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Via Debuts Mini-ITX 2.0
DeviceGuru writes "Via Technologies has launched the second generation of its signature mini-motherboard standard. Mini-ITX 2.0, an evolutionary update to the seven-year-old 170×170mm form-factor, introduces new and emerging buses and interfaces such as PCI Express, SATA, Gig-E, and HD A/V, while preserving backwards-compatibility with the original standard. Mini-ITX has been a popular form-factor for a range of space-constrained hobbyist and commercial applications."
I have one at home not because I'm "space-constrained" - but because it really nice and small Linux server which does everything I nee from it.
Thanks to fanless design, loudest part of the rig is hard drive. That, along with minimalistic power consumption, makes it very suitable for always-on system. I use it for back-ups and some performance-oriented development and it is just bliss.
The only downside of buying Mini-ITX, is that it's very hard to find suitable components as well as good case. Selection isn't very wide and prices often bite.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Go directly to VIA's website.
Seriously, there's no ads on deviceguru's page so what's the fucking point?
I'm doing just fine with MythTV on a 1.0Ghz fanless board. I can record two SD shows at once while watching a third, all from a single hard drive. Just be sure to use the Openchrome video driver if you want playback to be watchable.
This was announced on the 5th of this month, and already been featured on some news sites.
Asides from that I like that we're getting an easy option for hdmi-out - it's one of the things that have been holding me back from using this in my sitting room :)
A PS/2 KVM switch is common when one uses more than one of these convenient little boards. USB KVM switching is not nearly as ubiquitous.
www.logicsupply.com
AverMedia M780 is a dual-tuner PCIe X1 card whose driver allows it to be used as a hardware MPEG decoder for DVD or Blu-Ray. Coincidentally, it gives the best reception of any card I've ever used. Unfortunately, as of right now it does not work under Linux, but a 1.5GHz C7 w/ 2GB of RAM and the onboard Via graphics is powerful enough to run Vista Ultimate edition with Aero turned on at S-Video or component video 480p resolution. Not that you'd actually use that particular OS. (Well, my HTPC is running it, but I got a free copy through my work MSDN subscription.) It's probably not powerful enough for 1080p, but you can install a discrete graphics card if you prefer.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Obviously he was really asking for something like IPMI enabled by default, that way we can get rid of the legacy serial port, ps/2 ports, and power button...
jh
If you get the boards based on the ATOM reference platform you will notice that it contains both serial and, get this, a PARALLEL port.
Seriously, the parallel and serial ports are for embedded applications. It's much easier to use those 8 bits on the parallel port for dry contact control. And most small embedded controllers have serial interfaces.
Why does it have to be legacy free? This is not supposed to be JUST a consumer computer platform.
It's supposed to be both a consumer platform as well as an embedded platform and you can't be an embedded platform if you're legacy free.
Kriston
Remember to get a TV Tuner that does MPEG encoding onboard. For recording two shows at once, you'll need something like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 500. With a card like this, your processor will hardly get used at all in the encoding process.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The small form factor is all very well, but the previous generation of boards simply didn't do what they claimed to. HDTV and H.264 decoding in hardware are supposed to work, but are unsupported, for example.
When you look at the high cost of these boards and the special cases and PSUs for them, combined with terrible performance (both CPU and components like gigabit ethernet or SATA) I can't see why anyone would want one. You can build a faster, cheaper and just as low power system using a cheap underclocked and undervolted Sempron and mATX mobo, with only a slightly larger (and much cheaper) case.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Agreed. I'm running KnoppMyth on a 700 MHz Celeron. Encoding is fine - the Hauppauge PVR-150 handles it without a hitch. The machine can just barely handle playback, but my MacBook makes a nice, fast frontend.
I'll have to try your suggestion of video driver to see if it improves playback performance.
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