[ale] OT: Neat media pc

[Richard Bronosky]

About the HDMI, it's common for video cards/chipsets, discrete or
onboard, to carry only video. Audio comes from a different device and
merging them, well I don't think it should be difficult but I guess
it's easier not to. Also, HDMI does not carry any analog signal, where
most DVI outputs are DVI-I which includes analog that can drive VGA
with an _adapter_. Since the GPU of course is digital, an analog
signal requires a D-to-A _converter_. So HDMI saves money (ignoring
any technology licensing)

Ultimately I love it. I want a MythTV front end that I can velcro to
the back of my TV. You are, however, paying quite a premium for the
size. It's the price and size of a similarly spec'ed netbook, even
though it lacks storage and a screen.

I have visited the DVI vs VGA issue before I joined ALE.
http://www.bronosky.com/?p=54

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Brian Pitts <brian at polibyte.com> wrote:
> If anyone is looking for a low cost, low power PC that can be easily
> hidden by their television to play back HD video, today I stumbled
> across something [0] that seems to fit the bill- the Fit-PC2. It's tiny
> (4" x 4.5" x 1.05", 13 ounces), fanless, and only uses 8W of power at
> full load. Pricing starts at $245 without a hard disk or wifi. With both
> of those and Ubuntu installed, the cost is $360. The specifications are
> below:
>
> Intel Atom Z510 (1.1 Ghz) or Z530 (1.6 Ghz) CPU
> Intel US15W chipset (aka Poulsbo)
> GMA 500 video
> 1GB DDR2-533 RAM
> Internal bay for 2.5" SATA HDD
> miniSD socket
> Line-out, line-in, mic
> 1000 BaseT Ethernet
> 802.11g WLAN
> 6 USB 2.0 High Speed ports
> Programmable consumer IR receiver
> Bootable from HDD, USB thumb drive, USB CDROM, USB hard disk, over network
>
> The neat thing about the Poulsbo chipset is that the GPU can be used to
> accelerate decoding MPEG-4 video if you use software that supports VA
> API [1] and you can stomach binary blobs [2]. Supposedly 1080P h.264
> playback uses less than 50% of the cpu
>
> The only weird thing about it is that it uses an HDMI connector for the
> video output, but not the audio.
>
> [0] http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA_API
> [2] http://gma500.wiki-site.com/index.php/Main_Page
>
> --
> All the best,
> Brian Pitts
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> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>



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