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Ubik posted:I just got my new TV today and I'm having a bitch of a time getting my Ubuntu machine to output video to it properly. It defaults to 1280x720 resolution, which would be all well and good... but the edges are all cut off to the extent that I can only see the very edge of the taskbars, making opening applications drat near impossible. I can't tell a way to get it to display at native resolution, or at least in a way where I can actually see everything. I'm using a DVI to HDMI connector for video output. Any suggestions? What kind of video card do you have? Nvidia? If so, are you running the binary nvidia drivers? When I got my HDTV, I just had to put this one line in my xorg.conf to make it output at the correct resolution and DPI through the HDMI port on the video card: code:
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Dec 17, 2007 18:10
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Okay, I've got a list together and I'd love it if someone could look it over and tell me what's too much and what's not enough. I'm trying to make an HD-ready PC that can playback and record (often at the same time). It's gotta be ready for a 42-inch LCD as well as for Blu-Ray and HD DVD whenever the combo drive comes down in price. No gaming whatsoever. That said, here's the list: NewEgg list I'm trying to save money so if there are any corners I can cut let me know. Slap Happy fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Dec 17, 2007 |
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Dec 17, 2007 19:12
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Explosm posted:Okay, I've got a list together and I'd love it if someone could look it over and tell me what's too much and what's not enough. I'm trying to make an HD-ready PC that can playback and record (often at the same time). It's gotta be ready for a 42-inch LCD as well as for Blu-Ray and HD DVD whenever the combo drive comes down in price. No gaming whatsoever. A few questions: What HTPC platform/software are you planning on using? What type of TV service do you have (cable/satellite/etc)?
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Dec 18, 2007 00:44
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Vista's media center, and regular HD airwaves.
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Dec 18, 2007 00:49
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The list looks respectable. I don't know anything about Vista's media center, so the one thing I'd recommend is that you check that the tuner card (the Avermedia) is compatible (I assume you've already done this). Also, keep in mind that HD streams take up anywhere from 5-10gb per hour, so that 400gig drive isn't going to go very far if you plan on saving lots of shows and/or putting other media on the box. Since you're going to be doing OTA (over-the-air) capture, be sure to check http://antennaweb.org for info on what reception you will have in your area and whether you will need to get an antenna or not.
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Dec 18, 2007 01:00
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This might be a related question to the one above. I recently got HD-DVDs to play through PowerDVD using the SlySoft AnyDVD product to bypass the HDCP monitor requirement. Problem is, the video is slightly choppy. I'm on Windows XP. Athlon 64 3700+ CPU Nvidia 7600 GT video card 1 MB RAM Which of these components would be best to upgrade to get choppy-free video? Would a RAM increase even make a difference at all? I'm using the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, and I do have the Nvidia PureVideo codec enabled, if any of that makes a difference.
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Dec 18, 2007 01:00
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vanilla slimfast posted:Also, keep in mind that HD streams take up anywhere from 5-10gb per hour, so that 400gig drive isn't going to go very far if you plan on saving lots of shows and/or putting other media on the box. I'll probably get another harddrive later. This is just to get me started.
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Dec 18, 2007 01:23
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Bender posted:This might be a related question to the one above. How are you able to run Windows XP on 1 MB RAM?
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Dec 18, 2007 04:05
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n0tqu1tesane posted:How are you able to run Windows XP on 1 MB RAM? Oops. GB
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Dec 18, 2007 04:08
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Media Portal II released for those who care. Just installed it and starting to play with it now.
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Dec 18, 2007 15:45
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Could someone point me in the direction of instructions on how to play .evo files in Windows Vista? I have powerdvd 7.3 ultra deluxe but as it turns out that is the most useless piece of garbage ever.
