[Strider123]

I am thinking of building a HTPC but what I want to know is will it
give better PQ on my AE 700e than say........

Denon 2910
Denon 2900
Pioneer 575
Or My Marantz 7010 (Still like this player)

So would a HTPC using TheaterTec 2.06 be able to beat these or be at
least as good as them.

With HD players just around the corner I thought this might be a better way to go for now.
And much more upgradeable.

Advise

[KraGorn]

Yes a PC would beat them all .. but ease of use isn't a PC's strong point IMHO (and I've had 3 HTPCs over the last 18 months), I'm going back to a non-PC world for the most part.

PCs take up too much time tweaking, twiddling, trying to coerce graphics drivers, MPEG decoders and video post-processors into playing nicely with each other. Next you need to fight the graphics drivers to allow you to select 50Hz or 60Hz, add into the mix Reclock for fine-tuning framerate etc. etc.

Yes, a PC can produce stunning results, but I intend to get an external scaler and go back to simply pressing the 'ON' button and inserting a DVD.

[Cool-hand]

Thanks KraGorn

You've successfully, single handedly put me off the HTPC route!

CH

[dan1979]

You don't 'have' to spend ages getting HTPC to work, you can just use PowerDVD or WinDVD and go.

Having said that you obviously want the best possible which means ffdshow, it took me something like 6 hours to get it working properly with Zoom player and it still won't play R1 discs.

Still, I'm very happy with the picture from it now, if you've already got a decent PC it makes sense to put time into setting it up rather than spending a load of cash on a DVD player. I could spend even more time tweaking but that would drive me nuts.

[noel-pilot]

Hehe like the answer above! Think carefully, from my reading of this forum it looks like the HCPC has many benefits, ease of playing divx, xvid movies etc, but I agree the setup looks daunting!!
Not something i need to worry about at the moment, I only have an xbox for dvds and xvids, divx's etc!!

[Strider123]

Thanks everyone.

Will have to give it a try first I think.
My home PC has an AMD 2400 CPU and ATI 9600XT Graphics Card.
Or though I will need a sound card with optical out it should do for some testing.

Will let you no how I get on.

[KraGorn]

Originally Posted by dan1979

You don't 'have' to spend ages getting HTPC to work, you can just use PowerDVD or WinDVD and go.

Having said that you obviously want the best possible which means ffdshow, it took me something like 6 hours to get it working properly with Zoom player and it still won't play R1 discs..

You help make my point for me. Yes, a simple setup is easy to achieve, but IMX this doesn't offer a significant improvement in PQ.

If all you want it is to play PAL (or NTSC) DVDs then a 1-hour installations will be fine, it's when you start trying to do other things that the power of the PC let's you consider that the 'fun' begins.

BTW, you HAVE got the ability to switch betwen 50hz and 60hz on the fly so you don't introduce judder and other playback glitches due to their differing requirepments? If not, that'll be more time spent later when things like that start to annoy.

Originally Posted by Cool-hand

Thanks KraGorn

You've successfully, single handedly put me off the HTPC route!

That wasn't my intent.

Like I say, I'm swimming against the tide on this matter, but my experience even over the last 48 hours fighting nVidia driver updates to give me 50hz and 60hz is ample proof that it is not at all plain sailing and you have to be prepared to spend time trying to sort out problems ... doing that has worn me down.

Even some advocating the HTPC route admit that their systems don't work in some situations. One of the BIG, BIG problems with PCs is wanting to play both PAL and NTSC material. Due to their different resolutions and refresh rates this can be a nightmare to achieve smooth, judder-free playback of both materials. You start having to add yet more twiddles into the mix, such as Reclock for audo timing and frame-rate throttling, and as soon as you do that the can of worms opens again.

The best route IMHO is to buy an nVidia 6600 and TheaterTek 2. Use hardware mode and you're set to play NTSC material. If you want PAL then hopefully the nVidia drivers will work for you .. they don't for me any more, 67.20 works, later ones don't.

My intent in posting my comments was simply to air the down-side of an HTPC .. and I'm no novice with PCs, I had my first IBM-PC in 1984 and been building PCs from boards since 1994, which isn't to say how great I am but simply to indicate some degree of compentency in trying to deal with these problems.

Last comments: my HT is projection-based using a 92" screen, in this environment PQ 'issues' show up a lot more than, say, on a 42" plasma, where a more simple HTPC setup will give excellent results without the nagging dsire to keep twiddling.

