New User- Need Help Desiging my system

[jamesbender]

Hey Fellow HT Guru's

I need some assistance in designing my HTPC. I currently have a full theater setup with HDTV + SVGA capable LCD projector, Sony Progressive Scan DVD player, and Pioneer Surround sound setup.

I also have the XBox (Hi-Def kit) and VCR connected.


I want to elliminate the DVD player, and VCR, and control everything via the HTPC.

Here are my questions, concerns.

1.) Will the DVD-ROM in the PC give better quality then my current? Are there various quality DVD Roms?

2.) What type of sound card should I use that will give Optical output for my surround sound?

3.) What TV-Tuner card should I use? I have heard the PVR 250- is this the way to go, or should I invest in something better?

4.) Should I be concerned with a specific Video card? After all I am just sending a native SVGA signal to my projector- all digital.

5.) If I were to buy a small "shuttle" type PC, will it give me the ability to add: decent video card, TV card, and Sound card?

6.) Which Remote should I get.

7.) How can i input my YPrPb signal from my XBOX through my PC?


Thanks for all your help! I really hope to contribute to these boards to the best of my ability.

-JB

[RobertH]

Originally posted by jamesbender
Hey Fellow HT Guru's

I need some assistance in designing my HTPC. I currently have a full theater setup with HDTV + SVGA capable LCD projector, Sony Progressive Scan DVD player, and Pioneer Surround sound setup.

I also have the XBox (Hi-Def kit) and VCR connected.


I want to elliminate the DVD player, and VCR, and control everything via the HTPC.

Here are my questions, concerns.

1.) Will the DVD-ROM in the PC give better quality then my current? Are there various quality DVD Roms?

That depends, some people I know cant stand software dvd players, you could however purchase a hardware dvd decoder for your system. All DVD drives are basically the same, they just dump the data to your computer and the processor chews off decoding the audio/video

2.) What type of sound card should I use that will give Optical output for my surround sound?

you can get various cards that do this although optical might be a problem unless you get a really expensive one or the creative extigy, or the audigy2 platnium ex, most I have seen only provide spdif over coax using a special headphone to coax adapter, or they have a daughter card. The new audigy2 cards have a breakout box that plugs into the back of the card using a funny connector and provide optical

3.) What TV-Tuner card should I use? I have heard the PVR 250- is this the way to go, or should I invest in something better?

PVR250 will give you the best quality video you can get at the moment, note that it doesnt record in HiDef, you would have to set the device you will be recording from to put out a signal for a standard 4:3 tv set

4.) Should I be concerned with a specific Video card? After all I am just sending a native SVGA signal to my projector- all digital.

if you are going to use the projector with svga (whether it be dvi or analog) then it will be fine just get a card that supports dx9 extensions. I also recommend that you run the fullscreen interface in true fullscreen at 800x600 or 640x480 these seem to provide the best responsiveness and cpu overhead.

5.) If I were to buy a small "shuttle" type PC, will it give me the ability to add: decent video card, TV card, and Sound card?

you would have to look into one of the models that has a pci and an agp but these only provide one of each so if you wanted to go the pvr250 route you would be stuck using either a usb soundcard, or the onboard soundcard. Most onboard souncards wont have any problem and the shuttle ones seem to all come with optical output on them.

6.) Which Remote should I get.

depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to use the remote with other software and in various locations around the house then the ati/x10 remote will work nice as it is RF (radio) otherwise you could use the StreamZap remote (IR)

7.) How can i input my YPrPb signal from my XBOX through my PC?

Not Likely gonna happen, plus since there will be a delay of upto 10 seconds while displaying thru snapstream it would be not appropriate to play the xbox thru the video capture interface

Thanks for all your help! I really hope to contribute to these boards to the best of my ability.

-JB [/B]

good luck

[jamesbender]

Robert,

Thanks for your help!

Will I lose any audio quality with using the shuttle Optical Output? I want to maintain my 5.1, or 6.1 DTS signal.

