Mini-ITX HTPC Motherboard with Analog (Composite or S-Video) Output

April 8, 2011 8:40 PM

Looking for a mini-ITX motherboard for an HTPC that supports analog video out (s-video or composite/y-rca) or I need a cheap way to convert HDMI or DVI to one of those analog video formats.

I want to build an HTPC for my 10-year old TV. The TV works just fine... no need to fix what isn't broken! However, as old as it is, it doesn't support the fancy new-fangled video inputs such as HDMI or DVI.

If it did, my ideal motherboard would have been ZOTAC IONITX-F-E Intel Atom 330 which has the PCI-Express slot I need for my Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1800 analog cable TV tuner card.

I do have a simple little VGA-to-S-Video/RCA converter box that I bought on Amazon a couple years ago, but lately it has had a really "flickery" picture, rendering it pretty much useless. The nice thing about it was the cheap price. Anything that converts HDMI to analog formats is outrageously expensive though—totally not worth it! However, if there were something a little better for not much more coinage, I might be open to sticking with the vga/dvi-to-rca/s-video approach, but I would like to weigh out all my options I guess. I haven't come across any mini-itx motherboards which had s-video or composite/rca output built in, except for an old low-quality Intel board mentioned here.

Ideally, I don't want to pay more than $200 total for the motherboard/cpu (if not already an ION board) & video output solution, together. Any of you hardware gurus seen or know of any decent solutions to this tricky dilemma?

posted by purefusion to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Strait up, no ITX board comes with S-video.

That adapter that you bought previously surprisingly has good ratings. Anything that I've seen that says to convert from DVI/VGA to component/composite/rca have always been full of crap. It being only $20, I wouldn't see the issue with just buying another one. Especially if it lasted for a few years.

You don't need to use HDMI/DVI. The ITX board that you would want to buy has the VGA out that you need to use with the converter, so that should work nicely. :D

Get that ITX board with the converter and plug into it via VGA. Easiest way to do it I see.
posted by NotSoSiniSter at 9:05 PM on April 8, 2011

The converter had terrible color though, and you could never turn down the saturation enough...
posted by purefusion at 9:15 PM on April 8, 2011

Epia EX has the component out you need, but only a PCI expansion slot, so your TV card would be a non-starter.
posted by SyntacticSugar at 7:40 AM on April 9, 2011

You do realize that the max resolution is going to be much lower with s-video and even composite - and it will appear to be fuzzy as well?
posted by jkaczor at 9:06 PM on April 9, 2011