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Wisembed's Mini-ITX based MBoX
January 14, 2003 Wisembed in South Korea sent us pictures of their Mini-ITX format motherboard, just out of Beta testing. This is intended for use in their MBox ip300 "Next generation" Windows CE.Net based DVD Player. Take a look at the close up - yes, that's a Sigma Designs EM8471 MPEG-4 Decoder chip to the right of the PCI slot! The board will support Linux and Windows (including WinCE) and uses a National Semiconductor Geode SC1200 processor running at 266Mhz. The ports are very similar to the standard EPIAs, - a VGA port, 10/100 Ethernet RJ45 port, S/PDIF, S-Video, Composite video output (PAL or NTSC), Line-Out, Line-In and Microphone-In, PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard ports, and 2 USB ports. The audio ports on the beta unit appear to be of the more audiophile-friendly phono type, and the S/PDIF and Composite Video outputs look like seperate ports. Let's hope they keep these in the final product. The 170 x 170mm board (name as yet unknown) takes two 168-pin DIMM memory sockets (supporting PC100 or PC133 RAM) and has the standard EPIA AC'97 onboard sound. We hope that Wisembed chose to produce a Mini-ITX form factor motherboard for their MBoX DVD Player with the intention of selling it separately - otherwise we might start seeing projects where people take DVD players and turn them back into PCs.. The use of a PC motherboard inside a DVD player is a very exciting development - "convergence" might just finally be happening. The MBoX represents a kind of middle ground between VIA's Hi-Fi PC concept and the new generation of media-format savvy DVD players, such as Kiss Technologies' DP-450, which recently released firmware to support Ogg Vorbis files. By using Windows CE.Net, Wisembed's product should be able to take advantage of many media codecs (DivX, XviD etc.). We're drooling. Wisembed's MBoX ip300 Next Generation DVD Player
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