NES Retro Media Center

I know I have said it before but now I will now wait any longer. The brand new VIA EPIA-P820 with the new 64-Bit Nano processor, have a look at there homepage! Since the board is so new it is hard to find resellers that ship to Sweden but the VIA’s Facebook group have helped me a lot.

So far I think these shops will ship to Sweden:

• http://via-itx.com/via-amos-3000-series.html
• www.mini-tft.de

Finally! This is what I have been looking for: “The fanless VIA EPIA-P720 Pico-ITX provides superb hardware acceleration for HD media over native HDMI at resolutions of up to 1080p”. Now I just need to find a reseller or should I wait to the new VIA Nano 3000 64-bit CPU? :)

It is not every day VIA releases new products. The 27 of June 2008 VIA released a new Pico-ITX board called EPIA-P700. Only thing that is missing for my project is that it do not support HDTV. It is also possible to read that new Mini-ITX v2.0 boards will be released in the fourth quarter of 2008.

• VIA EPIA-P700
• VIA Press Room 2008

Now I have the NES disassembled and all the measurements ready. Roughly the inside mesures 22cm x 17cm x 7cm.

So now it is time to choose what motherboard to use, Pico-ITX, Nano-ITX or Mini-ITX. Here is where all the fun begins!

• Pico-ITX: 10cm x 7.2cm
• Nano-ITX: 12cm x 12cm
• Mini-ITX: 17cm x 17cm

The requirement is that it manages to play HDTV and have DVI, HDMI or Component out. And in the other projects that I have found a Mini-ITX has been used so for the fun of it I will not use a Mini-ITX motherboard. At the moment I am almost 100% sure that I will use a Nano-ITX board called: EPIA-NX12000EG . But I will probably change my mind many times before this project is finish :)

My main goal with this homepage is to keep me working on my current project, a Media Center within a Nintendo Entertainment System. And of course get some ideas from the readers? ;)

The idea is to use a VIA Pico, Nano or Mini ITX mainboard and make a nice Media Center. As a remote I will convert the standard Nintendo controller into a usb mouse. Also it is important that the system has a low power consumption.

From what Google have told me about this I am quite alone with this HTPC (Home Theatre PC) project. This is the only ones I have found so far:

• The Nintendo PC
• Build a Nintendo NES PC
• The “NESPC”