Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater X1 projector setup ... for those interested

After my server got hit by the Blaster bug it took me all this time to get it setup. Anyways mind the poor picture taking in the semi-dark. Thats the best pictures i could take. The picture live is definitely much better but take a look and tell what you think....

http://www.spacelofts.com/x1/

If there are issues connecting message me here.
The pictures were taken with ambient lighting 6:00pm ish...one pic has sunlight coming through a bit. In a dark situation the picture is 10x better. If you click on a pic and get a full screen just click the back button.

Saturn

Wow. I am stunned. That looks very good. What was that big silver box with the tape slot and blue lights?

Looks cool saturn, my sanyo z1 gets here thursday supposedly....yay!

And just to let everyone know, never order from projectorshopper.com MISERABLE service.

Thats a HTPC - Home theater PC I built up. Its a PC in a smaller format about show box size. I has a DVD/CD burner which played the movies you see using a ATI Radeon 9700 video card. It has a TV tuner which plays regular cable TV. Its has a SPDif connector which outputs digital to my Rotel receiver and decodes the DTS or Dolby Digital audio from the DVD. It also has an infrared which I can control with my Rotel learning remote. And you
can surf on a nice 78" 16:9 picture. Theres a hole only because I forgot to put a floppy drive. I will mostlikely install a media bay drive wherein I can just put my compact flash, media cards etc.
I found that this gave me a better projector picture vs. my progressive DVD player.

Let me know how your Z1 fares. If you can get some screen shots that would be great too.

It should give you a better picture, Saturn. That's the whole point. Your nice little inexpensive computer is performing, quite well mind you, the function of a $2000-6000 scaler.

Are you using DVI or VGA to connect it or a component video transcoder (or god forbid even ATi's little dongle)?

I learned from you .. Maaassteerrrrrr....
As your suggestion many months ago I went to search for a case that is quiet and also has the ummppph in small package. It has 1 AGP and 1 PCI and it supports the Hyperthreading chips up to 500 mhz bus. It would be nice for a 800 bus but that would be too expensive. I bought a 9700 Radeon a week after you bought yours. Figured if it worked for you it would work for me...Maaassstter......precieous.....

Tried both DVI with dongle and VGA and was no diff on the X1. The DVI to VGA dongle only passed the analog signal to the projector. Noticed some noise on the picture with the dongle so went just straight VGA to projector. Even with the component video on my progressive DVD player to the Farouja scaler the straight VGA from HTPC to X1 is the best PQ. I am using Powerstrip to sync a 16:9 800x430 WinXP desktop so that I do not have to switch between 4:3 16:9. So the 4:3 image is smaller but I don't have to adjust my settings anymore and I can definitely start looking for a 16:9 screen rather than this el cheapo screen. Just have to wait till Feb 04 when the new place is done.

Sounds good. The reason I asked is that apparently the ATi dongle triggers circuitry that restricts the output of DVDs to 480p in accordance with Macrovision encryption. As such, it totally eliminates the scaling properties of an HTPC. I've no idea why they did that.

I had never heard of a HTPC before I started on this board. Can someone explain what the purpose is and what the advantages of it are? It sounds like the computer DVD is used instead of a DVD player, and I guess i just hooks up to any TV. If you need to get technical on the computer side of things to explain it, go right ahead.

Thats what some people have mentioned. But I tried it and it does output standard 800x600. I only see 480p on the bootup XP logo. Then it goes 800x600 in winxp desktop. It was working fine until last week thats when I saw some noise so I started using the primary display vga rather than the DVI with ATI dongle to VGA. Mind you I got an OEM Shappire card. The dongle that came with it is not stamped ATI. Mine could be another companies passthrough which only sends analog signals. The picture definitely is not scaled prohibitive because I can run the htpc at any resolution and run DVD full screened or windowed. Some DVI has both analog and digital ...like this ATI. But some like Apple only have digital through DVI. That is why only Macs can use those nice Widescreen LCD by Apple. Id love one of those for the PC.

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Thats what some people have mentioned. But I tried it and it does output standard 800x600. I only see 480p on the bootup XP logo. Then it goes 800x600 in winxp desktop. It was working fine until last week thats when I saw some noise so I started using the primary display vga rather than the DVI with ATI dongle to VGA.

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I think we're talking about different things. To see to what I'm refering, go to this page and scroll toward the bottom. On the far right, you should see a little dongle you can buy for $29 that converts VGA to Component Video:

http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9800/radeon9800pro/index.html

However, if your projector has a VGA in, that's absolutely the way to go.