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Dec 18, 2007 20:41
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St. Blaize posted:Could someone point me in the direction of instructions on how to play .evo files in Windows Vista? http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123282 Scroll down to "Playback of HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray on a PC" in the first post of that thread vanilla slimfast fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Dec 19, 2007 |
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Dec 18, 2007 23:59
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Bender posted:This might be a related question to the one above. My first guess would be the processor, and then the video card. Try ripping the DVD (using AnyDVD) to your hard drive and then play it to ensure it's not your external drive having trouble keeping up, which I doubt. Currently only PowerDVD Ultra 7.3.3319a or earlier will play HD movies off the hard drive. Newer versions have disabled that feature.
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Dec 19, 2007 04:48
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thefuNkpuNk fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Apr 14, 2009 |
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Dec 19, 2007 23:32
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thefuNkpuNk posted:Is there any way to effectively capture HD content from DirecTV to watch on your local machine, or stream back to an XBOX 360? I would think that windows media center would play a part in this. Satellite providers don't offer firewire ports like cable companies do (see posts of mine earlier in this thread about firewire capture). However, you could use one of the options below: http://www.169time.com/ http://www.nextcomwireless.com/r5000/home.htm From what I've read on the MythTV mailing lists about these products, the r5000 works a bit better (but that's using it as an intermediary on windows to get data to myth running on linux)
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Dec 19, 2007 23:42
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I've heard that you can't use a TV tuner in combination with a satellite provider, and I'm wondering why. The coax from the satellite goes to the receiver, then another coax goes from the receiver to the actual TV or TV tuner. I'm not sure what the problem would be, does anyone have any experience with this?
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Dec 20, 2007 04:53
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lolinternet posted:I've heard that you can't use a TV tuner in combination with a satellite provider, and I'm wondering why. The coax from the satellite goes to the receiver, then another coax goes from the receiver to the actual TV or TV tuner. I'm not sure what the problem would be, does anyone have any experience with this? I would speculate that the signal sent out of the receiver is just the "tuned" signal modulated to channel 3 (or 4), the way VCRs were commonly hooked up back in the day
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Dec 20, 2007 05:03
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vanilla slimfast posted:I would speculate that the signal sent out of the receiver is just the "tuned" signal modulated to channel 3 (or 4), the way VCRs were commonly hooked up back in the day Yeah, it sends the satellite over one of those channels and passes the rest of your OTA channels through the coax. You should be able to use a TV Tuner just fine. If you have one that supports it, you could probably even use an IR blaster to change channels on the receiver and record them.
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Dec 20, 2007 12:29
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I bought a GA-MA69GM-S2H and I'm trying Media Portal on Windows XP. So I've got two problems. One is that I'm using an analog connection, specifically an S-Video connection and there is some weirdness going on. It looks like half way through the screen there is a bowing effect for 1/3 of the screen. The rest looks somewhat decent. I have the newest ATI drivers that aren't beta. Is there a way to fix that? Second problem is that Media Portal chokes on using a wireless connection to play videos on a server even though I can browse to the directory and open it just fine with Media Player Classic. It actually chokes on listing files, but sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Any suggestions on how to fix this stuff?
