I managed to snag one of the brand new Eco Capture Dual HDMI M.2 cards on Amazon. So far it's working great in vMix. Setup was a breeze, though I'll eventually need to mount the HDMI cable to something so it doesn't pull on the card. Install the drivers, and it shows up in vMix as 2 camera inputs. Last Wednesday's stream went mostly without a hitch. The only problems I had were due to having to reinstall Windows since I was no longer using an M.2 SSD.

I currently have it installed in an ASRock Deskmini 110, which uses the new(ish) Intel Mini-STX form factor, which makes it an incredibly small footprint for what it can do. Unfortunately I've run into a number of bandwidth issues, no doubt stemming from the fact that I'm encoding using on-board graphics. I have a Mini-ITX streaming build planned, and the Motherboard I'm looking at has it's M.2 slot on the back. Hopefully I won't have to modify the case to fit it in with the heatsink sticking out of the chip.

That is great news for me because I was looking at the Quad unit.
Any chance it can do the NDI on the card, I doubt it.
The Pro Cards had a press release about NDI last year.

I was looking at using these in small ITX boxes as an NDI encoder system.

Thanks.

Rich Shumaker

Correct - no NDI on the card.
The underlying meaning of the "NDI Press Release" is that NewTek's Connect/Connect Pro s/w uses the Magewell SDK, so can use the lower-latency mode and support 8-Ch embedded audio (like vMix does). However, the SDK for the Eco cards isn't out yet so for now they just work as standard DirectShow devices.

The main thing to be aware of with the Eco cards is the height of the heatsink - about 12mm - meaning they will not fit in all the spaces that a much slimmer M.2 SSD card will fit. So check your M/B carefully as to where the M.2 slot is located and what's around it. I have tried one in an Asus Z170-A M/B, which is fine, but some of the smaller M/Bs have the M.2 slot on the underside which is likely to be more problematic.

Kruvek.....

Can't you send out the NDI capture streams with vMix alone and avoid the cost of Connect Pro from Newtek????

Comparing the M.2 cards from different makers, it's notable that Yuan does not require the use of the huge heatsink. In a trade show video I saw them attribute this to the use of ASICs vs FPGA chips.

FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) have some advantages. They can be reprogrammed via firmware updates. They allow a manufacturer to get to market quicker, and offer firmware updates over time. However, they run hot and they cost more.

ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) are dedicated function chips. It takes longer to design and manufacture these. Once deployed they
use less power and run cooler. Their functionality is more or less fixed, not extensible.

I think that the ASIC-based M.2 cards are better suited for use in very small form factor hosts, like the NUCs, etc. Those small systems tend to be lower power and have limited cooling capability.