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But some like Apple only have digital through DVI. That is why only Macs can use those nice Widescreen LCD by Apple. Id love one of those for the PC.

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You can buy one. All you need is a little converter dongle that goes from the stupid Apple connector to DVI:

http://www.welovemacs.com/dviator.html

Of course, since Apple doesn't actually make their own panels, you could just buy another brand's rebranding of the same screen and be done with it. I can't remember off the top of my head who actually manufactures the Cinema Displays but I can guarantee a quick post to Ars would find someone that does.

Though if memory serves, Apple's prices on the Cinema Displays are astonishingly competitive compared to the rest of their products.

Zarak,

An HTPC can serve a couple of functions. First and foremost is the ability to act as a scaler. Individual scalers usually start at $2000 and head up toward $6k quickly. This functionality has been built into every VGA chip for a very long time so just about any computer can handle this activity. Basically, it's the upconversion of lower resolution video to a higher resolution. After applying some filtering, via an app like DScaler, you can get a significantly better video signal.

The other primary function is to play media. With a broadband connection, it's pretty easy to download rips of movies, CDs and old console games. If you've invested in a large screen and a nice sound system, you might want to use that for this media, meaning you need something connected to your theater that can pull this information from other computers or hold it itself.

Another feature that is becoming more popular is time shifting like a TiVo. The functionality still isn't anywhere near as advanced as a TiVo, but it's adequate for recording TV shows, skipping commercials and pausing live television.

Regards,
Semi

All the movie rips I've ever seen -- even the best ones -- are horrible quality compared to DVDs. How can you watch those things?

Half the time, they've been highly DivX compressed with dodgy audio. Ick.

I've seen good ones and bad ones. Some are made directly from a digital source like the four file rip I have of The Two Towers. Some are made from the Laserdisc, like the original Star Wars flicks which will never be on DVD. Some are of european films that otherwise have no region 1 solution. Some are incredibly bad shots from a handicam by some moron in the theater.

The x1 projector does have a component to VGA and a component to special SVideo. That lets me input to different devices.

Thanks for the info. I could see the scaler usage to make the video look even better then regular DVD. I agree about not having seen very good quality on the movies I've seen that are downloaded though...they don't come close to DVD from what I've seen.

Gaming on a big screen with surround sound could be nice though

As far as the TiVo functionality, I assume there are programs out there for the PC that let it act in a similar fashion to a TiVo so that programs can be recorded to the HD on a time based scheduled and watched later.

Zarak;

Your are talking about those rips, telesych and those are bad quality. If you know where to look ... hint RISCISO ... are groups that make ISO DVD copies and dump them in places. Those are actual ISO copies of the DVD which people down load from 'cough' newsgroups and rebuilt the pieces and burn into DVD. The quality is exact as originals both video and audio.

disclaimer: I do not condone any of this.

Since Semi_on touched on the technology
Hardware wise:

small quiet case preferably, esthetics count as this will go with your audio equipment:

http://quietpc.ca/
http://mini-itx.com/
http://www.soldam.com/barebone/polo_r_figaro/fav/index.html
http://www.techseekers.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=40&page=1
http://www.hushtechnologies.com/
- ATI Radeon card is because of its great video output and DVD harware decoding
- new motherboards today have SPDIF (Sony Phillips Digital Interface) connectors where you can connect a digital optical cable to your surround sound receiver to decode DTs and DD.
- new a good DVD software player WinDVD with ffdshow (best picture qiality hard to setup or NVDVD easy setup almost as good quality.
- PVR (personal video capabilities) capabilities using PCI cards and a very very fast CPU to capture video at a nice high resolution

Belatedly... Very nice setup and photos, Saturn!

But, what are those CRAPPY center and front speakers???

(and where's my tripod?)

I'm trying out an X1 right now and I'd really like to set it up 16:9 as well. Does the HTPC 800x430 image eliminate the grey areas above and below the image? It looks that way, but it could be the photos. I've tried running it 16:9 with the DVD set to 16:9 output and it seems to scale the image horizontally to fill the screen, but it doesn't scale vertically the same proportion so the image is squashed a bit. So, I've just been running 'native', any suggestions?

What type of case is that?

This thread has been an absolute revelation to me. Another example of the citizens of this board enlightening me in unforeseen ways. Thanks to Saturn and Semi (and the rest) for the good info.

I'm interesting in browsing, PC gaming and MP3 streaming via this method. Currently have an older 55" Mitsu RPTV.

How much would one expect to spend on a decent HTPC? I could move my current DVD player to the bedroom and replace it. Oh, the convergence!

