Hi,
I have started building a multi user carPC, but I have no idea how much computer power I need, so I hope that some of you could help me.
The minimum requirements of the system is the following:
1 x Internal quad video board, connected to 4 touch screens.
1 x external USB quad audio adaptor (or 4x USB single audio adaptors.)
2 x ATA2 disks with raid.
4 x external USB slim slot-in DVDROM drives.
1 or 2 x external USB RDS FM Tuner(s)
1 or 2 x external USV DVB-T Tuner(s)
1 x external USB GPS Unit.
1 x external USB Bluetooth Unit.
1 x external USB 3G Broadband modem.
1 x external USB Wireless LAN Unit.
1 x external USB card reader.
1 x external I/O board.
1 or 2 x Audio/Video input(s)
The basic idea is that the system should consist of 4 independent mediacenters on a single computer. Each mediacenter should be controlled by the touch screens, and the audio for each mediacenter should be available through headphones except for the master that should go through the car stereo.
The master should be able to view and control each of the media centers as well.
A typical scenario would be that:
user1 (master) is streaming a netradio while using the GPS system
user2 watches a DVD in the DVD1 drive
user3 are playing PS2/3 games through one of the AV inputs.
user4 listens to a CD in the DVD2 drive.
Suddently user3 wants to watch the same DVD movie as user2, and not only watch it, no it should be from the beginning, and of course user2 refuses to start again from the beginning
If any og you have ever tried to watch the same DVD disk in two different Media Players at a time, you will know that it's almost impossible as the laser is moving forth and back trying to catch up on each output. Therefore I need to do some kind of stream or something, meaning that when a DVD movie is started, it should not be viewed directly from the DVD drive, but should be "stored" on the HD and viewed from there.
The easy way would be to copy the entire content of the DVD to the HD, but who wants to wait for the copy to finish before the movie can be watched?
I imagine something like when a DVD is inserted it automatically starts to copy some of the content to the HD, and when a user chooses to watch the movie in the DVD drive, Media Player is automatically redirected to show the version on the HD instead, while it's still being copied.
I don't know what takes the most computer power, to copy and watch DVD's or to view video on the A/V inputs, but I guess that the DVD operation will take the most power, so worst case scenario might be that there is a DVD in each of the 4 DVD drives, which are all being copied/streamed to the Harddrive while the content is shown on each of the 4 screens.
I guess that there is no Front end on the market capable to suit my needs, so I have decided to write my own Front end.
I also know that I might run into some heavy challenges with 4 audio/video outputs and 4 touch screen inputs, but I'm confident that I will be able to sort that out. The main issue here is how much computer power is needed and which MB/Processor I should choose.
I hope that I would be able to use a miniITX as it will fit inside my dash board, but will a miniITX be able to process the above requirements, and if so, which MB and processor should I choose?
I have been looking a bit at Jetway J9F2 with a T7200 or T7600, but will I be able to run all of the above with that, without the processor running 100% constantly?
Linear Mode