[SimonInd]

I agree with KraGorn that you can spend an age fiddling with a HTPC and now that you can get DVI out of a DVD player that will 1:1 map to 1280x720 projectors, one key selling point of the PC approach is disappearing. However I also use my HTPC to record freeview TV, burn DVDs, listen to music, surf the internet and serve music & video to another room in the house. If you can see yourself benefitting from these extras then maybe you shouldn't write off the PC approach just yet. I run a 96" wide screen with a BenQ PE8700+ projector which is quite a harsh judge when it comes to picture quality - you can see the difference between 1:1 mapped VGA and DVI - and although I've had a look at FFDShow I'm finding that ZoomPlayer with the nVidia decoders is excellent and less troublesome. I've not hooked my old Sony 725 DVD player up to the projector, however the PC was an obvious improvement on an AE100 so I should think it's "night and day" on this.

Good luck

Simon

[KraGorn]

Simon, I agree that an HTPC is a flexible tool, my situation is that I only use the HT for DVD playback and the very, very occasional .TS, if one factors in a PVR capability then clearly the PC comes into the frame even without going to the 'nth' degree fine-tuning the PQ. I have a networked MP3 player connected to the A/V receiver so audio also isn't an issue for me.

I guess I should have prefixed my original comments with this outline of my usage.

[dan1979]

Originally Posted by KraGorn

BTW, you HAVE got the ability to switch betwen 50hz and 60hz on the fly so you don't introduce judder and other playback glitches due to their differing requirepments?

In ZP I haven't got that far, within 3 seconds of it starting to play an R1 disc it crashes. Too much of a headache to try and sort it for a handul of discs, if I want to watch R1 then PowerDVD will suffice.

I'm using old graphics drivers, upgraded to later ones and kept having problems with the DVI signal, hopefully a fresh install will make things a little better.

I forgot the other big advantage of HTPC, playing DVD's from hard drive - very handy.

[Gary Lightfoot]

I've only ever really used HTPC and I can't see me changing anytime soon. I did consider a standalone player for a short while, but I'm glad I stayed with the PC.

Another advantage is that you can use large hard drives and store your favourite movies or demo sequences/chapter etc for quick and easy playback. You don't have to keep putting in disks all the time.

It's also the only way to play Hi Def stuff at the moment, so if you can get access to any, HTPC is the way to go.

Gary.

[pho]

I go the HTPC path from simple WinDVD to ZP+ffdshow+Dscaler. Tweaking up a good picture definitely needs time and experience. But I am pretty sure it will reward you at the end since it is easy to get help from others from the web nowadays and price of a decent PC is low enough for most.

The best part of HTPC I love is that improvement can be done through software only and most of them are free. Seeing all the equipement I have over the years pile up in dust and now I can use only one PC to replace them all, I can't imagine buying another DVD or the like in the foreseeable future.

[silentbob]

I've already done a similar post in the past, as has Kragorn.

I think it is very difficult for any 3rd person to say whether or not the effort required by the end user is worthwhile for the PQ benefits, as every user has his/her own priorities in life.

I for one can fully understand Kragorn's POV, and he is right. Even for me, who has worked with PC's and AV for around 14 years, the task was often frustrating and regularly infuriating. However, after the effort I have put in, the PQ is outstanding - and DVD's look truly amazing.

One point to make, if you are thinking of acquiring any HiDef material - then the PC is your only real option. There is no commercially available hardware that offers the capabilities a fairly bog standard PC does. And that was pretty much the deciding factor.

Can I also point out that, if you'r careful, the endless tweaking is not an issue and once you are happy you can simply sit back and enjoy the show, as long as your tweaking finger doesn't get too itchy.

In an ideal world, evreyone considering the options should first try the HCPC route, and if they find it too daunting / irritating - grab themselves scaler.

[dan1979]

Another plus point is I expect the whole Blu-Ray/HD-DVD thing will be less of a hassle/cheaper on a PC

[evolution400]

I am using a HCPC and I would never go back to old style I have HCPC, I am running windows media center 2005 I have 1 remote for everything I can pause record, rewind live tv like sky plus, watch divx,vcd,dvd etc from cd or dvd and sotore loads on my hdd such as recorded tv divx movies tv eps even dvds if your hdd is big enough. The picture you get from DVI is amazing the HD demos look superb and DVD upscaled to 720p looks great
Surfing the net with wireless keyboard and mouse no reason to ever leave the couch again ha ha

I have it hooked up to my new TV Sagem Axium 50" DLP I am looking at getting a projector now for spare room as this wasnt allowed by the mrs in front room
New thread I think

[inzaman]

Another plus point is I expect the whole Blu-Ray/HD-DVD thing will be less of a hassle/cheaper on a PC

That is mainly what got me into it, the fact that i should be able to have both a Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drive in one pc (i hope), as opposed to buying two players at who knows what cost.

The other things i like are the post processing a pc can do, and as stated above once you are happy with the pq just leave it and dont tweak, also the cost of this is pretty negligible once you have the pc. The option, that Gary has stated, of buying several large hard drives (quite cheap now as well) and filling them with your favourite movies.

