Any try/use EPIA VIA M10000 with beyondTV3+PVR250

[AVElec]

Hi everyone,

Wonder if anyone here using the EPIA VIA M10000 system with beyondTV3+PVR250. I just bought the Motherboard and thinking about using it as my HTPC. Thanks in advance for the input.

[Bill Sanders]

I have had good success running BTV 3.4 Build 1334 on my EPIA 10000. I am using an Hauppauge PVR-250 for video capture from an RCA satellite receiver. In order to get satisfactory performance, you must download and install the latest PVR-250 drivers and purchase and install PowerDVD 5. After installing PowerDVD, start it and configure it to use hardware decoding. The PowerDVD MPEG-2 decoder seems to be the only decoder that uses the Via MPEG-2 decoding assist hardware successfully. When configuring BTV, select the PowerDVD decoder.

I can now, for the first time, record DVD quality video, play the video and even time-shift with no dropped frames. Wow!!

FWIW, I am using both the Hauppauge remote and a Logitech cordless mouse to control BTV locally. I am using Windows 2000 as the operating system.

[archie]

have you tried using this tweak instead of powerdvd? just curious if it would work (it should since it is the same decoder) since it is free with the pvr 250.

thanks, archie

[Bill Sanders]

Originally posted by archie
have you tried using this tweak instead of powerdvd? just curious if it would work (it should since it is the same decoder) since it is free with the pvr 250.

thanks, archie

It is not the same decoder. Hauppauge distributes the InterVideo decoder. I did try the tweak with BTV 3.4.3. I was able to get a speed-up, but not sufficient to make viewing acceptable.

I (together with others) had been pestering SnapStream about the fact that the PowerDVD decoder wouldn't workwith BTV. When I heard about the 3.4.4 beta, I immediately downloaded and installed it. Lo-and-behold, the log said that it was using the PowerDVD decoder!! And my viewing was wonderful!!

(I just realized that I haven't tried playing a file and recording simultaneously. I'll try that tonight and report.)

[Bill Sanders]

I tried recording an hour-long program whilst playing back another prerecorded program. It seems to work perfectly. This seems to me to be quite impressive for an M10000. Clearly the
Hauppauge hardware encoding and the Via hardware decoding make an enormous difference. And I must give credit to SnapStream for continuing to evolve and improve their product.

I now believe that all of my criteria are satisfied: small, inexpensive and quiet hardware and software with convenient scheduling that will capture and replay DVD quality video.

Also, FWIW, I find VNC quite handy. After initially installing Windows 2000 with a monitor attached, I have moved my BTV computer to my living room, where it hides behind the stereo cabinet next to my TV. Any time I need to use a keyboard for updates or configuration, I just use VNC to connect to it from the PC in my home office. Of course, the hard drive on the BTV computer is shared, so I can copy software updates to the BTV computer and retrieve recorded programs from it for burning to DVDs.

I also really appreciate the remote access that BTV provides via my web browser.

[krnlhkr]

I was looking for just this kind of thing when I came across your guys' thread. Cool!

What kind of cases are you using? I'm looking for a small box like the Shuttle, or a pizzabox type. Any recommendations for cases for this board?

Alternatively, is there a barebones/preconfigured version available? I looked at Shuttle, but it didn't seem like they were using this board.

Finally, is anyone using this that is re-encoding recorded shows to Divx/WMV? Or does the PVR-250 do this?

Thanks in advance!

[peter]

krnlhkr,

check out www.mini-itx.com

[Bill Sanders]

I am using a FIC Falcon CR53 and I love it! It is very small, quite quiet and very inexpensive. It comes with the M10000 mother board and a DVD drive, but no memory or hard drive. I added 256 mb of RAM and a 120 gb, 7200 RPM hard drive. I believe that FIC has stopped manufacturing them, but a quick search of Yahoo Shopping showed several listings for them. Hopefully you will be able to hunt one down, if you are interested.

The only problem is that a PVR-250 is too tall to fit in the case. I solved the problem by cutting a slot in the case top. The PVR-250 does not protrude - the top is just below the surface of the case. If you are interested, I could post a photo showing what I did.

I believe that it was worth the effort, since the Falcon is smaller and better looking (IMHO) than the cubes. Here is a photo. It is designed to also lay horizontally and looks quite good in a stereo cabinet.

Here is a photo I snagged from the internet:

[AVElec]

Hi everyone, thanks for the replies. I have the same Falcom system. However, since I didn't get any reply after a few days after I posted the question, I have ordered new parts to built a full blown system (P4-3.0). I will be using the Falcon for my carPC. Thanks again for all the replies.

[krnlhkr]

Yes, all, thanks for the great info. Looks like I will be building myself an M10000 settop box soon!

