I'm trying to figure out what my options would be for recording and playing over-the-air HD on my VIA EPIA box. I'd like to stick with the underpowered hardware because it's quiet and consumes less power than a traditional desktop system.

I expect that even if I get the capture portion working I'll need a separate network media player box for playback. Thought I'd bring up these questions, to see if I can do what I need with one box:

1. Is my hardware fast enough to record HD from an HDHomeRun or similar box?
2. Assuming that the EPIA is not beefy enough to play back HD, would it be an option to transcode recordings to a lower-resolution file format that the box can handle?
3. What is the file format of the video captured over the air? Are dedicated network video players like the Helios X3000 able to play these files? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, if that makes any difference.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,

Boris

While I can't say what a VIA EPIA system can/cannot do, others here may be able to. However, to answer your questions they would need to know what your actual system specifications are (CPU, memory, etc.)

I have an EPIA-M10000, which has a 1GHz VIA processor. Not sure how it compares to Intel and AMD processors, but I suspect it doesn't run as fast at the same clock speed. My system has 256MB of RAM. Does that matter? I thought encoding/decoding video is all about CPU. In any case, upgrading the system memory would be a no-brainer if it would help.

I think you're definitely going to have to use XVMC. I don't know if that completes the picture, though. You might want to make sure you are using R5E50 as it can be setup to only use XVMC for HD.

A search for EPIA-M10000 doesn't come up with anything promising - Take a look through http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8391&highlight=epiam10000 It may provide some tips.

Absolutely. The system resources as a whole will have an impact on what it can/cannot do.

Looks like you'll have to try the rig to find out if it will play HDTV back to your satisfaction - My guess is it will stutter/pause too much to be useful, but you never know...