The only downside for me is the stability aspect, my hard drive has currently gone (i think it is my hard drive) so am awaiting replacement and am now without any form of player (unless i dismantle the living room set up) but luckily (or unluckily for me whichever way you view it) my amp is also out for repair as that too has decided to go so i couldnt really watch anything anyway.

I will rectify the hard disk situation in future by just having a cheap stand by.

[SimonInd]

The only thing that concerns me re: HD-DVD and blu-ray is whether the drives will be available or whether a copy paranoid hollywood will prevent PC compatibility a la SACD

[Cool-hand]

I should imagine its fairly certain that Hollywood will try to enforce a strong HDCP algorithom. But since movies have more attraction to pirates than SACD or DVD-A there should be a crack out soon enough.

CH

[KraGorn]

HDCP isn't the problem, it's AACS used to protect the DVD, the replacement for CSS.

It uses some very advanced encryption and hardware-only processing (driven mainly by Intel using TCPA techniques to prevent reverse-engineering). HDMI allows devices which are known to be cracked to be prevented from being used to play DVDs, the keys of such devices will be in the revocation list present on all released DVDs.

Note this means that if you happen to have, say, a brand of DVD player which is cracked then future DVDs will refuse to play on your machine .. every HDMI device has a private key, it's these that go into the revocation list.

Don't expect a spotty 15-year-old Norwgian to discover the decryption keys in a debug released of a DVD player released by accident by a licensee.

Interesting thread, to wait or not to wait that is the eternal home theatre question? Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of home theatre pc??

With Blue Ray /HD-DVD around the corner would you even want to bother with a HTPC. After all what would be the point. The next generation or the one after, DVD player would surely be backwards compatible to standard dvd's. Would you still need a htpc to pixel map with high def material? Or will it come down to cost over quality issue, ie:would the software / hardware in your HD-HTPC do a better job for the price than your new but affordable Matacheapo player.

Although it sounds it, I'm not anti htpc's, just trying to get a handle on which way to jump. I'm nearly ready to purchase a projector which is itself proving somewhat of a decision nightmare (but I digress, sorry) and am trying to decide on whether to go htpc, dedicated scaler+dvd player or dvd player only, and allow the improving projector scalers to do the job, till HD dvd players arrive. What am i missing here?

Enjoying reading your thoughts

[KraGorn]

IMHO it's too early to know about BluRay/HD .. and are you going to throw away your DVD collection and buy it all again on HD? Also, from everything I've read and reports from CES I don't expect HD players to be cheap.

That aside, do you have a PC you can 'convert', meaning really just possibly changing the graphics card and adding some cheapish software? If so give it a go before laying out on conventional equipment.

Originally Posted by KraGorn

That aside, do you have a PC you can 'convert', meaning really just possibly changing the graphics card and adding some cheapish software? If so give it a go before laying out on conventional equipment.

Yes I do have one with nvidia on board chip and a Winfast ti4200 that i had considered using. I made sure it had a coaxial and componant output. I had planned on using componant cables and simply dropping the dvd into the drive (it's in my study next to the lounge) and then using a remote extender. But with hdmi or even dvi I think it might be too far to use, especialy if I ceiling mount the projector. Approx 16m+. So then it comes down to building a dedicated rack mountable style htpc to put with the reciever. Mmm to htpc or not htpc!

[Gary Lightfoot]

You get a better image using VGA or DVI output from PC to projector. Newer standalone players with HDMI and DVI outputs are now approching and in some ways equaling HTPC quality, though of course they are limited to DVD material, and the HDMI models are quite expensive.

Don't forget the other advantage of the pc is the flexibility, not only with image manipulation but with upgradeablity, and with Blue Ray it might be just a case of fitting a new drive into the pc and away you go. You won't have to spend as much as a standalone player will cost, or the cost of having to buy a new model if something better comes along.

When new software players come out, you can try before you buy and it's a simple download. Upgrades for existing players will be just a download as well, plus all the extra flexibility and adjustments that you get with software.

Any Radeon card will give you a good picture for DVD or Hi Def playback, though you need something around 2mghz for 720 playback. Maybe less - I'm sure my old 1300Duron played 720 OK.

I think that until youv'e tried HTPC, you can't really appreciate it and what it has to offer. That of course will depend on your own ability to use it to it's full effect, and how much yiu like to tweak. Sometimes, being good at pulling your hair out can be an advantage too.

Gary.

[xxalxx]

dont forget that you can also go for nice frontend software etc, in the end,on a well set up machine, you wont even see windows after its all been set up.

there are some off the shelf software things like Meedio etc as well.

Al

[KraGorn]

Originally Posted by Gary Lightfoot

and with Blue Ray it might be just a case of fitting a new drive into the pc and away you go

I bet it won't be anything like as simple.

The HD Forum (or whatever they call themselves) have mandated HDMI for hidef players specifically to prevent 'digital leakage' between source and display.

