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.

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