Now looking for motherboards!

[colinjones]

I notice that the ASUS AM2 M2NPV-VM Motherboard seems to be a common choice and compatible, and I was planning on using that. But I just noticed that it only seems to have DVI output, not HDMI. Whilst I understand that one is backwards compatible with the other, you don't get the control channel with DVI, and I believe that LMCE will automatically control your display if it sees it through HDMI (is this true?) and I would really like to get rid of the pointless extra display remote control that I would predominantly be using just to turn the power on and off!

Are my assumptions here correct? Does anybody know of an equivalent (spec and price) motherboard that does have HDMI??

[teedge77]

where did you get an idea that linuxmce will control a tv through hdmi?

[colinjones]

Well the blurb on LMCE talks a lot about being able to automatically detect components (such as the display) and control them, ie power on/off, select correct inputs etc, at the least when connected via a control serial cable, but the implication was that it could do this through several different interfaces - HDMI one of the main growing standards and includes the Consumer Electronics Control interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi#Consumer_Electronics_Control_channel) which is designed to do exactly that. So it is certainly entirely technically possible. As LMCE achieves this functionality through other interfaces (serial, I/R) I was hoping that it would through HDMI as well - seems logical to me, but as I say "I believe.." - are we saying that it definitely cannot do this? Seems like an obvious feature request, do you think?

Col

[colinjones]

BTW, I just found the ASUS AM2 M2A-VM HDMI Motherboard (should have scrolled down a couple of lines on the web site!) - but although this obviously has the HDMI capability, on the same spec sheet the outputs listed only include a DVI interface.... is this just an omission? Does anybody know for sure if it does actually have an HDMI interface?

Col

[teedge77]

its logical...but HDMI is still a new interface. theres not even much hardware using the control channel in the mainstream section yet. linuxmce doesnt support a lot of new hardware. most of how it detects components is through the network, usb or sometimes serial. i havent seen anything saying it can detect anything through hdmi....but....im not saying it doesnt or couldnt. i think theres a lot of catching up to do for it to become what its got the capacity to be. maybe they are planning to do it through hdmi someday but i am pretty sure not yet. if you do find an hdmi board that works with linux maybe youll be future proofing then...but....youd have to have either rs232 or ir to control it now. definitely would be a good feature request. i thought maybe you saw that it could already do it somewhere.

[colinjones]

Thanks for the background! Will put in the request.

Related question around your point on future proofing (was thinking that as well) - the motherboard that I found (ASUS AM2 M2A-VM HDMI Motherboard) is much the same but with HDMI, but changes the video chip set to AMD 690G & ATI SB600 away from the NVIDIA (damn!) - does this mean I will not be able to use the full UI2 with Alpha Blending/Overlay/transparency/etc? I was reading that support for this outside the NVIDIAs was very limited....

Col

[Zaerc]

There are 2 major problems with the ASUS M2A-VM HDMI at this moment: 
1. The kernel version used by 1.1-0704 does not work properly with the SATA chipset. 
2. MythTv seems incompatible with the (latest) graphic chipset drivers. 

See also: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Asus_M2A-VM

[anigem]

hey has anyone tried the NVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV and NVIDIA nForce 630a I read it had a built in HDMI too I haven't tried linuxMCE but im on my way on getting it once I build the right dream box

[marrandy]

keep us updated - we are all in the same boat

[1audio]

The 7050 needs a new driver to work. Its hardware is not compatible with the older driver. And the new drivers are buggy still.

The 7050 performance seems to be identical to the M2NPV-VM.

The CEC on HDMI is not well supported and in fact not very interoperable (Panasonic's stuff won't talk to Sony's). And no pc chip sets support it yet. However this will change. But don't make purchases based on this yet.