Is the via EPI fast enough (1 Viewer)

[nprzybilla]

Hi,

I think to build a mediabox.

I want to record tv (hauppauge card)
and I want to stream mp3, webradio and video from my homeserver

Is a via itx board fast enough as i read on the homepage that a cpu 1.4ghz and faster is required.

Best regards

Niels

 

[merci1983]

nprzybilla

Hello,

i use a via epia mII 10000 with 512MB and a hauppauge PVR 350.

Everything runs very well. Watching TV with or without Timeshift (a little bit stocking at the moment because i test always the latest cvs-releases - watching the recorded tv-shows with mediaplayer don´t stock).
With 0.1.0.3 it works very very well.

Also hearing radio, mp3 works great. Watching DVD, DIVx, Xvid an ogg works for me fine.

But i only use it as a htpc i dont play any games (only the tetris plugin) on this machine.

Hope this was helpfull for you. And when you want some more power there is a epia ii M12000 with 1,2 Ghz available.

cu
merci

 

[nprzybilla]

pvr

hi,

i only want a mediabox i do not even play games on my desktop.
I only want a good and small media pc in my living room

Which case do you use ?

Best regards

Niels

 

[merci1983]

At the moment i have a midi-tower (its only for testing).

A friend of me is working on an htpc dream-machine.
Here is a link to some pictures. So i (live with my bad case) and wait for finishing.

http://www.mp-forum.de/modules.php?name=coppermine&cat=10010

But when you find a nice case that is not to expencive please let me know.

cu
merci

 

[PJ]

The Via EPIA SP has onboard Mpeg2 and Mpeg4 decoders I think. It's supposed to be pretty good, can get it with a fanless cpu as well but that might be a bit slow for MP.

My next case will be a Silverstone LC11-M. Can't find any pics anymore, they had some pre CES 05, looked pretty good.

 

[PLeblanc]

100% cpu utilization for watching tv

I recently built an htpc using an MII 12000 with 1gig memory and a hauppagge 500 dual tuner board. The MII 12000 is the beefiest epia currently available so I really didn't expect problems. I was seriously disappointed.

Mpeg4 (Divx, Xvid) played great and only used about 50% of the processor, but with the NVIDIA mpeg2 codec (which many people consider the best, and certainly isn't know for being a cpu pig) I could watch DVDs with about 90% cpu utilization, but for the htpc packages, when i could watch TV, the cpu utilization was at 100%, and it was usually too choppy to watch.

Needless to say, I am pretty disappointed. Low power usage, low heat, low noise, low cost. It sounded perfect to me. I'm now thinking I'll build a system around a micro-atx with a cheap athlon, and screw power usage. Although for something that would sit in my living room and never get turned off, I'd sure appreciate responsible power consumption, but I don't think I can talk myself into paying several hundred dollars for a mobile chip.

 

[Callifo]

Have to see the fact they are low power usage which for Via has always meant poor performance (relative to intel/amd). Your 1.4ghz via chip would probably only be the equivalent of a P3 900mhz.

 

[PLeblanc]

Well... If you can wait a few months...

It's also worth noting that I am looking to build my system before July, when the broadcast flag stuff will go into effect.

As PJ pointed out, the upcoming SP and their new nano-itx mobo will both have real MPEG2 hardware decoding, and will have MPEG4 acceleration. Those boards also have some other stuff that might make them a little faster too.

But the key thing here is "If you can wait". Neither board is out yet, and apparently Via has a bit of a reputation for being late on deliverable dates. So the slated release dates of early this year might not get here in time for July. (of course if you aren't in the US then July is no hard stop for you)

 

[PLeblanc]

epia SP is out

Well, looks like the Epia SP should be in stock today for sales, so they may have missed 1Q, but not by much. It's $264 at logic supply. Same price for both the fanless 800mhz and the 1.3 ghz (with 25 db fan).

I didn't see any new news on the nano-itx.

VIA also recently announced a dual processor board, but that isn't currently available either. However, that will add beef to the processing power of the epia line once it is out.

 

[caratje]

Any update from VIA M users?

I have M1000 which I want to use for HTPC (mainly playing multimedia, probably only from HD).

Greetings,

Caratje