Building a Home Theater PC: Why do I need a Soundcard?

[Spiffyfast]

sorry if i'm beating a dead horse, but i have not gotten an answer yet on this:
can i output raw pcm and bitstream data to my reciever for decoding from dvd, hd media, tv tuner sources on the htpc?

yeah you can output pcm or bitstream, but you have to find a sound card that has dolby digital live built in, there was a thread on this a few months ago can't seem to find it right now, but yes there is a way

 

[jonnythan]

A $300 sound card will *not* improve your sound quality if you're using a digital output. A $300 sound card will output the same bitstream as the one built into my motherboard.

 

[jonnythan]

Dolby Digital Live encodes Dolby Digital on the fly from any kind of source you want. Without this, your PC will output whatever the source is.. DD from DVD's, 2-channel digital audio from an MP3 file, etc etc. Which is fine.

 

[redshifter]

A $300 sound card will *not* improve your sound quality if you're using a digital output. A $300 sound card will output the same bitstream as the one built into my motherboard.

thanks man, i know. bits are bits.

and thanks for answering one of my questions, jonnythan. i'll try the one-piece vga-comp adapter, and go straight out the modo and decode with the denon.

now i'm sold on the 300gb drive, and want to use this case ($45) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119088

thanks for the mobo and cpu reco's, but what are the lowest requirements for playing dvd's, recording tv, recording dvd's, mp3, etc., without games or any other intensive operations? bare minimum or minimum + 10% (considering xp pro or mce05).

 

[jonnythan]

Out of curiosity, what's the difference between the dongle and the vga-comp adapter? If anything the dongle probably has higher quality wiring and more solid connections.

 

[kleinwl]

Bluegear produces a sound card with Dolby. BTW these aren't $300 sound cards.... only ~$100.

Bare minimium (YMMV) is:
AMD Sempron (754 socket) 2600+ ($70)
512MB Ram
Hauppauge card (PVR-150)

However, if you don't want the advantage of on-board compression hardware available in a hauppauge card... then I would boost up the cpu capability by:
a) Overclocking the sempron
b) Buying an Athelon 2800+

According to designtecnica's review they could run with a xp1600+ cpu however usage was 50%-80%

However, if you ever want to capture HD tv or H264, the current capture cards require alot of cpu capability and I would recommend a dual core (X2) to prevent stuttering.

Because a standard (ATI all in wonder / Nvidia) video card does all the video capture in software, cpu requirements will be higher.

See anandtech review of tv tuners:http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i=2634

 

[redshifter]

Out of curiosity, what's the difference between the dongle and the vga-comp adapter? If anything the dongle probably has higher quality wiring and more solid connections.

the adapter appears to use only hardware connections. there are no wires.

i have not done any comparisons, nor seen any online of different vga adapters. i don't know which is better, or if the video quality is on-par or better with a good dvd component out. it's been my experience that those adapters that use a wire (the "dongle" style) degrade the signal.

thanks, kleinwl!! i should have mentioned i'm also sold on the hauppauge card. it seems to be the way to go. will i still need a dual core to support hdtv with that card?

 

[redshifter]

ok, here is what i've got. add misc. costs, the system comes in at around us$600:

MOBO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138268
$60

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104245
$75

RAM 1g
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440
$72

TUNER CARD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116625
$90

VIDEO CARD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130003
$77

CASE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119088
$45

300g HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148064
$100

FANS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999071
$15

PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104954
$51

 

[jonnythan]

Excellent system. Same Motherboard I have. It comes with a digital coax and optical output. Sounds great.

 

[kleinwl]

System Review:

A couple of questions first:

What kind of games (if any) to you intend on playing with this system?

If the answer is none... delete the video card... the mobo you chose already has an integrated video card. If the answer is "it varies" look at another mobo without integrated video... why pay for what you don't use.

What kind of DVD player are you putting in? NEC-1350 or Benq DW-1650 are good DVD-RW

What kind of OS are you running? XP? MCE? Lunix (Distro?)?

Statements:
First) Why go with a standard case for a http? A rackmount will look better in your equipement case and be quieter (may be more expensive)

Second) Why go with cool master? Antec provides excellent budget cases that have very good cooling and good psus. (btw that Forton is way over kill... unless you intend on maxing out that palmero).

Third) Are you considering noise as an issue? While AMD cpu coolers are good... there are superior cooling solutions out there (such as thermaltake's XP-90). Along the same lines, why use 80mm cooling fans, 120mm (undervolted or controlled with cool'n'quiet) move more air with less noise. (see silentpcreview.com for more information).

Fourth) Anandtech's review showed that the real HD capture cards (MPEG-4) require more cpu time than MPEG-2 capture... the X2 is a nice step up... but, if you are unwilling to invest $300 in a cpu, I understand, just OC the heck out of the palmero you buy (the XP-90 and Artic Silver-5 thermopaste will be really helpful here - make sure you get a different mobo that Biostar isn't known for it's OC ability.

:Shameless Plug: I'm a licensed computer builder in CA if need someone to build that for you... or if you just want some advice on OCing... fan/specs/whatever:

 

[Hi Ho]

I would go with a different motherboard. Biostar isn't exactly noted for their quality. Your other components are very good quality. There's no reason to skimp on the motherboard, especially when you can get an Asus K8N for the same price.

I see no problems with the case you chose. It is a nice case and CoolerMaster makes decent stuff. I like my CoolerMaster case. It's quiet and cool.