I will most likely be using PowerDVD XP 4 for DVD playback- Do you think this is aceptable? Or should I look to another solution.

Can you recommend a DVD decoding solution so I don't have to bother my CPU and use software? Is there a nice Video card that does this?

The idea here is to replace my components, yet I do not want to lose any quality.

What do you think about the following pc:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/n...odel=Metis_266



Thanks So Much!!

-JB

[RobertH]

as with snapstream currently not being able to record HiDef it also cannot record the dolby or dts signal from the cable box either, it only records in stereo. So even if you were feeding the soundcard using an optical cable it would only record in stereo.

If you were using a software dvd program like powerdvd that recognised the soundcard (most onboard sound is recognised by dvd software) then it would tell the soundcard to send the raw dts/dolby signal out the optical/spdif connector. You might want to check into powerdvd 5 as it supports more hardware and has better playback features. any nvidia card can use hardware acceleration when using powerdvd 4/5 this takes some of the load off the cpu but not much, when playing back a dvd at fullscreen (1280x1024) on sys1 (see sig) my cpu is around 40-50% with the soundcard processing for 4 speaker it goes down to about 30 if I set the system to output to spdif (since the cpu/sound doesnt have to handle anything any more) digital is digital if you are using the optical output then you will get the pure digital signal as long as the playback software supports the audio device.

Hardware dvd playback solutions tend to not be as generous with dolby/dts signals, they often only provide the spdif coax connector and I have seen my friends Creative DXR3 (hollywood card) not send signals on occasion to the dolby receiver it seems to only understand one surround sound format and the drivers are buggy as hell (they dont like xp for crap)

if you are going to look into home theatre cases you need to watch out. the majority of cases that are designed to be small and fit into racks and home theatre setups are designed with half height slots and they are a pain in the a$$ to get good quality hardware (especially hardware encoders) that fit them. The system you linked to uses half height slots and thus something like the pvr (wich is a full height card) will not fit in them. here is a link to some suggestions on HTPC's: http://discuss2.snapstream.com/vb/sh...highlight=HTPC

[beyond]

build a machine like mine.. just swap out the mobo and cpu for Nforce2 and a barton2500..

see sig for pics and such

[jamesbender]

Beyond,

I want a case just like that. Where can I get one?

What video card are you using?

P.S- Roberth,

I am more concerned w/image quality with PowerDVD or PC playback for that matter than the audio output. I've got such a high end projector, I do not want to limit the picture because I am using a cheaper PC solution.

So with that said- Will PowerDVD 5 be acceptable for Image quality?

Thanks Guys!!!!

-JB

[RobertH]

it will if you run the output as close to dvd resoultion (720x480) as you can some projectors dont do this res so 800x600 is often the most acceptable. If you run software decoders at higher resolutions they either have to use the hardware overlay to stretch the image for them wich is good with some video cards but on others it causes poor image quality, or they have to resample the images on the fly causing horrible image quality.

I would say get the trial version play with it see if it works if so then throw your old dvd on ebay or something, if not find some way to integrate it into the whole system

[jamesbender]

I've got the trial version- I am getting the full here shortly.

Can I acheive the 720x480 resolution via PowerStrip?? I have to do some sort of 16:9 resolution since my projector screen is 16:9


Thanks Robert,

-JB

[RobertH]

you might be able to get power strip to putout at a 16:9 over the vga cable but i doubt it over the svideo cable on most cards, I own 3 different nvidia cards and their svideo can only put out at 4:3 resolutions (640x480,720x480,800x600) but if the projector is plug an pray then the video card should have its resolutions adjusted to fit those accepted by the projector.

Also snapstream currently only records in 4:3, even when you specify a normally widescreen resolution the file is encoded with 4:3 vga square pixel resolution (atleast according to tmpgenc)

although the highdef projectors Ive seen that also take computer input unless it is connected over dvi dont seem to do anything special when hooked to a computer other than their output becoming 4:3 or 1:1