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Dec 21, 2007 16:09
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I figured it was time I got around to posting my actual HTPC build in this thread. I did this in a different thread in SH/SC when I originally built it but the thread isn't around any more. Parts list Case: OrigenAE X11 Black Mobo: ASUS P5B-E CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6420 2.13 Ghz w/ Zalman 9500 cooler RAM: 2x1G Corsair HDD: 4x500G Seagate 7200.10 SATA2 Video: MSI NX7600GS-MTD256E (HDMI out  )DVDR: Lite-On LH-20A1S QAM Tuner: pcHDTV 5500 (no longer used) Pictures (click for big) Inside view, assembled  Front view  In action, running the MePo-Wide theme  Config The OS is Linux - Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I'm using MythTV as my platform, currently running a trunk SVN build for better firewire support (at least until v0.21 is formally released). The four hard drives are partitioned as follows: * 2x 20gib raid-1 arrays (two disks per array). One for the root filesystem and one for /home * 4x 1gib swap partition (one one each drive) * ~300gib raid-5 partition for recordings * ~1.0tib raid-5 partition for all "static" media (music, video files, etc) I originally built it to capture analog cable via the pcHDTV-5500, but the quality was pretty crappy for everything but the QAM HD channels I was pulling in the clear. I had my old SDTV wired up with an SVideo cable coming out of the MSI video card. About two months ago I upgraded to digital cable. I have a Motorola DCH-3200 cable tuner STB that I have wired up to the PC with a firewire cable, doing firewire capture. This works reasonably well for scheduled recordings but there are some stability issues with live tv (my fiancee is a chronic channel flipper so when it acts up she'll switch the tv to the direct input coming from the STB). A few weeks ago I got a new HDTV, so now I have it wired up directly with HDMI. I have yet to get the S/PDIF passthrough from the motherboard to the video card to work properly, so for now the audio is still wired up with a standard 1/8"-to-RCA cable. I don't have a surround sound setup, so it's not a big deal for now. I will eventually need to fix this when I get a multi-channel setup going. vanilla slimfast fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Feb 1, 2008 |
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Dec 22, 2007 23:21
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I need htpc software advice, I have the following hardware: Samsung HDTV, DVI inputs Mac Mini Intel Core Duo (1.66, 2gb) Harmony 880 universal remote My Book Premium 2 (usb, firewire400, firewire800) I love my apple computers but OS X is just loving rubbish for a media center, it's slow to respond. I want an experience like my xbmc but I want to effortlessly play the hd content. VNC would be a huge plus. If it matters I can buy windows licenses pretty cheaply through our department's volume licensing deal with the university.
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Dec 23, 2007 00:06
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G5ANDY posted:I need htpc software advice, I have the following hardware: Which version of OSX do you have? Leopard has Front Row which is supposed to be decent.
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Dec 23, 2007 23:22
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King Nothing posted:Which version of OSX do you have? Leopard has Front Row which is supposed to be decent. I'm using Leopard, frontrow is much better than the Tiger version because it doesn't start to preview each film, that wasted a but load of time. There was just a lot of nice stuff that XBMC did that this doesn't. I liked the IMDB, intelligent resizing of videos, being able to view files as icons (with the box art), skipping around video files felt more intuitive. Same thing with subtitles. I never had a problem with subtitles or multiple audio tracks when I used the xbox.
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Dec 24, 2007 03:10
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Treytor posted:My first guess would be the processor, and then the video card. Try ripping the DVD (using AnyDVD) to your hard drive and then play it to ensure it's not your external drive having trouble keeping up, which I doubt. It was my processor. The 3700+ is just under the limit that PowerDVD can work with, apparently. I was able to get a nice dual-core Athlon X2 chip from newegg.com for only ~$70. One of the last socket 939 chips I could find. I also got a fanless GForce 8400GS. The HDDVD movies play like a dream now. On a side note, the tiny fan over my northbridge sounds like satan raping a pile of cats if I leave it plugged in. Does anyone know if there would be any major heat problems if I leave it unplugged. I've been running for about 2 hours now with no issue, but I don't plan on turning the box off except for rare circumstances, and I don't want to burn my home down.
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Dec 25, 2007 07:11
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Bender posted:It was my processor. The 3700+ is just under the limit that PowerDVD can work with, apparently. This should be okay, but I would get an extra case fan just to be sure. Take the dead fan off to allow for a little better airflow over the northbridge.
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Dec 25, 2007 12:34
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Bender posted:It was my processor. The 3700+ is just under the limit that PowerDVD can work with, apparently. I bet the the video card made a bigger difference than the processor. Since the 8xxx series cards support video codec hardware offload/accel and your old 7600 only supports mpeg2 processing. My system chugs at about 80+% utilization with hd-dvd playback and hardware accel disabled, with it enabled it pulls 4-6% utilization...
