I havent been in the crt forum for a while, here is why.

I call your attention to this project in case you haven't noticed:
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/203992.aspx

If you're tired of the bickering in the crt forum, check it out.

Troy

Do I use an HTPC?? Yes....has it ever worked well...no!

Does this interest me?? Hell yeah!!!

All I want is stutter free playback at 48Hz using vmr 9 with 1080i or perhaps some variant of 1080p. I love the HTPC because it allows for gamma correction, custom resolutions and I can move quickly between movies because they're on hard drives.

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea, and the fact that it's not born out of greed is a great thing. Instant karma is gonna get you...

I would love to see a step by step Zoomplayer, Dscaler, reclock, setup guide....would be great!

I of course love the idea of htcp tailored to the budget conscious...that's why I went with an integrated 6150 mb. Now I'm wishing I hadn't....but I will most likely follow your suggested hardware. When will the list be ready?

Ben

Using an htpc since 2003 but during these four years there is always one thing that prevent the htpc to become what it should.
That is that an HTPC is not "cohesive".

One of the closest things in this direction is the xbox classic and XBMC.
The main reason is that the hardware doesn't change, the motherboard, cpu, gfx etc. stays the same.
In an htpc there are 20 different gfx options, sound options, drivers that tend to introduce bugs with each version and 99.5% targeted at the gaming community.
XBMC is actually a brilliant implementation but lacks the expandability in regard to horsepower for e.g. HD material.
The htpc market is not the first example either, look at the time of Commodore 64/Amiga and the Atari equivalent, the reason why games etc. could push those machines to the limit was because the hardware was the same. On the PC side that was not the case.

I would gladely pay for an XBMC implementation but on a dual core platform.
But until there are limits and controled software, to actually limit the options, I don't think HTPC will be the "mainstream" media option for a long long time.

I may sound like I don't like HTPC and to be honest I don't :D
Unfortunately no company seems to be interested in creating the "ultimate" media box. There is always something lacking, most often no divx or xvid support. Or buggy software etc.
Also now with the nvidia cards the whole custom resolution/powerstrip is gone since nvidia doesn't release the info to eintech.
Frustrating to say the least.

Do I use an HTPC?? Yes....has it ever worked well...no!
I've been lucky so far with my HTPC. It's been running for more than 2 years now. First month was so confusing to me because of the integration of my 4 diff capture cards with mythtv.

Does this interest me?? Hell yeah!!!
Me too!!! :) I love mythtv. Although, a lot of work. Took me 2-4 hours to rebuild everything from scratch since one harddisk died 2 weeks ago.

All I want is stutter free playback at 48Hz using vmr 9 with 1080i or perhaps some variant of 1080p. I love the HTPC because it allows for gamma correction, custom resolutions and I can move quickly between movies because they're on hard drives.
My machine doesn't experience any stuterring when playing 720p or 1080i recording. When playing those formats, cpu goes up to 37%. My CPU is an Athlon 64 3000+ and a 6600GT nvidia card. I spoke to nvidia developers and they told me that nvidia gpu doesn't really help in the playback but it's the cpu who's doing all the job. I can also even play 1080p trailers from apple.com and other sites. CPU goes up to 40%. However, doom9 guys told me that 1080p trailers that apple provides to the public isn't close to BD/HDDVD specs. They sent me a modified Elephant's Dream movie with a very high bit rate. This has different encoding than the one we download from http://www.elephantsdream.org/. When I played the link below, my cpu went as high as 90% but still no stuttering.

This is the link they gave to me. Don't know if link is still active. I used mplayer.

http://tjhsst.edu/~jgarrett/6000_3.h264

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea, and the fact that it's not born out of greed is a great thing. Instant karma is gonna get you...

I would love to see a step by step Zoomplayer, Dscaler, reclock, setup guide....would be great!

I of course love the idea of htcp tailored to the budget conscious...that's why I went with an integrated 6150 mb. Now I'm wishing I hadn't....but I will most likely follow your suggested hardware. When will the list be ready?

Ben

I'm also interested in the project mentioned. I will definitely look at it.

Cool stuff, Troy. I'd be a LOT more interested if it was based on Linux, but I understand your reasons. (Though I'd think you could run with a much smaller/cheaper system if you were running Linux instead of Windows...) Good luck with the project!

There are already several linux distributions like this, but we will add a linux distro preconfigured at some point so the systems can dual boot.

Our focus will always be more windows though, with more options for different front ends as time goes on.

Troy

speaking of Linux, have a look at this system:

http://smart-home-blog.com/archives/734



Michael

Any thought of an HTPC in any form gives me a headache.

Years back, it made perfect sense to spend the time and $$ to get a good image, but now, it's just not worth it to me to go though all the hassle of collaging various expensive components together just to avoid a bit of stutter.

Plus, I prefer the stand alone HD players, and to live with that minor judder.

In the years I've been into playing around with HT systems, the HTPC has been the biggest pain in the *** I've ever come across.

I still have mine, and it's only purpose is to stream movie files. If not for the movie files, there would not be an HTPC in my home.

And after seeing Cliff's stack of G90's at 60hz. Which for the most part was showing extreme fast action scenes, it's hard to believe that the judder was either not noticed, or there was none at all. And this was all from HD players (Blu Ray/HD-DVD).

Hopefully in the near future, there will be other options for those who'll want 72hz.. Until that happens, it's the stand alones for me.

HTPC's SUK!

