Hey MODS - can we have HTPC section?

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res6jya6

res6jya6

Senior Audioholic
AcuDefTechGuy said:
I am very interested in HTPC.

I'm relative new to this whole HTPC concept.

A few months ago, I didn't even now what "HTPC" was.

Now I have 2 PCs collected to my Denon receiver via HDMI.

It seems to be the new WAVE of the future.:D

I mean with a PC doing pretty much "everything", you wouldn't even "need" a receiver; or maybe a very SCALED down receiver.:D

I still have issues to work out on my HTPC.

Like why the DEFAULT audio keeps on switching from SPDIF to HDMI and vice versa?

I'm sure there are a hundred other issues out there - like DTS-HD MA, D TrueHD, etc.
Click to expand...
When Windows 7 comes out, try the Ultimate edition on your Media PC... it fixes some of those odd S/PDIF & HDMI issues.
 
itschris

itschris

Moderator
I'm anxious to see the new version of Media Center. I'm hoping it really does fix some of the lingering issues that make HTPC's stilll a bit of a trade off.
 
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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
itschris said:
I'm anxious to see the new version of Media Center. I'm hoping it really does fix some of the lingering issues that make HTPC's stilll a bit of a trade off.
Click to expand...
The first time I used Windows Media Center on my HP laptop to playback The X-Files Blu-ray, it didn't even work.

Then I used PowerDVD 8, and it worked perfectly with every disc I've played. It has also worked with every single blu-ray virtual clone drive I've played directly on the Hard Drive.
 
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krzywica

krzywica

Audioholic Samurai
itschris said:
Nemo brought it up and brought it up another time before that, but I think I had like 10 posts and no one cared about what I had to say.... well... probalby still don't... but it's still a good idea!!:D
Click to expand...
Yeah same here man....I'm happy to lend the expertise, that is if there is enough interest. Seems to be me talking and nobody really giving a crap. Ahh such is life.... :)
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
krzywica said:
Yeah same here man....I'm happy to lend the expertise, that is if there is enough interest. Seems to be me talking and nobody really giving a crap. Ahh such is life.... :)
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We've all heard time and time again how important the Video Card is for GAMING.

But how important is the Video Card for BLU-RAY playback?
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
AcuDefTechGuy said:
So do you just get the most expensive video card or what is point of diminishing returns?
Click to expand...
That is the beauty of it: You get the lowest end card because the rendering components are the same regardless of class of card.

Anti-aliasing, up-conversion, telecine, pull-down, etc... are virtually the same across the spectrum for a particular vendor.

That is: ATI basically has the same decoding hardware in a $30 Radeon 4350 as they do in their $240 Radeon 4870. The big difference is for gaming.

It used to be before the ATI 1950 based cards you had to have at minimum an Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 for H.264 MPEG4-AVC playback. The decode was keeping the CPU at around 40-70% utilization. Throw in a video card that offloaded that and you went back down to 10-20 %. With the 4XXX series from ATI it is around 7-10%.
 
krzywica

krzywica

Audioholic Samurai
jinjuku said:
That is the beauty of it: You get the lowest end card because the rendering components are the same regardless of class of card.

Anti-aliasing, up-conversion, telecine, pull-down, etc... are virtually the same across the spectrum for a particular vendor.

That is: ATI basically has the same decoding hardware in a $30 Radeon 4350 as they do in their $240 Radeon 4870. The big difference is for gaming.

It used to be before the ATI 1950 based cards you had to have at minimum an Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 for H.264 MPEG4-AVC playback. The decode was keeping the CPU at around 40-70% utilization. Throw in a video card that offloaded that and you went back down to 10-20 %. With the 4XXX series from ATI it is around 7-10%.
Click to expand...
Its not the exact same CPU offload across the board. The higher end cards do perform a little better than the cheapest ones....I read a review of this on TomsHardware a while back...from what I remember there was as much as a 10% difference in overall CPU usage between the top of the line and bottom end cards, IE 4350 vs 4870 at the time, and that was with a C2D. The top end cards obviously offloading the CPU better (less CPU load) when decoding Bluray and HDDVD.
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
krzywica said:
Its not the exact same CPU offload across the board. The higher end cards do perform a little better than the cheapest ones....I read a review of this on TomsHardware a while back...from what I remember there was as much as a 10% difference in overall CPU usage between the top of the line and bottom end cards, IE 4350 vs 4870 at the time, and that was with a C2D. The top end cards obviously offloading the CPU better (less CPU load) when decoding Bluray and HDDVD.
Click to expand...
I believe it is due to simply higher clocked GPU. The image quality is still the same.
 
krzywica

krzywica

Audioholic Samurai
AcuDefTechGuy said:
For those of us who don't want to actually hand-bulit a custom PC, what do you think about a site like PCUSA.COM:

http://www.pcusa.com//system.asp?id=18&selectlist=*11077,*10132,*4670,*10918,*9556,*10896,*9590,*9643,*-1,*-1,*11082,*-1,*-1,*7139,*-1,*-1,*-1,*11092,*1461,*-1,*-1,*9557,*1480,*-1,*-1,*-1,*-1,*-1,*-1,*-1,*-1,*11091,
Click to expand...
I would probably go with a "barebones kit" before I got one of those. You save a ton of money and barebones PC's generally come with the mobo, HDD, CPU, and PSU already installed. I would think that virtually anyone would be able to install the memory and video card and most of them that I have seen lately even have that installed already. It would just be left to the end user to install and configure an OS and whatever software you need.

Also I don't really see any HTPC cases available on that site....aesthetics are IMO a huge selling point for HTPC's as they should look like another piece of HIFI equipment.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
krzywica said:
I would probably go with a "barebones kit" before I got one of those. You save a ton of money and barebones PC's generally come with the mobo, HDD, CPU, and PSU already installed. I would think that virtually anyone would be able to install the memory and video card and most of them that I have seen lately even have that installed already. It would just be left to the end user to install and configure an OS and whatever software you need.

Also I don't really see any HTPC cases available on that site....aesthetics are IMO a huge selling point for HTPC's as they should look like another piece of HIFI equipment.
Click to expand...
Is there a site you recommend to get these barebones kit?
 
krzywica

krzywica

Audioholic Samurai
AcuDefTechGuy said:
Is there a site you recommend to get these barebones kit?
Click to expand...
Either....

Tiger Direct

or

New Egg

Both have excellent deals, I'm in Milwaukee so if I order from Tiger it will be at my door the next day with straight ground shipping which is really nice. Newegg has a better site, customer service, and is about the same price wise but it takes around 3 days with ground shipping to get to me.
 
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