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Dec 25, 2007 19:25
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dfn_doe posted:I bet the the video card made a bigger difference than the processor. Since the 8xxx series cards support video codec hardware offload/accel and your old 7600 only supports mpeg2 processing. My system chugs at about 80+% utilization with hd-dvd playback and hardware accel disabled, with it enabled it pulls 4-6% utilization... Either way it was a really cheap upgrade with excellent results.
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Dec 25, 2007 19:49
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Sooooooooo....my big christmas present is a 24" Dell 2407WFT-HC monitor and I want to use this as a TV in my bedroom. I'm not worried about my CPU or video card but I am wondering what kind of TV tuner to get. I have regular cable but I will pay the extra  to get digital along with sweet, sweet unencrypted HD (so I'll need QAM). The cable company though doesn't have all the local HD stations so I would need to get some over the air too. Finally I want to be able to record (this appears to be common now) and I am using XP Pro OS. I was looking at this card but it seem pretty pricey, but I am willing to get it if it gets the job done. Also what is the benefit to having dual tuners?Also, what do some of the other HTPC software (Myth TV etc) actually do? Are they the same as the software that comes with the tuners only better?
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Dec 26, 2007 04:32
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Ubitquitin posted:Sooooooooo....my big christmas present is a 24" Dell 2407WFT-HC monitor and I want to use this as a TV in my bedroom. I'm not worried about my CPU or video card but I am wondering what kind of TV tuner to get. I have regular cable but I will pay the extra you should already be able to get any unencrypted QAM stations without any change to your cable account, since they are unencrypted they are already being sent to your house clearly. To get the encrypted digital channels you will need a cablecard setup.
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Dec 26, 2007 09:13
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Don Lapre posted:you should already be able to get any unencrypted QAM stations without any change to your cable account, since they are unencrypted they are already being sent to your house clearly. To get the encrypted digital channels you will need a cablecard setup. Except for the possibility of pay-per-view HD, I am pretty sure that there are no encrypted HD channels through my cable company.
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Dec 26, 2007 17:12
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Ubitquitin posted:Also, what do some of the other HTPC software (Myth TV etc) actually do? Are they the same as the software that comes with the tuners only better? MythTV is one of several software packages that uses a tuner card to provide DVR (tivo-like) functionality. A tuner card by itself will likely let you watch TV but that's about it. I'd expect it varies depending on the brand and model of the tuner. Most of these aforementioned software packages support a lot of functionality above and beyond DVR, such as playback of music, movies, the ability to play games, etc. More info on the Myth site here. Myth is what I run on my HTPC, so if you have any specific questions about it I'd be happy to answer. Ubitquitin posted:Except for the possibility of pay-per-view HD, I am pretty sure that there are no encrypted HD channels through my cable company. He's talking about all the "regular" channels that you have to pay for that are part of your cable package (HD or not). Those are definitely going to be encrypted QAM which require a cablecard or a set-top box (STB) from your cable company. The only channels that are going to be available as unencrypted QAM are the ones that you could also get freely over the air. This includes the big three networks of ABC, NBC, CBS, as well as others like FOX. Channels that you have to pay for on cable like A&E and TNT that have HD versions will likely *not* be available unencrypted.
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Dec 26, 2007 18:25
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vanilla slimfast posted:The only channels that are going to be available as unencrypted QAM are the ones that you could also get freely over the air. This includes the big three networks of ABC, NBC, CBS, as well as others like FOX. Channels that you have to pay for on cable like A&E and TNT that have HD versions will likely *not* be available unencrypted. This isn't true in my experience. Here in the SF East Bay Comcast/AT&T sends quite a bit of unencrypted QAM stuff down the pipes. Personally I get almost everything that is normally included in the "extended basic package" unencrypted, which includes something like 60 channels. Which is quite a bit more than just the major networks.
