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In the small form factor graphics market, Nvidia’s Ion has been stealing the headlines lately, but it turns out VIA might be gearing up to give them a run for their money. Built on a new standard known as “Pico-ITXe”, the company has released their EPIA-P710, which claims to be capable of full 1080p video playback using nothing more than passive cooling. Of course we were skeptical at first, but they have finally backed up their claims by posting a short clip on YouTube showing the board in action.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this new part is how full featured it is given the size. It sports 3 USB 2.0 ports, has both SATA and IDE, as well as Gigabit Ethernet support. As you might expect, the current build is pared up with a VIA C7 1.0 GHz processor, but apparently this is still more than enough to handle anything the VX855 Media System Processor can’t handle video wise.
Looks like this might make for a decent Home Theatre PC motherboard, but we won't know until we see one for ourselves. What do you think?
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Shalbatana
September 21, 2009 at 2:55pm
Though there's no mention of std def. the ability to play it is miniscule compared to HD 1080p, and can probably be handled through software. Though the presention mentions public displays, not htpc's, so I'm curious if they think it would be good as such. If so then I think this is an insanely awesome product. One major issue with htpc's is the size of the box. Now you can have one the size of your $30 dvd player.
My interest is piqued.
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nlandas
September 21, 2009 at 9:47am
This isn't necessarily about the EPIA but the world of HTPC in general. We all need to push the FCC for a new open HD tuning standard. NTSC being open is what allowed the market to develop all kinds of AV technology. All of which could tune normal TV broadcasts. With the advent of HD broadcast, each cable/sattellite company has been alowed to use it's own closed tuning standards.
Requiring the public to rent cable boxes, PVR, etc. strait from them while excluding vendors from making products capable of tuning into the channels they provide. All under the guise of preventing channel theft, when in reality leading to exclusionary marketing of their own products.
We should be able to build a HTPC using software like BeyondTv, SageTV or Media Center and be able to buy an off the shelf tuner to tune any channels that we pay for.
Perhaps, CableCard 2.0 is the answer but IMNSHO the FCC needs to force all cable/sattellite providers to support one tuning standard and any vendor needs to be able to build support into their product for that standard. Unlike the current CableCard debacle where only pre-built BIOS certified systems are allowed.
The end result is that you can't afford a cable card PC and it locks the average person out of building a HTPC to tune HD content. This is anti-competitive and will lead to less products being available in the HD tuning arena.
We are all stuck with using the "analog hole" to be able to tune HD content. Come on FCC, it's one thing to allow protection to content - it's another to allow the cable/sattellite providers to force us all to buy not only their service but also their hardware. I hope that together we can all turn some heads.
If you have time, write the FCC today to call for an opening of HD tuning standards to the public.
Yusonice
September 21, 2009 at 3:21am
Whats the point of small motherboards? Adding Sata will make it bigger. I think its best to stick to micro atx with good casing. its economical too. Motherboards are all so flat and dont occupy much volume!
Havok
September 21, 2009 at 5:25am
While mobos are flat, a gpu isn't. And rolling with mATX is still large. (as in the sese that your HTPC is about the size of an old XBOX :P)This type of PC would own at my place. My parents would love this for a computer. Theoretically, you could make an HTPC, oh say the size of a Gamecube, about the size of a lunch box.
OMGWTFBBQ
logicmaster2003
September 20, 2009 at 8:22pm
yea I think Taiwanese technology is leveling with that of Japanese / Korean's. In my opinion, this is the real breakthru that will replace PC-based HomeEntertainmentCenter (not Gamer PC). Its got ethernet port so samba user is sold on this, and, its got usb port so all usb-harddrive-collector will be sold on this as well. But the best thing I liek about this.. no FAN and low power consumption !
nsk chaos
September 20, 2009 at 5:59pm
sounds like this mobo is like the perfect htpc mobo - at least on a term of size - that only does what an htpc should do...
Elucidate
September 20, 2009 at 1:28pm
As long as the heat issues are equally solved, as these mobo get smaller, the application of these devices will expanded into so many aspects, it will be very interesting to watch.
Given how computers seem to be taking two directions, computational power, and size. I'd like to see MPC start assessing CPU and MOBO stats for both the ATX and high end CPU's and the Pico, Nano, etc. and the miniaturized low voltage cpu's (but still ranking them based on computational speeds, not just how small or low voltage they can run)
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QUINTIX256
September 20, 2009 at 5:26am
But can it play YouTube HD? Can it even do YouTube High Quality?
Seriously, just about all video that isn't ripped, stolen, or loaded from an optical disc is played though a flash video player that does all the video decoding in software, hd or not.
When will adobe finally take advantage of hardware video?
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visibly_stealthy
September 19, 2009 at 11:26pm
People need to start thinking in a broader spectrum..........think about it like this maybe someone wants only to have, as maxPC has already said, a home theatre pc. This can probably be had at a fraction of the price it would take to build a new computer or to even just upgrade your current gpu. Do you think someone that wants to only play hd video is gonna want to pay all that extra$?
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logicmaster2003
September 19, 2009 at 9:35pm
how come they (taiwan) had to hire a caucasian to do the speaking ? They should start loving their own race - looks isnt everything !
-it-
September 19, 2009 at 9:52pm
i think its cuz most taiwanese people who speak english, speak chingish.
The1jchr1st1an
September 20, 2009 at 9:51am
yea, they want to tell the world about it not each other.
zulfy26
September 19, 2009 at 5:27pm
It can play HD Video, but that's probably about all it can do. Try to play any DirectX/OpenGL games and it would crumble.
MeTo
September 19, 2009 at 9:37pm
Who cares? If you want to play Crysis buy a real computer. Nothing i heard saw or read indicated that this was to play games. Get over Crysis.
mattman059
September 20, 2009 at 5:41am
It was totally a joke....some people are just hard asses..lol..
bikerbub
September 19, 2009 at 4:55pm
that chipset on a normal board might be able to, but not with that 1.0Ghz proc!
