Hometheatre Pcs

[gui_m]

Hello! I want to buy and setup a home theatre PC in the living room. I've got a NEC Plasma HDTV w/ a DVI connection. The main use will be to watch my DivX and Xvid movie collection I have on the network. The Plasma TV has a DVI Input, but is this the best connection? Are there other, better, high definition connections?

I'm assuming that DVI is the best cable to use (right?), and i've also been reading about using FFDShow filter which apparently can greatly improve the quality. anyone have any experience or suggestions about this? Is it worth it?

Thanks

[svasutin]

I'm assuming you're just going to be using the PC for Tivo, audio, and games.

IF you're looking for ease of use, go with an ATI All In Wonder (minimum of 9600 xt).

As for the connection, try all the different ones you can. On some tv's I've found the conversion is better through the video card in the PC. Most stores do not have return policies about cables so just buy them all. Don't be cheap on the video cables as it accounts for ghosting issues.

Also, you can add the TV wonder Pro (an extra 60 USD) for picture in picture and the ability to watch something and record something else.

If you split your coax cable connection, then from Radio Shack buy a spitter with a RETURN. If you have a dish, or digital cable, you will need two boxes for the extra channels.

CPU 1.67 GHz (athlon xp 2000+) or faster.

Min: 512 MB no games, or 768 MB with games

Stay away from Win Xp Media Center Edition. It has highly specific hardware requirements, and trust me, you will want to change capture settings.

Ensure your motherboard supports Wake-On-USB and supports S3 sleep state. Consider a wired GB lan with Wake-On-Lan Support. Also, check for the windows logo (whql)

Any 6.1 sound should be fine. Creative Audigy 2 Zs. Buy an Audio Meter, also from Radio Shack to calibrate your speakers.

Ensure your DVD-ROM/Writer has a digital IO connection. 4x or better.

You should have at least 2 hard drives. 1 for the OS and common programs, the other for capture, video, and audio. The 2nd Hdd will be the one scanned for content.

I really like the Logitech Media Mouse; it's a nice addition to the ATI Remote Wonder II.

Fans. This includes the power supply, CPU, video card, and case fans. You want less than 30 dB at the high end. Forget about front fan contols, as you will be watching the TV from a distance. From testing, take the highest fan noise rating, and multiply by 1.15.

In an ideal world, you want less than 34 dB.

So

30=

10 * Log10( 
   ( 10^(cpu_fan) )^.1 +
   ( 10^(agp_fan) )^.1 +
   ( 10^(powerSupply_fan) )^.1 +
   ( 10^(case_fan1) )^.1 + ( 10^(case_fan2) )^.1 +
   ( 10^(case_fan3) )^.1 + ( 10^(case_fan4) )^.1 
            )

50 db is what you hear in your car with your windows rolled up and traffic going by.

Your power supply should have a fan to draw air from the cpu.

For capturing video, I would recommend you also purchase a video stabelizer. Hmmm, this whole DRM (digital writes management) thing is also causing issues for many people.

Recently, some companies have started adding some sort of protection encoding to the audio streams. Hence you might run into recording issues not due to css or macrovision, but something in the audio.

[gui_m]

Thanks svasutin, really helped. I still have one doubt though, I have a NEC Plasma (52MP3 is the model nº, i think). Anyways, I've been hearing that u can greatly improve DVD quality by using FFDShow to resize the video to HDTV resolutions. Is this really the case, and if so, what is the best GPU for this. I've had some bad experiences using DVI cable with my HDTV, is there an alternative High Definition connection? My TV supports 1080i and 720p, which would i be better off using?

In terms of the other hardware you already helped and i know the way to go. I will not really be using HTPC to watch and record TV, so a TV card isn't really necessary. Is the ATI all in wonder pro still ur suggestion?

Thanks.

[svasutin]

FFDShow, DScaler, and Zoom Player are all software applications. Using them can improve video quality. I've used all three intermittently.

On some systems FFDShow causes problems. The issues are both hardware and software.

FFDShow has several versions available, perhaps you can get one to work for you. It's free so you could try it out. If it works, don't foregt to donate.

DScaler is also a great application, but a little clunky.

Zoom Player is powerful, but takes some downloads and tweaking.

The main problem is Video For Windows (vfw) vs WDM (Windows Driver Model) vs Windows Foundation Drivers (soon to appear).

Resizing is an art, and some resize better than others. In any case, when you enlarge a video there are limits and many settings to tweak. This also gets into the wonderful world of aspect ratios: 1:1, 1:1.33, 2.35, 1.85, 1.77, 1.33

As for 1080i vs 720p, go with 720p. 720p = 1440i > 1080i.

I'm partial to ATI when it comes to TV out. It you're not going to TiVo anything, then you skip the AIW (all in wonder), but still go with a Radeon. For HDTV output, get a video card with a minimum of 128 MBs. The ATI cards have vga, dvi, s-video, RGB, and supports BNC adapters. AGP vs PCI-Express is currently a money thing.

Start with your system, then test. Just remeber the cables. Since your display is greater than 1024, ghosting will be an issue.

Oh ya, check your set-up for 3:2 pulldown and deInterlace options. These settings make a differnce.

[rendrag]

if you choose to go DVI, hopefully you'll have better luck than I did. I have a 9800 AiW, and a DVI input to my TV. Unfortunately the TV would not take the signal. I read online that something similar to macrovision or something is prohibiting the signal from being shown on the TV (if I used a DVI DVD player, it worked no problem).