Would this work as a cheap client?

[lotusvball]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/v...-custom-htpcs/

$89 for mb and cpu.

[KeithAbbott]

Maybe they should have included optical audio, instead of the circa 1995 rs232 serial port. Not sure I understand the design decision on that one, I guess anyone who is HDMI only is probably fine...

[that_kid]

I saw that and thought about getting one to test it out. At that price point why not. I'm hoping it at least has a SPDIF header, if not then it's useless to me.

[Fuzzy]

personally, for me, I'd much rather use HDMI for audio (which I believe it DOES have), and the serial port is of much more use to me, for controlling my TV.

[will]

I think it would work. You may have to experiment with different codecs for HD video because it may need a highly efficient codec with that processor.

[autoboy]

The main question is whether or not the chip is supported for hardware acceleration for h.264 and other codecs. The advantage of the AMD boards are that they are widely supported and much work has gone into testing them in a HTPC environment. I would spend the extra few bucks for the AMD E-350 just to save the headache of an unsupported system.

[SteveD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

personally, for me, I'd much rather use HDMI for audio (which I believe it DOES have), and the serial port is of much more use to me, for controlling my TV.

What device do you use on the serial port to control the tv and which applications.

[jptheripper]

maybe adding a $15 (after rebate) low profile pci sound card with digital audio out
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829132020

oh and btw, the press release says

the VIA VX900 MSP features the latest ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine, boasting comprehensive hardware acceleration for the latest VC1, H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV9 HD formats at screen resolutions of up to 1080p without incurring a heavy CPU load.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by SteveD

What device do you use on the serial port to control the tv and which applications.

Every HDTV I've ever owned has had a serial port on it. Every brand uses a different protocol, but for the most part, you can create a file with whatever command you want to send, and use a DOS copy command to send it to the serial port.

example for turning on a samsung tv:
Samsung-Off.bat:

@echo off
mode com3:19200,n,8,1
copy Samsung-Off.txt com3:

Samsung-Off.txt:

[jrockow]

Anyone know where you can actually order one?

[mguebert]

Originally Posted by jrockow

Anyone know where you can actually order one?

Found a couple on Ebay. Pre-order though. Supposed to be available next week.