Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater ANyone here with a HTPC?

Not sure that I want to start a long thread, but if someone could tell me what the big benefits of a Home Theater PC are, that would be helpful.

I have a nice receiver for power, but just a low grade progressive scan DVD player. I was going to get a new Panasonic S97 or similar DVD player in about a month, but if there is some absolute, die hard reason to get a HTPC, I want to know now instead of later.

I know that you can play games on a large screen (I will have teh Sanyo Z3 projector), but I have a pretty killer PC in our bedroom, and yes my wife actually uses it too, so I am not wanting to convert it, nor do I see myself playing games on the large screen much at all anyway.

I know that there is timeshifting and recording to the hard drive, which we love on our Dish system, but I am not sure how much TV we will actually watch on the system, as it will be pretty much dedicated to movies...

So what else is there? I have been working (for money) with computers for over 10 years, and have not bought a pre-built PC since I had my old Commodore64 (built them all myself) so there is no problem with technology understanding or ability to build the system, I just want to know what other benefits there are. I need to make sure that the system is very easy to use, or my wife won't use it, and I will have to listen to her complain about how she doesn't understand how to use it.

PLease advise....

Nick, the person you should send a PM to is Saturn.
He's built and used a HTPC for some time and is quite knowledgable about the innards and software, advantages and disadvantages in a practical use situation. Many of us here have excellent computer skills but i don't recall anyone else actually built and uses a HTPC specifically.

You should try a search on this subject. It has come up before and the thread did get lengthy.

Nick,

I have a HTPC that I'll be running in the theater that I'm just now finishing up. Part of my initial drive was to feed MP3s to my listening area, as well as the displaying of WMP/HD material on my projector. I keep a DVD player in the same rack for those ease of use applications and the playback of SACD/DVD-Audio.

I think that you'll get a mryiad of answers to your question about the benefits....including the superior scaling of normal DVDs, PVR functionality, gameplay, etc. Also, you might want to take a jaunt over to the AVS HTPC Forum. There is more discussion over there about HTPCs than you could ever want.

In the end, HTPCs require someone that enjoys tweaking and piddling around with computers. In my case, it helps when you see something like Unreal Tournament on an 80"X60" screen....or a website....same effect.

How is the HTPC better at upscaling DVD video than, say, an upconverting DVD player, or a projector like the Sanyo Z3 that upconverts component-in video or accepts upconverted material via HDMI (and the upconverting DVD player)?

May end up with a single disk DVD player, and then tinker with HTPC if I see any need. Then it is simple for my wife, and more options for me.

I am not an MP3 collector, although I always said that some day I would put all of my CDs into MP3 format and run them from a PC. Tried it once, got tired of ripping and cataloging, and just gave up after a while. Maybe I will have to look into just hooking up my regular PC for a while and see what I think. I have DVI output on the video card, so I could convert that to HDMI or something and try it.

My problem is that I work with computers every day, and when I come home, I don't have time to do much tinkering. Heck, my PC I bought a year ago was assembled, overclocked, and yet still doesn't have the cold cathode lights connected, or the digital temp/fan control. Too much else going on.

Nick,

The computer might be better at "upscaling" because of some native resolution issues. In short, if your dvd player/HTPC doesn't upscale the image to the native resolution of your TV/projector, then the display device has to do this.

This upscaling is done with some sophisticated math. Older TVs and older DVD players aren't as efficient as doing the algorithms, etc. In addition, your TV is busy doing other things, like displaying the image - In short, the closer the signal going into the device is in relation to the TVs natiev resolution, the less work the TV has to do to show the iamge on its screen.

One of the things that a TV has to do is convert or scale the image based on the number of pixels. So, a TV with 766 lines of vertical resolution that gets a 720p signal still needs to convert those 720 lines into 766 lines. Granted this is easier than converting 480i lines, but soem processing still needs to be done.

While this doesn't answer your question directly, from what I understand, an HTPC can be told what resolution to send to the monitor. Therefore, it can send a 766 x 1260 or 960, whatever, signal to the TV, leaving the monitor only having to deal with displaying the picture.

