Big news, folks -- 1008p is about to hit the minuscule PC market, and VIA's making darn sure it doesn't miss the boat. Hot on the heels of HABEY's
BIS-6550HD announcement, VIA has stepped in to formally introduce its VX855 Media System Processor, which aims to bring hardware-based 1080p decoding to VIA-based rigs. The highly integrated single chip package sucks down just 2.3 watts and provides hardware H.264 video acceleration when snapped in alongside a VIA Nano, C7 or Eden processor. Other specs include a 400 to 800MHz FSB speed, support for up to DDR2 800 memory (4GB maximum), six USB 2.0 ports and the company's own Chrome9 graphics set. There's no mention of when this bugger will find its way into shelf-bound rigs, but we're hoping Computex sheds some light on the situation.
[Via
HotHardware]
posted Mar 13th 2009 11:48AM
Is 1008p better or worse then 1080p?
I was just thinking "Can my TV display 1008p?" I sure hope so because it might be a while before I buy a new TV.
It's 12 worse, isn't it.
@ Wolfticket
can you show me the math you used to compute 1008p being 12 worse then 1080p?
((1008 / 6) + 12) * 6
There, 12 different.
@AMiSH PiRATE
Bad math. And it is "maths" not "math"
"It is often shortened to math in English-speaking North America and maths elsewhere." ...Get off your high horse.
Also, why did you say "Bad math" then instead of "Bad maths"?
Just because it is done often doesn't make it any less incorrect (although I also acknowledge the always changing nature of language).
And because I thought writing [sic] was a bit poncey.
I think I was thrown off my high horse when thought that 1080 minus 1008 was 12 ;-)
Finally, I will be able to watch high quality anime on a netbook.
Hello,
I'm 72 does 1008p want me back?
Why would I want to watch a 1080p movie on a 8.9 - 10 inch 1024x600 display?
The chip is for media systems, not netbooks. Hence the title, "VIA's VX855 Media System Processor handles the 1080p."
If your netbook come with HDMI you may use it as your HTPC
Why it's not for netbooks?
1008p thats new...
Doubt they'll miss the boat if they are the first to handle 1008p!
At first I was like:
"HOLY SHIT, 1080p for MIDs and Cellphones?!" *glee*
But then I read that it was for PCs, and thought:
"So?"
1080p would be pointless on an MID or cell phone. But in a small, cool-running set-top box type media pc, this would be great.
2.3W to play 1080p, along side a Nano processor makes for a cool, quite, and (hopefully) cheap system.
"The highly integrated single chip package sucks down just 2.3 watts and provides hardware H.264 video acceleration when snapped in alongside a VIA Nano, C7 or Eden processor."
It's meant for a low-power, fanless HTPC.
There are a few china players (onda, ainol, and some others..) that can play 1080p right now. The only thing is you have to sacrifice user interface and US based support... I think mp4nation.net has a few for sale, check it out.
Yeah, you see, that's not that big of a deal for me, a media center would still need a harddisk a disk drive and a couple more things, so it'll still need some extra space.
And I don't really care how much it uses (up to a certain limit that is), aside from that, I doubt this'll be able to handle all codecs.
But yeah, fanless would be nice, but still most fans are silent enough so you don't hear them.
And as for cellphones/MIDs, a portable media center with some nice storage would be really nice.
You know, I was never excited by anything Via produced. Now, with the Nano and this, I'm starting to look in Via's direction. Via is showing some real promise these days.
Anything to give Intel some competition since AMD has stumbled lately.
In case anyone is oblivious, HDDVD's were using a specialized Pentium 4 chip that sucked down 20X the power. Go VIA!
can it do VC-1 as well? h264 isn't the only codec on blurays
Not many use VC-1, do they?
That said - did they actually say it supports Blu-ray? Doesn't say in the post above. I suspect it might be like Intel where it can do 1080p but only shit internet quality 1080p and not full Blu-ray quality...
Man Intel is so f***'ed. If the push hard to compete with Via and Nvidia they end up eating into their full price chip sales. If they don't, they lose marketshare in the only part of the computer space that is expanding right now.
Presumably, since this isn't really relevant to netbooks, and the HTPC space is really small, they'll just let this happen. But once Via gets a foothold there netbooks are clearly on the way, and Intel's going to have a tough time stopping them.
Should be an interesting year.
Chrome9? That means it doesn't do DirectX 10.1 ?
That makes it no good for the next generation of netbooks because Windows 7 will run like crap on it .. will Windows 7's Aero even work?
Yeah, but what kind of deinterlacing can it do? Seriously. 1080p is nice, but there's more than BRD out there.
All of these solutions from GPU guys either do nothing but BOB or they choke on poorly authored content even of they do handle film detection.
I'm sick of hearing about hardware accelerated 1080p video from the likes of nVidia and Via. The problem is that you need a codec that has been written to advantage of hardware acceleration and in the case of nVidia's Pure Video this means buying WinDVD or PowerDVD. Most people don't have these players and so video decoding is still done on their processor.
In my opinion if companies like nVidia are going to claim 1080p video decoding and slap nVidia PureVideo logos all over the website and product boxes then they should be shipping a hardware accelerated codec with the cards that allows you to take advantage of the feature. As it is hardly anyone is getting any benefit from hardware accelerated video decoding and so it's pretty much just worthless marketing.
@Charles, even though the software's a bit behind on Windows, the tech is mostly there on the Linux side via VDPAU. I've read reports of MythTV users getting full 2x AA via BOB or Temporal using run of the mill CPUs and 9xxx series fanless PCI cards.
I was gonna come in and say that this hardware is nice in theory, but without the software to back it up it's just marketing. But it sounds like others have already said that :-)
Of course VX855 can be used on Netbooks or MID or mini-note...whatever. It's a NB-SB integrated computer chipset that needs only 2.3 Watts and NO heat sink on it.
Google is really amzing. I just google VX855 and an interesting thing shows up.
http://www.tct.hk/3G.htm
Take a look.