Hell will freeze over before they allow a PC to be used without ensuring the same protection, this will be 'secure' hardware and software right through to the HDMI socket on the secure graphics card. Take the licensing restrictions of DVD-A as a starting point .. or perhaps even SACD .. certainly in the initial period of HD DVD availability.

Originally Posted by Gary Lightfoot

Sometimes, being good at pulling your hair out can be an advantage too.

Gary.

Ok, exhausted that advantage! What comes next ??

Ok, so I have my new and now top of the line HDMI equipped graphics card and Blue Ray and hd-dvd players, plenty of RAM and a decent cpu. Found myself a rather nice black faced box to put all bits into, but can't decide the best software and capture card to put in it.
The HTPC recommendation listing looks to be a couple of years old.There used to be quite a good list on avs but the last time I looked the recommended componant/software list was rather dated as well.
Whats the latest recommendations.

Maybe these questions are starting to get somewhat off topic for this part of the Forums?? Are the htpc recommendations actually up to date - 2001? Point me in the right direction and I'll leave it at that. Thanks

[Gary Lightfoot]

Any Radeon will give a good picture for DVD playback, but a 9600 or higher will give better mpg deblocking in hardware mode. The new nVidia cards are meant to be quite good now, so are worth a look. Any sound card with spdif output will allow full surround outputs for your AV amp.

Use Windows XP, and try the various software players to see what one you prefer. PowerDVD, WinDVD, TheaterTec etc all do a good job and except for TT, have a trail download so you can try before you buy.

The newer versions of the above players can also playback Hi Def stuff, so one player might be all you need.

For DVD playback, you only need a 1ghz processor, and for 1080 Hi Def you'll need 3ghz or better.

A basic machine used to cost under £200 for DVD playback, not including software.

try the HCPC and HTPC forums on here and avs for more up to the minute info.

Gary.

I have a very good PC with a good graphics card (9700 Pro), and I tried my damndest to come up with a HTPC solution that would blow me away. But it just wasn't happening. It was a nightmare trying to get everything to work properly, I had so many problems. I tried PowerDVD, which gave me terrible playback, TheaterTek (ditto, although it worked with ffdshow, whose upscaling qualities were some compensation), tried WinDVD which wasn't much better. Then tried Zoomplayer with the DScaler 5 codec, and it was the best of the bunch, but still not good enough - you know there's something wrong when your PS2 gives a better picture (minus the higher definition of the upscaled PC output, but there was blockiness, colours were bad etc.). I wrestled with graphics drivers, formatting my harddisk and reinstalling etc. But then seeing my PS2 run just made me give up - I realised then, after two months of struggle, that I needed to get a dedicated player. My PS2 overall gave a better picture over composite cables than my PC was over DVI. I'm finishing up a degree in computer science, so trust me when I say I gave it a good effort. Even if I had got it working satisfactorily, my PC is horribly noisy and was a distraction when watching movies. So end result is, I'm going to shell out a couple of hundred quid on an upscaling DVD player and forget the HTPC route, for now.

But do give it a go if you have a powerful enough PC lying around and have the time to experiment. Things might work out for you. But I'm not sure if I'd recommend shelling out for a new PC solely for home theater use.

[KraGorn]

From experience a 6800GT is incrementally better than an ATI 9600, it's not night and day and mainly due to nVidia doing better at VMR than ATI who are better with Overlay. The point about using VMR is that you can apply tweaks like AA and AF to help improve the image.

However, a 9600 can be had fo £50 while the cheapest 6600 is around £120 and a LOT noisier due to the fan, the 9600 being fanless.

The one thing I would say DON'T do at the outset is to try ZoomPlayer, it is pretty user hostile when it comes to configuring DVD playback and you'll need to obtain a decoder somewhere as ZP doesn't come with one .. you can get an alpha version of the DScaler decoder (not to be confused with the image processor of the same name) which works pretty well considering it's still very much work in progess, and it's free.

TheaterTek gives me the best results of the common players/codecs but as Gary said sadly there's no free demo, you need to buy on a sale or refund basis, which is pretty safe but not very customer-friendly.

Oh, one other thing not to do at the outset .. DON'T try FFDSHOW until you've had some time with a basic hardware-based DVD player, whichever you go with. Launching into FFDSHOW right at the start is a recipe for frustration and bewilderment and you'll want to spend some time enjoying the experience before getting into large-scale twiddling.

[Gary Lightfoot]

Sounds like something was wrong somewhere. I've never had problems like those on any of my HTPC set-ups, and I recently built a Uvem clone for a friend which didn't have any problems like that either.

He did have a Pioneer 668 feeding his Sim2 Domino 20 via HDMI, but now he uses the Uvem and the Pio is relegated elsewhere.

Gary.