[geeks] Home Made STB/HTPC

[Mark Benson]

On 4 May 2009, at 19:50, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:

> I just got a 67" TV.  I'm interested in playing stored video on it.
>
> The machine needs to be fast enough to decode 1080p video compressed  
> with a variety of algorithms, with the most processor-intensive  
> probably being H.264.  It needs to talk to my TV at its native  
> resolution of 1920x1080.  Being able to output unaltered Dolby  
> Digital and DTS sound over a digital pipe to my receiver would be a  
> huge plus.
>
> It doesn't need much storage, since I'll be streaming the video from  
> a file server.  A single PCI slot would be convenient for various  
> reasons I don't need to go into.  Low power consumption would be  
> nice.  Silence is golden.
>
> Anyone have any pointers or suggestions for me?  I'm more looking  
> for hardware tips.  I'm reasonably familiar with the software.   
> Thanks.

Worth looking out in coming months for boards using the new NVIDIA Ion  
chipset, it uses a Atom CPU and a GeForce 9300/9400m chipset. It's  
good for playing BluRay and other MPEG4-based formats without putting  
much stress on the CPU.

ZOTAC have 2 boards based around it du out this month or next I think,  
and Asus already have a mini-pc based around it circulating the press.  
ZOTAC's boards look to have a PCIe x16 slot if you need expansion, and  
are mini-ITX.

if you can't wait that long, ZOTAC also do a S775 board with a NVIDIA  
GeForce 9300 chipset that has DVI/VGA/HDMI out and Wirelss built in,  
and supports everything up to Quad Core, BUT  you won't need a hotrod  
CPU as, again, the NVIDIA chipset does a lot of the heavy lifting.

I have no idea who ZOTAC are, and have never used their products, so I  
dunno what they are like for quality. I was planning on replacing my  
current AGP board in my PC games box with one of the ITX S775 board so  
when it's decom'd next year I can use the guts for a media player box.

Hope that helps :)