Mini-ITX does double display duty
VX800 chipset debuts
VIA TECHNOLOGIES today announced the VIA EPIA M700 Mini-ITX board, the first to feature the VX800 chipset, for digital signage and retail display systems.
The board comes with a 1.5GHz or a 1.0GHz fanless C7 processor and a Chrome9 HC3 integrated graphics core for DirectX 9.0 3D graphics and up to six-channel surround sound, while the Chromotion video engine provides hardware video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DivX video, plus a VMR capable HD video processor.
It flings files using two PCI-Express based Gigabit LAN ports and has a front panel DVI port, pin headers for an additional DVI or HDMI port through a daughterboard and support for 18-bit TTL displays.
Digital video input is available through pin headers supporting CCIR-656/601//transport stream video, and there is also an S/PDIF connector.
Storage is taken care of by an IDE port with a shared Type I Compact Flash ports, 2 SATA II ports and up to 6 USB 2.0 ports, two through onboard connectors.
Samples will be available in early June to project customers and in channel distribution later.
L'Inq
Via
Comments
Don't buy this board if you've any sense
I've had a Via EX15000 sitting in the cupboard for the last year.Like many of via's boards this is sold as supporting linux/mpeg2/4.vc1 etc.
Don't believe it for a second - the hardware may well support all the stuff that these press releases make out but good luck ever finding drivers that enable any of it.
it's not "Mpeg-4" its ....
"MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DivX video, plus a VMR capable HD video processor"stuart there is NO SUCH THING AS "MPEG-4" video....
there IS "Mpeg4-part2" , aka DivX/Xvid.
and there IS "Mpeg4-part10" aka AVC,H.264, or even at a pinch, Mpeg4-AVC
also as a side note, WMV^ is NOT a Video Codec, its a container....
i expact this salesman type trick to use "Mpeg4" to sell and clear out their old antiquated kit while we wait for the real deal AVC En/Decoder kit, but not from the likes of our tech news sites.
please try and use at least the short "AVC" version name if your talking about the latest Mpeg4-part10 video codec standard....
price
Via have about 85 different ITX based boards, when all they really need is ONE that's sold en-masse at the right price.It's cheaper by FAR to get a mini atx board and a base Pentium Duo.
So, why do these racing snails cost so much more?
Is it the complexity of the boards? The extra crap they cram on that only a few % of people will want? What is it?
I've been watching VIA slowly release slug after slug at the price of a greyhound and waiting for that critical price to performance ratio to become more realistic.
Dont get me wrong, I dont really want massive performance. But I dont want to pay Ferrari prices for a Hyundai.
*note* that reference was supposed to be relating to cars. Hard to tell these days though really.
SM replies [back off buddy. I drive a Hyundai]