PVR350 & Epia M6000/10000

[Pete]

Hi

I am a current Snapstream PVS3 user, and am looking at the pvr350 output support with envy. Being able to add a pvr350 to an Epia based platform (M6000/10000) seems a good idea.

However I have a few questions...

1) With Sage2, will the pvr350 output to tv all the Sage menus/OSDs (i.e. the entire application can be used when only viewed from the pvr350 output)?

2) I assume that with a pvr350 installed, low power cpu's can be used with ease. Would it be possible to use a pvr350 & Epia M6000/10000, and still use SageTV with high quality settings?

3) When playing a DVD, would that also be viewable from the pvr350 tv output? If so, I assume the pvr350 does the hard work of decoding the DVD stream, so again, a low power cpu is ok.

4) Would I be able to play mp3's with an Epia M6000/10000, is there enough cpu power?

5) Anybody have any comments relating to Sage & an Epia platform? (issues with mp3 playback & low spec cpu, compatibility issues etc)


Sorry for the list of questions.

Many thanks
Pete

[dkardatzke]

Here's a few answers....

1. Yes, the Menus and OSD will come through the TV-out

2. I don't see why not because the 350 will be doing the encoding and decoding all on the board (I think a number of people already use the Epia even without using the 350s TV-out.

3. There is no DVD playback support through the PVR 350 TV-out.

4. Shouldn't be a problem

5. I'll let someone else jump in here...

[IKK]

I bought the first virsion of the Epia M10000 which was actually a 933mhz chip. I bought a case from fry's that supports Minitx or micro atx. Since this was a bedroom setup for testing I went to Mini-Itx.com and bought one of those fanless 70watt powersupplies to reduce the noise of the system. I also modified the back to accept a quite fan for removing warm air. I can tell you from my experiance. The board itself works great. I can play DVDs from a full size old creative dvd player and mp3 without a problem. I have also done some movie editing on the system to remove commericals. The only problem I have found out is that with a fullsize dvd or cd player if you have that running and you start using all your resources the mechine will reboot itself. From my expericence this is a powersupply issue not a motherboard issue.

[msm]

The M10000 has enough grunt to play back DVDs using its onboard hardware assisted MPEG decoding without a problem (with an action DVD using Sonic decoders it might reach 65% CPU usage but normally hovers around the 40-50% - this is while recording at the max Sage quality too!). It will also handle MP3s without an issue. Make sure you get the nehmia (sp?) M10000 (most are now) as this has a FPU clockspeed that matches the CPU speed. I use this board with a PVR250 and Sage and it works great. I havn't played any DIVX movies with it, but from what i have read it also handles these well.

Matt

[Pete]

Thanks for the feedback, just one thing though.

"3. The only DVD playback that will be available through the 350s TV-out is for non-encrypted DVDs. I don't believe you can play encrypted DVDs because the Decoder doesn't support it."


when you say encrypted, are you referring to a region locked DVD (ie a region 1 or 2 DVD)?

Thinking about this, I assume that this is the same situation with the current release of Sage, any pvr350 owners out there who can playback a DVD via the 350 tv output?


Maybe I'll get my 350 out of my Snapstream box, and check this out myself soon.

[rrussell]

No, encrypted means basically any copyrighted DVD these days.

If you purchase DVD-playing software such as WinDVD or PowerDVD, that's what does the decrypting for you.

If you get PowerDVD, it will take advantage of the epia's hardware mpeg2 acceleration and look and run just fine (and send the sound thru the onboard digital out ;-).

Couldn't say whether or not this picture would/could then be output thru the 350 card though.

R

[Narflex]

CORRECTION: There is no DVD playback support on the PVR 350's TV output. Even for unencrypted DVDs.