Re: mini/micro ATX w/ PCI
Hello
OK, here's what I'm up to, maybe other have some interest in similar
portable devices?
Mini-ITX looks perfect. 2 pci parallel slots(or 90 degree converters are
still elusive).
I'm looking for a mini-ITX board that either allows for 2 pci slot
expansion, (pci add-on cards
must run parallel to main board for compactness) or have these features:
1. Highspeed serial card(pci) for 56Kdds or FT1/T1 router connections
with Frame Relay
(Sangoma/Imagesream/or others? are readily available in PCI form factor)
2. At least 3 serial (RS232) ports (16750 chips) would be nice!
3. Mpeg4 encoder chip (to convert JPEG or TVlines to Mpeg4 for remote
viewing)
4. USB (2.0 or 1.1) for cheap usb camera inputs.
5. DVD writer (Optional for archiving local video)
6. (1-4) CCD BNC video inputs (BT878 chipset)
7. 2 slot pcmcia(pcard) slots or 1pcmcia and 1 CF
8. JTAG (would be great but not necessary) for low level custom driver
development.
9. Ehternet.
10. Debian Linux
Here's the deal. I'm building a router that can be used on a frame relay
network, that can input either usb
video, or bnc(ntsc/pal/TVlines) video, and convert everything to mpeg4,
which will be served up locally
to another xhost on the ethernet, or filtered( color to black and white,
variable frames per second) for
remote backhaul. The good news is I do not need it to double as a
workstation with keyboard, mouse, SVGA, etc.
Low power, small form factor, and portability are most desirable.
The mini-ITX seems to be the leading candidate, but, I still cannot find
a version that supports 2
parallel pci slots. I have emailed that question to many of the
vendors, previously mentioned.
Since I have been unable to find a Mpeg4 compression board(pci or pc104)
I guess I'll, just going to have to
build that sucker from scratch. I intend to populate it wth a BT878 for
CCD input, a MPEG encoder
and a PCI bus interface for general purpose use. Any idea or suggestions
before I do the protel99 layout,
are welcome. If anyone has any interest, let me know, and I'll make any
of this work available, once the
prototypes are cleaned up. I'm even considering a FPGA design here
(www.opencores.com), versus
discrete chipsets.
Much Thanks to everyone for the ideas and links!
James
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