[mythtv-users] VIA EPIA EX for mythtv front+backend (newbie)

[Sarah Katherine Hayes]

My experience is with the much older C3-1.2Ghz (or 1Ghz, it really can't
make its mind up, sometimes it's even 900Mhz) based EPIA MII-10K.  I
have tried running it with Fedora Core, MythDora, KnoppMyth, Windows MCE
& MediaPortal and finally, Gentoo. 

Never. Ever. Again. 

They look good, low power, low noise, everything you could possibly
want... however until you start running it in anger you have no
appreciation for how gutless the Cx series of processors are, an Atom is
3x faster than the equivalent C7... lower power to from what I hear.

They aren't all that quiet, the little 40mm fans on them are cheap n'
whine like crazy.  You can of course replace them with more up market
versions although keep in mind that most mini-itx cases use 40mm fans so
make sure you buy enough to do them all. 

If you can get it to work the hardware acceleration is MPEG2 only, this,
depending on where in the world you are might be important, also the
newer chipsets seem to have near zero driver support... currently, so
you'll probably find yourself running on pure CPU grunt. 

They have a habit of using the cheapest capacitors on the boards they
can get away with, IMHO they didn't build the EPIA platform to last. But
I could level the same complaint at other, cheapo mobo producers. 

I did manage to once get it to output AC3 audio to my amp, but gave up
trying to make it do so without maxing the processor and stuttering
audio. 

Ohh and I managed to get the Rioch PC Card socket working... twice (MII
has a PC CARD socket, which was going to be my WiFi)! Yay me! Again,
gave up on that a long time ago.

Personally, get the Atom, it's cheaper, more grunty, Intel chipset,
Intel processor, should support MPEG2 hardware acceleration and hey,
it'll do a lot more than the C7 in terms of playback.