The short answer to your question is that the DVD player's math might not be as good as a CPU's and it might not be as fliexible as the CPU's. On the other hand, it might be better. There is not set in stone rule that either is better - but one migh be better than another, as all upconverting is not equal.

Granted, I don'd know that much about this stuff - still learning. Please feel free, anybody, to jump in and correct me. I'm not offended by being corrected - only offended when I give somebody incorrect information without being told so.

In addition, I'm sure that Bren go a better, simpler and funnier answer than I.

Sorry, Captain... I have no first hand experience with HTPCs.

I could talk out of my hat but that's not my style.

Bren R.

In reply to:

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I could talk out of my hat but that's not my style

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no, your much better at talking out of your a$$..

bigjohn

I can't really address which upscaling method is superior to which, as I am only now beginning to dig into it. From what I've read, up until the release of these upscaling DVD players, it was generally believed that PCs did a much better job than say your TV, etc. Now, with the advances both in the display scalers (projectors, etc) and the DVD player scalers, I think that line of superiority has definitely blurred a bit. I can tell you that my standard DVDs seem to look much better when I run them through my PC than they do through the DVD player. I've always attributed that to the fact that my PC does a better job of scaling than my projector.

Turbodog1 and Capn Pickard has covered all aspects. I do not want to re-iterate what they said but just want to add that a HTPC can match the resolution of the native signal of the projector. By feeding a signal that is native to the projector the projector does not need to scale up or down the image. The scaling up or down of the image could cause some softening or add artifacts to the image. Most DVD players output 720 x 480i(interlaced) or 480p(progressive). At this point the projector would rescale the picture to its native 800x600p or the Z3 to its 1280x720p resolution. I do not believe any DVD players output in this resolution.
The picture is only as good as the video processor. So video processors can vary from DVD players and vary from projectors. The only way is to find out which has a better video processor is to try it out. Connecting your progressive component signal of your DVD player to a projector uses the DVD's video processor. Connecting your non progressive SVideo signal of your DVD player to your svideo input uses the projectors built in video processor. Some DVD players do have better video processing, some have better processor in the projector. Look for DVD player or projector with Faroudja chipsets. Can you tell the difference? Hell yeah ... when you blow up to 100+ inches you can clearly see it. High end videophiles output the DVD players into DVDO video processors which do have faroudja chipset and upscales the picture to 720p or even 1080p (1920x1080) at $2000+

HTPC's have built in video processing (via ATI or NVidea video hardware chipsets). DVD software players are getting so good that it scales and dithers the video using mathematical algorithms to clean and present the video source as best as possible. HTPC can also match the video output resolution to the same native resolution of the projector by using Powerstrip.

Based on what the HTPC ‘er use there are seemingly 2 groups. The mad tweakers which use WinDVD with FFDShow and Dscaler. This method is for the computer savy person that does not mind installing patches, tweaks, custom settings, filters. Every new update can cause instability and the blue screen of death. But this gives the absolute best picture. The other group is the ‘I just want a best picture available’ with no special tweaks. I’m in that group and I install NVidea’s DVD software. It can produce one of the best pictures outside of the WinDVD with tweaks. Last I heard the newest version of NVDVD gives now gives the best picture period. I have yet tried NVDVD 4. I use NVDVD 3.5 and I am very happy with its picture quality and stability. See my HT link below and you will notice how saturated in colors the screen capture of Mace Windu in SW:Episode 2.

Also outside the video aspect the HTPC should fit in with the rest of the audio video components. A nice case by Cooler Master or Silverstonetek or Ahanix would nice fit with the rest of the components.
http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=english&Language_s=2&url_place=product_class_include&files=chassis.html
http://www.silverstonetek.com/
http://www.ahanix.com/
Sound is important so having a low noise power supply or fanless power supply is a must.
http://www.thermaltake.com/purepower/menu.htm
You would also need a sound card unless built into the motherboard that can output SPDIF to your receiver to get the full DD DTS. Don't foget to get a low noise hard drive like Seagate Barracudas or like in my case I buy low power low noise laptop hard drives.