Tuesday, September 7th 2010

VIA Introduces EPIA-M850 Mini-ITX Board, Packs Multimedia Muscle

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA-M850 Mini-ITX board, the first board to feature the latest VIA VX900 media system processor, creating the ideal solution for today's HD-intensive, commercial multimedia-centric devices.

The VIA EPIA-M850 is targeted at OEM and ODM manufacturers of commercial multimedia embedded devices. Featuring a 64-bit, high performance VIA Nano E-Series processor and the VIA VX900 unified all-in-one media system processor, the VIA EPIA-M850 delivers a highly optimized platform that boasts comprehensive HD video performance, HD audio and HDMI support in a compact, power-efficient package.
"The VIA EPIA-M850 will enable the creation of a wealth of next generation, HD-ready commercial devices," said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "The VIA VX900 MSP offers comprehensive support of today's multimedia technologies, bringing vivid HD content to life without incurring heavy power usage or resorting to dedicated decoding hardware."

VIA EPIA-M850: Mini-ITX with Multimedia Muscle
Measuring 17cm x 17 cm the VIA EPIA-M850 Mini-ITX board features the VIA Nano E-Series processor, available in both 1.6GHz and fanless 1.2GHz SKUs. The VIA Nano E-series is paired for the first time with the VIA VX900 MSP, supporting up to 8GB of DDR3 system memory and featuring the VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor.

The VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine boasts comprehensive hardware acceleration for the latest VC1, H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV9 HD formats at screen resolutions of up to 1080p without affecting CPU load. Display connectivity support includes onboard HDMI and VGA ports with pin headers for dual channel 24-bit LVDS.

The VIA VX900 boasts the VIA Chrome9 HCM 3D integrated graphics core with full DirectX 9.0 support and a 128-bit 2D engine with hardware rotation capability. The VIA VX900 also features the VIA Vinyl HD audio codec. Storage includes ports for two SATA drives.

Rear panel I/O includes a Gigabit LAN ports, PS/2 support, HDMI port, VGA port, four USB 2.0 ports, a serial port connector and three audio jacks. An on board a PCIe x4 slot is accompanied with pin headers providing dual channel 24-bit LVDS support (including backlight control), an additional three COM ports, a further four USB 2.0 ports and one USB device port, LPC support, Digital I/O, SPDIF out and an SMBus header.

VIA EPIA-M850 Product Highlights:
  • High-performance 64-bit VIA Nano-E Series processor
  • Hardware acceleration for VC1, H,264 and WMV9 HD video
  • On board HDMI and VGA ports, plus dual channel 24-bit LVDS
  • Support for up to 8GB of DDR3

For more information about the VIA EPIA-M850, please visit this page.
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2 Comments on VIA Introduces EPIA-M850 Mini-ITX Board, Packs Multimedia Muscle

#1
Baum
nice more hardware video accelerators ^^
h264 on broadcom crystal hd is fun but this might be good for netbooks....

wheres the power consumtion and the capabilitys like profiles for h.264?

[EDIT]
OMG i read the datasheet and ... Why the hell on earth did you integrate the hd acceleration in the crappy chrome hc onboard IGP?
It should have been an coprocessor instead, the pci-e port is useless now i could buy another nano board with pci-e slot and slap an nvidia cuda capable gpu on it, way easyier than messing with via video driver...
Posted on Reply
#2
Champ
I have a project I'm working on and I just brought one of their older boards:shadedshu I didn't realize they were still making newer ones. I'll update it later. I'd imagine the power consumption is fairly high.
Posted on Reply
Apr 26th, 2024 03:12 EDT change timezone

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