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Dec 26, 2007 21:04
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dfn_doe posted:This isn't true in my experience. Here in the SF East Bay Comcast/AT&T sends quite a bit of unencrypted QAM stuff down the pipes. Personally I get almost everything that is normally included in the "extended basic package" unencrypted, which includes something like 60 channels. Which is quite a bit more than just the major networks. That's pretty impressive. Consider yourself lucky because as I understand it that's not the norm for most of the country. Are you paying for digital service or analog?
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Dec 26, 2007 22:03
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Anyone have experience with external DACs? I'm looking at these http://www.scott-nixon.com/dac.htm but I don't know much about this stuff. Right now I'm using a Sound Blaster X-Fi and my speakers are the Axiom M50 towers, and the Axiom EP175 subwoofer. Will I hear much of a difference upgrading (lets say, under 500 dollars) to an external DAC, and which brands should I be looking at?
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Dec 26, 2007 22:23
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Is there really no PC capture card/video card with the feature to receive an HD input via Component/HDMI/DVI/VGA/Whatever? This is a digital rights issue and not a technical issue, right? I want to make an HTPC with HD PVR capabilities, my only option is stb>>>htpc>>>tv using an IR blaster to control the stb, but apparantly I can't do this because the media companies think I may use this setup to download the latest Britney Spears cd or something? vanilla slimfast posted:Satellite providers don't offer firewire ports like cable companies do (see posts of mine earlier in this thread about firewire capture). So for these things you mail in your STB, they 'do stuff' to it, and then you can recieve an HD stream into your computer via USB? Any user feedback of whether it works? How can there be modders able to do this, but not be able to create a grey market capture card that accepts 720p over component or something? Kreez fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Dec 27, 2007 |
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Dec 27, 2007 02:44
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tinselt0wn posted:Anyone have experience with external DACs? I'm looking at these http://www.scott-nixon.com/dac.htm but I don't know much about this stuff. Right now I'm using a Sound Blaster X-Fi and my speakers are the Axiom M50 towers, and the Axiom EP175 subwoofer. You don't list what receiver/amplifier/s you are using to drive those speakers. That said, an external DAC is really only advantageous (AFAICT) if you are taking a pretty high bitrate PCM stream and want to feed that to a highend amplification stage to drive high end speakers. The differences in sound quality between the DAC in any modern receiver and what you would find in a stand alone unit are not going to be night and day; rather it will be the type of increase in fidelity that can only be really exploited when the rest of your components can accurately reproduce the sound well enough to make the difference audible. As an aside, the particular site you've linked is quite light on technical details as to what is in their magic boxes, but a look around seems to indicate that they use a standard Phillips TDA 1543 8 pin DAC chip which is a commodity processor which costs about 5 bucks in single unit quantities from parts houses. The rest of the box is filled with a simple tube based preamp. Personally *I* don't much like over-processing my audio. I figure the production company paid BIG money for an engineer to make the CD sound the way it is supposed to sound in the first place. And *I* think it is antithetical to the intentions of accurate reproduction. That said, with the assumption that the "T" in HTPC implies more viewing than listening I'd say that there is basically no place in a Home Theater setup for a device like this (preamp) unless you already happen to have a setup with individual amps and no existing processing hardware and want to move from analog transport to digital transport from the PC.