I could put it in the old TiVo box I'm no longer using because I have snapstream

[AnthonyC]

Hi Bill,

I've been looking at switching from my loud Ice Cube to a fanless VIA system.

I have both the WinTV PVR USB 2.0 and PCI 250 card and I always run showsqueeze (MPEG-2 best quality to WMV Near VHS) and it's very quick on the P4 2.8GHZ (30min show takes 39-45mins).

Do you have any benchmarks or experiences on running showsqueeze with the M10000? If it's anything less than 10fps then it's not going to be up to the job for me.

Thanks!

[Bill Sanders]

Originally posted by AnthonyC
Hi Bill,

I've been looking at switching from my loud Ice Cube to a fanless VIA system.

I have both the WinTV PVR USB 2.0 and PCI 250 card and I always run showsqueeze (MPEG-2 best quality to WMV Near VHS) and it's very quick on the P4 2.8GHZ (30min show takes 39-45mins).

Do you have any benchmarks or experiences on running showsqueeze with the M10000? If it's anything less than 10fps then it's not going to be up to the job for me.

Thanks!

Anthony,

I don't think you will happy. I believe the fanless VIA runs at 600 mHz. I am using the 1 gHz version which has a small and relatively quiet fan. I read somewhere that the VIA processors are extra slow in decompressing and compressing video. I am using the Hauppage hardware MPEG-2 encoding and the VIA hardware MPEG-2 decoding and this keeps the CPU pretty busy. Compressing to WMV might take days with the VIA processor.

My computer is dedicated to it's PVR task, so it isn't a problem for me. And I prefer keeping my recordings in MPEG-2. If I did want to recode video, I would upload it to my P4 computer.

[AnthonyC]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the reply. I know that VIA announced a new fanless 1GHZ chip recently with (I think) better hardware support for MPEG-2, but I have not seen anyone stocking it yet.

Now with Hauppauge announcing DIVX integration into their products I suppose it's just a matter of time before we get our perfectly silent but powerful systems.

In the meantime, it's my parents who have to put up with the noise and blue LED of the Ice Cube in their living room back in the UK. Although I may only record two or three shows a night and the conversion to WMV is really fast, the system has to keep running for another 5 or 6 hours for me to FTP the files over to my home here in NYC.

For anyone else with the problem of having a noisy PC running longer for file access than recording/compressing I think I've found a pretty cool solution for a silent FTP server. Before hibernating, BeyondTV could move the WMV files to FIC's MAAT server (http://www.fica.com/site/html/produc...C_ID=240000612) which has a 20gig HD, runs FTP, webserver, firewall, has both 802.11, & 4 LAN ports, and is linux powered with a Crusoe 500Mhz processor. And it's small and fanless!!!!! I think it's also a good choice for families wanting to pool their media into one place.

[kevink]

I have the same setup(M1000 with BTV PVR250 on XPpro) using PowerDVD 4.0 with the BTV 3.4.4 release and my live tv viewing is terrible. What version of PowerDVD are you using and did you have to do anything special to get it to work with BTV?

PowerDVD 4.0 player on this platform by itself and can play DVD's and hard drive-based MPG's just fine with no issues when 'hardware assist' is selected in PowerDVD. Anywhere from 50%~85% CPU.

Anyone else get a M10000 mini-itx based platform to work correctly with a BTV/PVR250 combo?

At first BTV would not show the PowerDVD codec as a available selection but could after I added it to the XML file(see Via Epia working)

Editing the file to reflect the PowerDVD4 and GUID I can now select it but BTV still does not seem to be able to use it as the log shows a number to errors.

Originally Posted by Bill Sanders

I tried recording an hour-long program whilst playing back another prerecorded program. It seems to work perfectly. This seems to me to be quite impressive for an M10000. Clearly the
Hauppauge hardware encoding and the Via hardware decoding make an enormous difference. And I must give credit to SnapStream for continuing to evolve and improve their product.

I now believe that all of my criteria are satisfied: small, inexpensive and quiet hardware and software with convenient scheduling that will capture and replay DVD quality video.

Also, FWIW, I find VNC quite handy. After initially installing Windows 2000 with a monitor attached, I have moved my BTV computer to my living room, where it hides behind the stereo cabinet next to my TV. Any time I need to use a keyboard for updates or configuration, I just use VNC to connect to it from the PC in my home office. Of course, the hard drive on the BTV computer is shared, so I can copy software updates to the BTV computer and retrieve recorded programs from it for burning to DVDs.

I also really appreciate the remote access that BTV provides via my web browser.

[SHS]

I would wait and see how new VIA EPIA SP 13000 pan out but just one problem it has only one PCI slot.