How well to the "wireless" PC input devices work? That is, if your HTPC is in the front of the room, do you use a standard (Logitech?) wireless keyboard/mouse for control?

I appreciate your time and sharing.

Yeah my HTPC does run 800x453 using Powerstrip. The projector still projects at 800x600 but my windows desktop is 800x453 ... something like than.
The bottom and top is blacked out. When it present 4:3 material it projects properly with black line on the left and right. This is good if you have a 16:9 screen.

I used BLeodler powerstrip settings from avsforum.

The X1 is set to 4:3, but I am using powerstrip on my HTPC to create a custom resolution of 800x453. I was never able to get 800x450 working, but the extra 3 lines aren't noticeable. The X1 sees it as 800x600 so the scaler isn't activated. The following are my powerstrip settings:

800x453=800,40,80,104,453,49,3,99,37125,7

To use these just copy them and go to the custom resolution screen in powerstrip then hit the paste button.

This setup allows me to have the HTPC desktop displayed on my 16:9 screen. There are a couple problems with this resolution however. First, on some things in Windows the OK and Cancel buttons are off the screen since there are only 453 vertical pixels. I have overcome this by using tab to blindly hit OK or using the powerstrip tray icon to quickly change to 800x600 and back to 800x453. Second, sometimes when I turn the projector on the image is shifted to one side, I fixed this by programming the effect key to do auto image and included it in the power on macro.


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=3cbaa10ef50c5a64b197b3b130b8e7ed&threadid=283564&highlight=powerstrip

I definitely did not use your tripod. Some of those pictures were pretty blurry. Show how steady my hand it.
The pictures that did come out well was when I propped my fiancee tall jewelry box beside the X1 and had it take pictures using the timer.

Those speakers are Hales Trancendance ... didnt you see the blurry decals.

Wireless works fine. Get a el cheapo wireless keyboard from your local no name computer store. BTC and ACER has one for like $25. If you have a learning remote (which I do) just find the keyboard keys to operate the software DVD. All the control on most of your software has a alternative keyboard stroke. You then put your keyboard ir to your learning remote ir and hit the appropriate keystrokes to approriate keys on your remote. Voila..your remote does all your keyboard commands for that DVD software program.

If not this remote is pretty cheap from computer shops.
http://www.atitech.com/products/remotewonder2/index.html


This is what I use to watch standard cable TV on a projector. If you want HD or Sattelite Semi_on has more info than I do.
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/video_box_nextvisionn5.htm

This is my recommended DVD software player - NVDVD. It is easy to setup. And you pretty much leave it alone after intial install. WinDVD another product is supposedly the best picture quality but lots of tweaks need to be adjusted to get the best PQ.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/nvdvd.html


This is the sofware that scales your desktop for make it 16:9 properly. (If your projector isn't 16:9)

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm

Most people recommend getting an ATI Radeon card. Very good DVD decoder hardware.

CPU anything more than 800MhZ since you have a good video card that does DVD decoding or motion compensation. For PVR and TiVo - to record your shows on your computer for later viewing you need a really fast CPU in upwards of 2.2 GHz. Semi_On know more of this than I do.

Make sure that the motherboard does have SPDiF digital out so that you can connect a digital cable to your surround sound Reciver/processor to decode the DVD's audio. Lots of new/current motherboard todays have this as standard.
I built mine for about $550

CF968L case http://www.american-media.com/Products/PC_Servers/CF-968.html
Intel Celeron 2.2 Ghz
Radeon 9700 Dual with DVI
20 gig laptop hard drive
cordless keyboard/mouse combo
MSI TV tuner card
512 meg DDR
LG 16xDVD 48xCD burner combo

Win XP
DirectX 9
Powerstrip
NVDVD
Media Player 9

Just to cover what little Saturn left out...

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This is what I use to watch standard cable TV on a projector. If you want HD or Sattelite Semi_on has more info than I do.

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For standard digital satellite, any capture card will work to bring the digital signal in. Hauppage, ATi, Avermedia and quite a few others all make them. For HDTV, TV input cards are far more limitted. Once you have the signal into your TV, Dscaler does the best job with displaying it, but it still doesn't have much in the way of TiVo like functionality built in.

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For PVR and TiVo - to record your shows on your computer for later viewing you need a really fast CPU in upwards of 2.2 GHz. Semi_On know more of this than I do.

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You don't necessarily need a fast processor if your capture card has built in MPEG compression such as the Hauppauge PVR-250. Otherwise, you'll need more muscle.

What's more If you want to watch HDTV media files, you'll need a 3GHz CPU to do so without skipping.