Epia M and Epia 800 differences

wysiwyg · 12-16-2002, 01:55 AM

Is it worth it to spend the extra $50 on the Epia M over the Epia 800. Thats about the price difference I found on pricewatch. Will I notice a difference, all I really plan on using it for is DVDs and MP3s.

Defiler · 12-16-2002, 12:31 PM

In a nutshell, YES.

From what I've read the 800 will drop a frame here and there during high action scences playing DVDs. The EPIA-M 9000 has hardware DVD decoding and does not drop a single frame. At least on the DVDs I've watched. It's slightly faster and has USB 2.0 and firewire built in. Look at it this way if you were to buy the 800 and a low cost ATI card with DVD decoding you would spend the same amount or more and the case would be bigger to hold the extra video card.

See what other people tell you. I have an EPIA-M 9000 and I love it. Small, DVD decoding, all the bells and whistles, quiet, and very low power reqirements...I got it at idot.com for $158. Good deal if you ask me.

Gutter · 12-16-2002, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Defiler
I have an EPIA-M 9000 and I love it.

Did you ever get TV-out working?

ShinkunoNamida · 12-16-2002, 12:43 PM

While running 98se or XPpro I didn't have any problem with dvd/divx playback on my epia 800.. when i tried putting 2kpro on I had all kinds of problems. Many people seem to think that there is a problem with DVD and divx playback.. so I guess it varies a bit.

I'm not sure how high the bitrate on the DVDs were, so I can't guarantee that it will be perfect. But with 98se and XPpro things worked out fairly well for me.

that being said, spend the extra money and get the 9000. It's got better features that you will benefit from in the future.

m3rdpwr · 12-16-2002, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gutter
Did you ever get TV-out working?

I posted the info here at the bottom:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...2&pagenumber=2

-Mario

Jay · 12-16-2002, 06:26 PM

Running the M with Windows 2000 and works like a champ. S-video works fine. Just have to go in to the video settings and enable it. I also have a Xenarc screen and I can't seem to run both at the same time though.

ricko73 · 12-20-2002, 11:50 PM

Ok. To clear up any confusion, there never was an issue with TVout on the new EPIA-M.

The original EPIA(c3-800 processor) had issues with the original bios and as far as I know is still not capable of outputting to both the vga and composite at the same time. It has a slower graphics processor and does not do a spectacular job with dvds.

The new EPIA-M9000 series will do either TV out or vga out of the box. Flashing the bios fixes the board so that both tv and vga can be used at the same time. DVD decoding rocks as long as you can use the supplied drivers which take full advantage of the hardware.

Spend the extra $50 and go for the EPIA-9000.

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