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Dec 27, 2007 04:55
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Kreez posted:Is there really no PC capture card/video card with the feature to receive an HD input via Component/HDMI/DVI/VGA/Whatever? This is a digital rights issue and not a technical issue, right? It's both. To capture HD with framegrabbing over an analog source (like component) would require insane amounts of hard drive space and/or in-flight processing. There are cards that can do HD capture, but not for the consumer market (e.g. they cost thousands of dollars for pro video) For HDMI/DVI digital capture, there are DRM protections in place in the form of HDCP. This is why you'll see "HDCP compliant" listed on things that you would connect with such cables, basically stating that said devices won't steal content. quote:I want to make an HTPC with HD PVR capabilities, my only option is stb>>>htpc>>>tv using an IR blaster to control the stb, but apparantly I can't do this because the media companies think I may use this setup to download the latest Britney Spears cd or something? Your options depend on what HD service you are getting (OTA, cable, or satellite). For doing ATSC (over the air) and unencrypted QAM (cable) capture, you don't need a STB or a complicated IR blaster setup. What they are afraid of is that you're going to take the captured mpeg2 stream, edit out the commercials, and then post it on a torrent site. And that's exactly what people are doing. This is more of a problem now because the analog->digital conversion step that used to be necessary with NTSC capture is eliminated; the content is essentially ready to go as it is. vanilla slimfast fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Dec 27, 2007 |
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Dec 27, 2007 07:11
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vanilla slimfast posted:It's both. To capture HD with framegrabbing over an analog source (like component) would require insane amounts of hard drive space and/or in-flight processing. There are cards that can do HD capture, but not for the consumer market (e.g. they cost thousands of dollars for pro video) The technology must be there though, the $150 slingbox can take uncompressed HD video and compress it on the fly.  vanilla slimfast posted:Your options depend on what HD service you are getting (OTA, cable, or satellite). For doing ATSC (over the air) and unencrypted QAM (cable) capture, you don't need a STB or a complicated IR blaster setup.  It's not really that big a deal for me, I'm building an HTPC mostly as a media extender and not as a PVR, but I thought it would be a good idea to throw in a $150 card to be able to have PVR abilities just in case, I didn't imagine I was going to run into a wall that requires hundreds of dollars to get over. vanilla slimfast posted:What they are afraid of is that you're going to take the captured mpeg2 stream, edit out the commercials, and then post it on a torrent site. And that's exactly what people are doing. This is more of a problem now because the analog->digital conversion step that used to be necessary with NTSC capture is eliminated; the content is essentially ready to go as it is. Kreez fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Dec 27, 2007 |
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Dec 27, 2007 08:23
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EC posted:As the official Meedio fanboy of the SA community, I feel the need to chime in here. For your TV tuner, I believe you could probably use the BDA plugin to create a graph and then have Meedio detect the card. Normally this isn't very difficult, and has more to do with making sure you're using the right decoders to get everything to playback smoothly. If you have any issues, you can post threads on the MeediOS forums, which is where all the new development of Meedio is located. I think at least one or two people have that card working, but I don't really get into the recording TV scene so I can't help that much. As the official Meedio(OS) fanboy could you post a link to a good in depth tutorial for using TVNight (and to a lesser extent) MovieNight to turn a folder of "Show Name/Show name s3e01.avi" into that crazy little database that Meedio uses? Also this is a more specific problem - I have a new MacMini bootcamping into Windows Vista for HTPC purposes running Meedio. I have a WIndows MCE remote and USB receiver but I'd like to use that remote with the in built IR receiver on the mini. The Apple remote works with the built in receiver using Apple's own drivers so it can control the volume and launch iTunes but I don't know what software to use to see if it detects the MCE remote and eventually program it to turn these into Meedio commands or if I need some generic IR drivers to have it be recognised. Any help?
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Dec 27, 2007 13:35
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dfn_doe posted:You don't list what receiver/amplifier/s you are using to drive those speakers. That said, an external DAC is really only advantageous (AFAICT) if you are taking a pretty high bitrate PCM stream and want to feed that to a highend amplification stage to drive high end speakers. The differences in sound quality between the DAC in any modern receiver and what you would find in a stand alone unit are not going to be night and day; rather it will be the type of increase in fidelity that can only be really exploited when the rest of your components can accurately reproduce the sound well enough to make the difference audible. its some old (think 70s) amp I inherited from my uncle. forgot the brand, since It's locked away in my apartment at school right now, but apparently its very good. Thanks for the detailed exaplanation.
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Dec 27, 2007 16:06
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