Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Media center questions...

I’m in the process of building a HD Media Center and I was hoping some of you guys could give me a few pointers…
I’m thinking on using a PC I already own w/ WinMCE05. I’m undecided what route to go for HDef though; either add/buy a decent HD video card and a few other upgrades to the PC plus an external DVD-HD / BluRay player, or, just buy an Xbox360 (elite?) and use it as a MC extender plus the HD-DVD expansion. I’m leaning towards the Xbox360, but seem like the Xbox lacks analog outputs for lossless DolbyTrue HD. Is this correct? What about the PS3? Their new price is attractive but I know nothing about the PS3 features ...my last gaming console was the original Atari, no kidding Also, I’m pretty much set on buying a Sanyo PLV-Z5 for about $1550. Is there any other projector in that price range I should consider? Thank you all very much in advance.

~Jaime

You're correct about the Xbox 360 lacking analog outputs for lossless Dolby TrueHD, but not only that, it can't send it over HDMI, either. It transcodes all higher-resolution audio to DTS 1.5mbps at best. Its "audio path" isn't wide enough to handle the new formats.

I find the PS3 to be a lot better Blu-ray player than the Xbox 360 is an HD DVD player. It handles the audio just fine.

Plus, I just wouldn't buy an Xbox 360 at this point. The new manufacturing is going to happen in the fall (65nm CPU and GPU instead of the current 90nm, which will make it run cooler, more efficiently, and will be cheaper to produce), and while they've extended the warranty for the Red Ring of Death error to 3 years, that doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence. I'd rather have the newer revision of motherboard and components than buy one of the current models and have that possible hardware failure hanging over my head. Even though it would be taken care of, I find that whole process underwhelming. Who knows how long their service department will take to get it back to you, as many lemons as they'll have to deal with.

As far as gaming, the Xbox 360 can't be beat. There are too many good games coming out for it. It hurts not being able to play it (mine died), but I'll wait for the new version before jumping back in.

Thanks CV!, I totally forgot about the XBox's hardware problem. You're right, it's prob. better not to buy it now unless what you need is to play games, and that's really not my interest. I'll buy an HD player and beef-up my PC.
Thnaks again!!