Hi,
On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 19:05 +0300, Seppo Ingalsuo wrote:
Asus Bravo 220 silent seems to be a passive model. Do you know if these non-motherboard integrated cards support 7.1ch PCM audio over HDMI?
Yes, as VDR User said, the latest generation VP4/VDPAU feature set C cards (GeForce 210, GT 220, ...) have an integrated audio controller. The ALSA driver should support 7.1 channel PCM too.
Some older cards have an S/PDIF input header but they don't support multichannel PCM, obviously.
I got as PM one tip that pointed to this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo#Table_of_PureVideo_.28HD.29_GP...
I wonder if some smaller number cheaper model with similar VP4/C skills would do? E.g. Asus EN210 Silent? It could also produce less heat? The text in Wikipedia is not perfectly in line with the table so I wonder if GT2xx is needed for best VDPAU support.
IMO the only reason to go for a separate card over ION would be higher quality 1080i deinterlacing. You'll need GT 220 for that since GeForce 210 is only slightly faster than ION. They have the same video processor and therefore the same video decoding capabilities, but post-processing is done on the graphics cores.
It seems that the IONs are VP3/B so your prosal is certainly better (if there is HDMI audio support).
ION2 has VP4/C, I think.
If you don't need advanced 1080i deinterlacing, Asus AT5IONT-I is a very good option right now. It has ION2, latest dualcore Atom and USB3, and it's passively cooled.
--
Niko