So far, my plan is to build an ITX-based HTPC with an All-In-Wonder 9100 (PCI) for video processing, and an Audigy 2 for audio, an undetermined high-capacity hard drive for storage, and a Sony DW-U10A drive to read/write on all known formats for TV shows and other media I plan to record. All I need is to choose the core that's going to run this project.
Now I know there's a P4-based ITX board, which is my leading candidate, and I know Commel intends to release (eventually) an Athlon ITX board, but there's also the super quiet VIA 1GHz Nehemiah to consider.
Obviously the P4's and Athlons have the juice for the job. But what about the VIA? I intend to encode MPEG video, do real time recordings of TV shows and write them to DVD or VCD - in other words, I'm using this box as a DVD player, VCR, and receiver. I've heard the earlier versions of the VIA embedded processors had troubles running DVD's, which doesn't sound too promising. But that was without the aid of Radeon, which has MPEG decoding capabilities on-board.
Since the system will be running much of the time, heat may be an issue. But then, so is power. It needs to have enough to do the job under Windows XP and start up in an acceptable timeframe.
-J
Now I know there's a P4-based ITX board, which is my leading candidate, and I know Commel intends to release (eventually) an Athlon ITX board, but there's also the super quiet VIA 1GHz Nehemiah to consider.
Obviously the P4's and Athlons have the juice for the job. But what about the VIA? I intend to encode MPEG video, do real time recordings of TV shows and write them to DVD or VCD - in other words, I'm using this box as a DVD player, VCR, and receiver. I've heard the earlier versions of the VIA embedded processors had troubles running DVD's, which doesn't sound too promising. But that was without the aid of Radeon, which has MPEG decoding capabilities on-board.
Since the system will be running much of the time, heat may be an issue. But then, so is power. It needs to have enough to do the job under Windows XP and start up in an acceptable timeframe.
-J
