ITX boards, Mpeg 4, and me.

[quizzelbuck]

I am looking to buy an ITX board for a tiny PC im building as a media center. specifically:
http://www.idotpc.com/TheStore...egory=38&idproduct=482

or even http://www.ewayco.com/20-low-c...a-embedded-boards.html

Or some thing similar. Could some one tell me in plain english, because i am unlearned on this, what does mpeg 4 acceleration mean to a layman? is there and reason this board wont do HD 1080p files? i mean, the processor is 1.5 ghz (practically, though, its more like 1.2 ghz) but its claiming mpeg4 acceleration. Is this thing going to play high quality H264 files? im not talking the final render being 1080p pixle count. Just decoding with out jitters.

 

[v8envy]

Exactly what you said -- the video on the board contains hardware which can be used with some software to offload at least some decoding of H264 encoded files. Sounds like it wont' help you with VC-1 though.

A 1.5 ghz single core via CPU has no chance in hell of decoding a blue-ray dvd in real time without serious help. The amount of help varies by video card. Some offload only motion compensation, others do most of the work including decrypting the data from the disk. I'm going to guess that board+cpu isn't going to work for you.

My guess: 480p no problem. 720p, probably only low bit rate files from the 'net. 1080p from a commercial disk -- no chance in hell.

 

[quizzelbuck]

The blue ray thing sounds about right. Probably never going to happen with out an HD processor like an ATI 2400 or an 8 series Nvidia.

hm.... i have managed to find a PCI-e board with a slot and every thing. If any one has any recommendations for low end HD cards, like a cheap a HD 2x00 series from ATI, id be all about it. as it stands, new egg is a bit lacking on that smaller cards with low power consumption.