Mini-ITX VIA board...? (1 Viewer)

[BKCH]

Hi All - am thinking of picking up a VIA MII-12000 LVDS motherboard to build a new HTPC for use with MP. But I'm not sure if the 1.2Ghz CPU will do the job.

I really like the form-factor and the 1 fan design but I don't want to build it if I'm likely to get jumpy images etc because of CPU performance - I'd prefer to pick a bigger case to fit in a higher capability processor.

I plan to use a PVR-350 for analog capture from pay tv (Foxtel) STB and TV out.
I also want to use a PCMCIA digital DVB-T card for Digital TV

I don't plan to play games etc but I will want to time shift and watch DVDs.

I'm thinking of 512Mb of RAM.

I'm thinking of using this case: http://www.genius-pc.com/pro_01.html - which looks great.

Anyone got any experience with this type of setup???

 

[CHli]

Just a note : The TV-Output of the PVR-350 cannot be used with MP atm (but it's planned).

 

[BKCH]

Hmmm I didn't realise that - thanks for letting me know

So perhaps I'd be better off with the VIA SP8000E - can MP use the mpeg2 decoder on that board??

I guess that is a concern because it is only 800Mhz CPU...

 

[Callifo]

Yeh they wont do, people on here had too many problems trying to use these boards properly. I think even the 1.2Ghz model struggles because the onboard video card doesnt support DX8.1/9.

 

[FlipGer]

Hi,

please do an search on EPIA in this board. I personally can not recommend such a board. The onBoard graphics card (and the VIA support for that chip) simply is crap. It does not support DX9 and has problems with overlay and big problems with VMR9. Since MP works best with DX9 and VMR9 you better choose another board. Or you could use a riser card for two PCI slots and install an extra PCI graphics card.

Flip.

 

[sdellutri]

You may want to check out the VIA SP13000 motherboard instead of the MII12000;

Its only a little faster on the clock rate, but its memory performance is much better; Also it has an updated video interface on board.

I am currently using one of these motherboards in my CarPC and reasonably happy with it.

Hope this helps.
SD