Why isn't there a forum for HTPC's?

[Jusbegood]

I don't understand why there isn't a forum for HTPC's. With the convergence of PC's,and home theater A/V receivers, there is more than a passing interest of integrating your PC with your HT system. There should be information of how to set one up using either a desktop or a laptop. How to use a a router, or wireless, and other related problems that one may encounter when setting up a HTPC. With larger HardDrives, it's now possible to store one's whole music library on their server. I'm not a fanatic about every new tecnology that comes along,but these are the present realities that audiophiles have to deal with.This is a databased society about everything.

 

[the grunt]

I’m not sure if you were asking why Audioholics doesn’t have a HTPC sub-forum or if you were looking for any dedicated HTPC forum. In case it was the later here are a couple of links.

This one was lots of help a couple months ago when I built my HTPC:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=26

Especially this sub-forum:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=710828

This one hasn’t seemed to have much activity:
http://www.htpcforums.com/

 

[sholling]

Actually it's probably a good idea.

 

[Johnd]

I don't understand why there isn't a forum for HTPC's. With the convergence of PC's,and home theater A/V receivers, there is more than a passing interest of integrating your PC with your HT system. There should be information of how to set one up using either a desktop or a laptop. How to use a a router, or wireless, and other related problems that one may encounter when setting up a HTPC. With larger HardDrives, it's now possible to store one's whole music library on their server. I'm not a fanatic about every new tecnology that comes along,but these are the present realities that audiophiles have to deal with.This is a databased society about everything.

I agree with you to some extent. The Escient or HP media centers are awesome. And while this technology continues to evolve, perhaps the sq and pq will approach that of ht equipment.

I've had people argue to me that computers are just as good as players for pq and sq. It is their job, after all, right? Reading and processing information. But until pc's get separate clocks, real isolation and a host of other refinements that equipment has and a pc doesn't need (if it is used primarily as a computer), they will always be a distant second to ht equipment (imho).

Gene wrote this article last year:
http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/the-dumbing-down-of-audio/the-dumbing-down-of-audio-page-2?searchterm="dumbing+down

And although htpc's are better than ipods at playback, and "lossless" and "compression" are terms for material, not components, I think this article falls in line. Once a htpc plays well enough for critical listening, it will get my attention. Regardless of my opinion, they are here, they are here to stay, and perhaps they will continue to improve in quality.

Hey: and welcome to the forum (congrats on your first post...after more than 2 years no less)!

 

[Audioholics]

We want HTPCs to be big. We WANT them to succeed. But it' sup to manufacturers to make them more cost-effective, reliable - and make them work OUT OF THE BOX with no glitches! Like a DVD player or receiver - heck even the Escient or Qsonix systems work as advertised.

I break off forums based on interest, not the other way around (note the new Projector forum that "appeared" last week.) So if I start seeing tons of posts about HTPCs I'll certainly break it off into its own. Up until now we've found most of the standalone units, though expensive, to be good to excellent (Escient, Qsonix, etc) and most Windows-based media centers to be completely intermittent, difficult and taxing to configure and use.

I'm having a company send me a Linux-based system shortly. Perhaps that is the ticket, and perhaps media centers will mature. You can be sure of one thing - the first media center I get that actually works well out of the box will be seriously talked about and its praises sung to the ends of the earth. It just hasn't happened yet.

 

[Sheep]

Yeah, there isn't a whole lot of HTPC users, I'm going to be leaving that group when I move into my new room. HT and PC will be split up.

SheepStar

 

[sholling]

I break off forums based on interest, not the other way around (note the new Projector forum that "appeared" last week.) So if I start seeing tons of posts about HTPCs I'll certainly break it off into its own.

This makes sense although I think interest will grow as people discover a place to go to for help, and as people show off their creations.

Up until now we've found most of the standalone units, though expensive, to be good to excellent (Escient, Qsonix, etc) and most Windows-based media centers to be completely intermittent, difficult and taxing to configure and use.

I find the stand alone units to be too expensive myself. I 'rolled my own' and completely overbuilt it for a fraction of what some of those cost. What I see as useful to me is a place to learn the secret of recording video from a component video source. Just for personal archives.

By the way I finally worked out the last of the major bugs from my music server. She sounds beautiful. It's kinda cool to be able to queue up 18 days and 8 hours (no repeats) worth of completely lossless CD quality music and feed it in a pure digital format to the optical input of my receiver. Not that I ever listen that long in a sitting.

If I had to do one thing over again it would be to rip to WAV instead of FLAC. Space just isn't an issue anymore.

 

[Jusbegood]

Posting after 2 years


To Johnd,

Thanks for the welcome. I know that taking 2 years to post a message is a long time. I've done a complete iteration of setting up all of my audio equipment into 2 audio cabinets. I got tired of going down to my basement and getting a component in exchange;just to listen to my music. Plus I wanted to show all of my retro "good ol" equipment along with the "newer" digital components in one room. "The more it changes, the more it remains the same." I really got tired of the collectivist syndrome....boxes here, boxes there, boxes everywhere. I just wanted to breathe; the air was getting stale in the basement. I felt like Jack Benny "in the day."

In the meantime I created a database of all my CD's that are in my jukeboxes. I then had to rip them to my server. Next I cleaned all of the CD's with Auric Illuminator to enhance the optical playback of any CD, DVD, LaserDisc, and SACD. I then created a picture database of all the jewel case labels. Right now I'm using a software database called Cattrax to catalog all of my CD's.

My plate was really full, now it's REALLY going to get full; as most of my Music Library is mostly vinyl. I need to rip the vinyl to my music server so my heirs can acquire, and get some appreciation of music.

That's part of the reason why I haven't posted to any of the forums in Audioholics.

 

[Warpdrv]

I agree with Clint that HTPC's are inherently difficult, not only to use but also buggy.... That is, mostly the Windows based units I have encountered.

Ultimately I have pit these so called Media Centers up against a huge contender, that people don't seem to get on the bandwagon with... The XBMC...

I have yet to encounter a GUI interface, that is as clean and powerful as well as feature laiden as my XBMC. Streaming is second to nothing with it over my Cat6 cable.... connected to my dual terabyte PC's in the basement...

It is constantly being updated, even weekly...

What I am looking forward to is that they are going to rebuild this to linux so you can run it on newer hardware in the future.... as the xbox's hardware is really holding the whole thing back from the true potential of what It could become...


If you want something that just works..... get yourself a modded Xbox, running XBMC.... and see what you have been missing....

 

[mouettus]

I think you guys don't understand. EVERY computer can be a HTPC. Just plug your DVI out to your HDMI in and you're good to go! And by the way, use PowerDVD for movies. You'll never see a better upscaler than this one. It's got it's own MPEG-2 codecs. It does an incredible job on my 46in. LCD. Just make sure that your graphics card is good enough to put out 1080 for full HD and you don't really need anything else. Mine is a nVidia 7600 GT. Plenty of power here, even in HD games. Mini-to-RCA or Coax cable for audio (depends of your connection).