) design projects will fail if the expectations (and focus) extend beyond what is known/tested (often the fault of management and accountants expecting too much ).

Start with a base setup and test it with full size bits'n'pieces - forget the touch screen etc. until later. Hook it up to a monitor, mouse, keyboard, 3.5in HDD. It'll tell you more about whether it can be done or not - the smallest bits of micro-technology took benchloads of test equipment to develop.

Cheers,
Brian