I agree with Mike...had a PC for DVD player a while. Not a dedicated HTPC, just a typical box with a DVD drive and TheaterTek software. Never worked without hicups. The only real advantage for me was that it could use a software like PowerStrip to create custom resolutions and refresh rates. Later on I got a Momitsu DVD player which could do this also. The Momitsu was not a top of the line DVD player but it did what it was supposed to.

If one will watch mainly HDDVD or BD media, I think that standalone players with a dedicated videoprocessor is the best solution. Expensive yes, but also reliable.

Well, enough people like me exist that have HTPCs and want what pcCinema is talking about. HTPCs were never for everyone.

I have a new HTPC with BR and DVD drives, as well as an outboard X-Box HD-DVD player. Running HDMI cable to a Moome card as well as analog cables.

Running 1080p60

Analog is fine, digital is not. Digital is fine through Moome with good old Theatertek, bad through Moome with PowerDVD Ultra

Anyway, all of my issues are with PowerDVD, so I'm not sure what this concept can do for me.

PC's are a requirement of life these days, and the project is not merely about a HTPC. We will offer similar services for general use pc's and that project will benefit from the media playback advances we make in the HTPC oriented project.

Also LinuxMCE will be included, it will dual boot and be fully functional. You will have the option to only run Linux if that is your choice and it has enough functionality for your desires, and it can also be pre configured to self replicate and self backup with multiple Linux partitions if you like and no windows.

Both O/S's will be pre-configured as full HTPC's and the linux platform will be designed to be a good base for any other linux uses a person may have and the Windows partition(s) will be the same just a clean well configured base to do any windows tasks you like not only HTPC purposes. But so that each new pc doesn't take people hours and days to set up to a nice clean working state.

Data backup and redundancy will be built in so you won't loose anything, ever, no matter how bad of pc habits someone has of just downloading garbage and installing things until nothing works any more, there will be an easy one button restore and the multiple o/s's to always keep you running in one form or another.

A lot of things on a PC are easy to screw up, and very hard to set up, but when we do it all for you and automate it all and give it away free that should get a lot of people's interest even for a reliable all around windows or linux pc. You wouldn't ever have to bother with linux if you didn't want, you could rely on your mirrored windows installs and that would be plenty for most folks. PC's are easy to screw up, they are a pain to set up, getting all the media formats to play straight and everything is a hassle I don't blame anyone for hating. So we do it all for you and make it harder to do serious damage and easier to always get back to where you were with a stable and pre-configured base for anyone.

Everyone will have the same systems and configuration and therefore people will be able to help each other easier and bugs and problems well documented and taken seriously and repaired by the staff asap. There will be free peer support groups and links pre-installed to the desktop to take you right there.

Try to take as much pain away as possible and base it all on not having to do a thing to set up and just automatic except for the script needing to ask a few questions to do what you like and for your area code or tv standard if the script can't tell based on ip addresses.

Right down to including pre-configured anti spam and anti web junk "hosts files", so adds and junk and things that just slow you down and get in your way will just start disappearing from web pages everyone looks at. (should you decide to use the feature)

Continually updating automatically if desired, users choice, so you never have to install and test new flash or whatever on your own it will just be maintaned for you and we will be a buffer of safety to new versions that have more problems than previous versions. We won't automate the update of a module or part unless we've already determined it to be safe and a valuable update. We won't even let windows updates happen that we test them first to try to save problems from being introduced that way as has happened many times in the past to us all. Plus each time an update happens the mirror of the OS install could be saved for a few weeks just to be safe automatically, just in case we do miss any type of problem.

We can get really fancy but it will all actually be really simple to set up and duplicate.

Troy

That sounds awesome, Troy. FWIW, I'm not against Windows per se. I just wouldn't intend to use an HTPC for anything but playing movies, so I don't want any of the other features you mention. And, more importantly, I wouldn't want to have to pay for a Vista license, which would add a significant percentage to the cost if the box itself is scrounged. If you're setting up a dual-boot system, then people in my situation would be covered too.

Could linux playback downloaded .ts files without stutter?? Also, is there a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray option for Linux??

Ben

I don't see why transport streams would possibly be a problem.

There seems to be progress in the bluray and hd-dvd areas in Linux.

Either way it should be especially of interest to all those who need both platforms or quick installs for all their every day work in the computer and htpc areas like so many around here.

Troy

One of the closest things in this direction is the xbox classic and XBMC.
The main reason is that the hardware doesn't change, the motherboard, cpu, gfx etc. stays the same.
In an htpc there are 20 different gfx options, sound options, drivers that tend to introduce bugs with each version and 99.5% targeted at the gaming community.
XBMC is actually a brilliant implementation but lacks the expandability in regard to horsepower for e.g. HD material.


Just an FYI, but the original xbox is semi-upgradeable.
Link (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/friendtech_dreamx_xbox/)

I don't see why transport streams would possibly be a problem.

There seems to be progress in the bluray and hd-dvd areas in Linux.

That's true. Last year, someone sent me a link to the trailer of "The Departed" in an .EVO container file. It was ripped from HD-DVD. I used mplayer to play the file. My Fedora Core 3 on Athlon 64 3000+ cpu ( 2 years old) never had any issues playing the file, no stuttering. I'm on FC6 now and no issues too.

Could linux playback downloaded .ts files without stutter??

Yep, been doing that since early 2005.

Also, is there a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray option for Linux??

Maybe in the future or there maybe existing now. Here is how I'm going to do it. Buy either player but I might go with BR. Buy movies I really like and then make copies of them in a codec/encoding understandable by mplayer. FTP the generated file to my Fedora. Then lastly is to SQL insert information to mythtv's videomedata table. This way, when I go to mythtv's frontend, I will just select the movie I want to watch under "Watch Video".