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Jesse Guardiani wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid4436A1B8.60806@wingnet.net" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Warren wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">That's almost correct. They are not the most technical down there. The
board is made for them.
The Processor is a C3A (Nehemiah) 1Ghz. The Sigma 8475 may or may not
actually be used. There are no drivers for it in the 2.6 kernel
series. When the original board was spec'd out there was a question as
to whether the VIA processor would be able to handle the MPEG4 content
so it was added. Since everything is MPEG2 on this machine there is no
reason to assume that the 8475 is even needed. In the last version of
the software that we did for the 4000 which was written with porting to
the 5000 in mind we did not use it at all.
I do not know what video capture card was finally decided upon, but
originally the spec for the 5000 was a Hauppauge 150. If that is the
case, it explains the coax, although it would be an input, not an
output. Take a look at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vwbinc.com/pdf/MR4000%20Brochure%205-10%20web.pdf">http://www.vwbinc.com/pdf/MR4000%20Brochure%205-10%20web.pdf</a> for the
specs of the 4000. The bottom-right picture shows the i/o ports on the
4000, which are likely to be the same on the 5000. From left to right
in rows
1) composite video and stereo audio in ***Not hooked up to MPEG capture
hardware
2) Composite video and stereo audio out.
3) Y/Pb/Pr component out fed from a VT1623 which means 480p max
4) 6-channel analog audio out - This was having problems but looked to
possibly be solved on the last version of the board I have.
5) Digital audio out, both fiber and coax.
Additionally there are USB and Firewire connectors on the back and on
the front. S-Video in and out on the back, Composite and stereo input
on the front (again not hooked up to MPEG compression hardware). PCMCIA
and ISO card slots on the front. The 5000 was supposed to add a larger
HD, DVD/RW and PVR onto basically the same motherboard.
As for HD playback, it has the ability to do so from an MPEG2 source,
although scaled down to 480p. I have done that myself through xine.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The device does not have a way to input baseband HD (not surprising
but I had to ask).
It is said you can get HD programming into the machine via "USB or
network". This implies it is able to play it back but I wouldn't bet
the bank on that.
I asked what video inputs the machine has. the answer was "3
composite video, 2 S-Video, 1 coax video outputs". This answer
confuses me but it is a direct quote.
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
This looks like a really nice candidate for a mythfrontend system to an
SDTV, possibly capable
of playing back HDTV at SDTV resolutions. I assume the OS is just loaded
on the HD? Or does
it use a ROM for booting?
</pre>
</blockquote>
It's an OS on an HD. I have been trying to get one of them stable
enough to do exactly that. The added bonus of a keyboard and remote
control that are mapped to look like keyboard input without any
additional drivers is nice too, but the main problem is keeping the
damned thing stable. Removing the APM and ACPI drivers from the kernel
seems to help. I am going to try removing PCMCIA as well since mine
will be hardwired to my house network and I know that there have been
historical problems with PCMCIA on this motherboard.<br>
<br>
W<br>
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