The stock AMD coolers are quite noisy. I would upgrade to THIS Zalman unit. It will keep the CPU plenty cool and it will be very quiet.

 

[3beanlimit]

No one has mentioned it yet.

If you like DTS music files..from DTS encoded CD's, your going to need a card that can use ASIO drivers to avoid getting upsampled. Typical of most sound cards to do upsampling to 48 kHz. Sucks big dognots to be sure. Creative is famous for this.

Same goes for trying to stream DTS or Dolby Digital. Ture, that Bluegears will send out a Dolby Digital stream or even a DTS stream, but keep in mind, it's a reprocessed signal. At least untill they come out with promised ASIO drivers.

That said, I have the Bluegears DTS card. It upsamples to 96 kHz. I'm using Foobar set to 24bit and IMHO, the 96 kHz upsampler is pretty dang good for flac files ripped from CD's.

 

[redshifter]

...

Same goes for trying to stream DTS or Dolby Digital. Ture, that Bluegears will send out a Dolby Digital stream or even a DTS stream, but keep in mind, it's a reprocessed signal. At least untill they come out with promised ASIO drivers...

i'm not planning on using a sound card, just the raw pcm and bitstream data from the mobo.

 

[jonnythan]

Well, the motherboard simply has a cheap sound card built into it. There's nothing different with the built-in sound card and a cheap add-on sound card.

 

[jonnythan]

I would go with a different motherboard. Biostar isn't exactly noted for their quality.

This motherboard is an exception. It's an overclocker's board that's built very solidly and is known to overclock very stably up to 300MHz FSB. There are no quality issues with this board. Trust me. It's very popular in the overclocker community because it's so good.

The Asus you linked to is an old POS compared to the Biostar.

Also, for an inexpensive option, the Arctic Cooling Silencer 64 is a dead-silent CPU fan that's only $20.

 

[jmprader]

Pardon my momentary hijack of this thread, but some of you guys seem to have your PC HT knowledge down a lot better than this tech dinosaur (think "this guy's first computer must have been an Apple 2+ with a 1mhz 8 bit 6502 processor, dual floppies and 64k memory", ok?!)

I'm interested in knowing what info any of you might be able to provide on:
1. 1080i or 1080p output capable DVD drives (not Blu-Ray or HD-DVD) that might be out there...I don't even know if today's standard DVD drive can output 1080i/p content, that's how archaic I am.
2. 1080i or 1080p capable A/V cards, preferably with HDMI, but DVI with digital or ieee1394 outs are just great, too.
3. Any processor speed/available memory/op system caveats for using the foregoing? Currently we've got a Dell 4550 and E310 around the house, one with XP, one with XP media center.

If I'm a little off track, any help to set me straight is appreciated. Sorry to interrupt, just hoping for some help for the mentally aged and infirm in tech land.

 

[Topher]

I'm looking into building an HTPC also & have a question about audio. I'm going to hook it up to a satellite receiver that has optical & coax output, but the Hauppauge 150MCE only has analogue audio input. I don't imagine it's possible to record AC3, but I don't know of any soundcards that pass it through, either. Is it possible to at least pass it through, or am I going to have to do without Dolby Digital?

 

[Hi Ho]

Same goes for trying to stream DTS or Dolby Digital. Ture, that Bluegears will send out a Dolby Digital stream or even a DTS stream, but keep in mind, it's a reprocessed signal. At least untill they come out with promised ASIO drivers.

Many sound cards will stream DD and DTS when playing a DVD. This goes for the Creative models as well.

The only advantage the Bluegears cards have is that they will stream a Dolby Digital signal when playing a game. There are very few cards that will do this.

 

[kleinwl]

I see no problems with the case you chose. It is a nice case and CoolerMaster makes decent stuff. I like my CoolerMaster case. It's quiet and cool.

No question... Coolmaster is a decient case manufacture. The point I was making is that a Rackmount Case would look better (WAF) in the rack. I do like Antec, because of the high quality of the power supply that comes with their mini-tower. There is generally no need to replace the PSU, where I would be very hesitant of using any PSU that came with a coolermaster.

To answer the hijack thread about DVDs... 1080P/720P/480i has not a thing to do with the DVD player. The only thing a DVD does is transport the file. if you encode a MPEG-4 / H264 codec at 1080P on a DVD (which will be short given the small space available on a DVD).... whatever will play fine. However no computer player is available yet for HD-DVD or Blueray... and the first players out will be expensive (along with the disks).

(Note: I'm assuming that your copying the file to the HTTP's HDD, otherwise 1080P bitstream could be to high to be supported by the DVD's read rate.)

I'm not sure how to answer your A/V question on cards. ATI 1800 series and Nvidia's 7800 & 7900 series have H264 accelleration built in (at least with the latest drivers) so that you coded H264 / MPEG-4 stream will play nicely. You just need sufficent cpu/ram/GPU that you don't experience stutter. Typically play back isn't the hard part... recording/encoding is what pushes the machine.
BTW: Most video cards have DVI now... so that isn't a problem.


I can't find the specs for a Dell 4550 or E310... so you will have to tell me what CPU/RAM/GPU is in it. However, I would expect that if your cpu is slower than 2.0GHz, there is little chance of you encoding H264 at 1080P realtime.

BTW: My first computer was an Apple II (I thought the IIe was awesome.. so much smaller/lighter). So what are you talking about tech dinosaur?

 

[redshifter]

got you both beat. my first computer was the commodore pet. although i adored my apple ][e too.