HTPC as Blu-Ray player - what are the downsides?

DrewLCD · 07-27-09, 08:05 AM

I'm looking at skipping the standalone Blu-Ray player and going straight to a more versatile HTPC setup (ZOTAC IONITX or E5200/9300 setup).
What is the downside of a HTPC for Blu-Ray playback? I assume the startup is slower. Is there a compromise with the menus or extras? Has anyone ended up buying a stand alone player after setting up an HTPC?

zryder · 07-27-09, 09:01 AM

I had a BRD drive in my HTPC for a while, and ended up with a console player..

there are a few advantages and a few downsides to using a HTPC as a blu-ray player.

It depends on your reciever and how picky you are, to be honest.

I was always bothered by the fact that I could not get unmolested audio off the disk and into my AVR.

Now there are ways to get it, but you sure do have to pay out the nose for it, and I just didnt feel the need to spend another $200 on a sound card.

But.. If you have a good video card, and If you have a xonar sound card, I belive you can have smiliar if not better preformance. I never felt like i was waiting for load times..

But, you will never find a HTPC for anywhere close to even double the cost of a console player. You had better be building a HTPC for other reasons, and BRD is a benefit, or you will drive yourself nuts.

ArtosDracon · 07-27-09, 09:05 AM

To be completley honest, at this point the only real downsides are software and audio, there is minimal blu-ray player integration with VMC or 7MC if that's the way you're looking to go, if you're looking to set up Media Portal, then it can be integrated decently, to the best of my knowledge, and there are currently three options if you're ok with lossy audio and one option if you want semi-lossless audio. WinDVD, PowerDVD and TMT are the only softwares for playing bluray at the moment and TMT is currently the only one, when combined with an ASUS Xonar HDAV card(either the slim, standard or deluxe) that can offer semi-lossless audio. I say semi-lossless because as best I can tell no one has been able to 100% confirm that it will pass through 192/24 directly as read from the disk without down-converting then up-converting.

IMHO unless you have stellar ears and high end audio equipment, you'll never know the difference between lossless and lossy audio. You can still send 8 channel audio over HDMI in PCM form with any compatible chipset(the 9300 is among them and a good option at that) and software, though from what I've read TMT is quite good, and a good option even if not using a HDAV card for bitstreaming(assumedly lossless) audio.

IAM4UK · 07-27-09, 09:13 AM

I integrated bD into my existing HTPC a couple of years ago. I get lossless audio via analog outs to my receiver, and it sounds phenomenal. The image quality via an nVidia adapter is also great. It was much cheaper to thus upgrade my HTPC than to buy a standalone player that would have comparable performance.

The main downside to HTPC use for bD is that certain studios keep changing their mastering "standards" to try to render your playback impossible. Fox is worst at this. They really don't want us to be able to play bD on a computer, because they are convinced we must want to do so for nefarious reasons.

rockytt · 07-27-09, 09:22 AM

HTPC = hobby = time
If all you want to is play BD movies - get the standalone player. MUCH simpler/easier-you just plug it in and go.
IMHO, you need other more compelling reasons to go the HPTC route-the BD playback should be ONE of the features, not THE feature.

Tulli · 07-27-09, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArtosDracon

WinDVD, PowerDVD and TMT are the only softwares for playing bluray at the moment and TMT is currently the only one, when combined with an ASUS Xonar HDAV card(either the slim, standard or deluxe) that can offer semi-lossless audio. I say semi-lossless because as best I can tell no one has been able to 100% confirm that it will pass through 192/24 directly as read from the disk without down-converting then up-converting.
.

Where did you get that 192/24 issue with the HDAV1.3 from? How can you even prove it anyway?

realtight · 07-27-09, 10:08 AM

HTPC for Blu-ray = dog crap! Buy the standalone, save the headaches...

There isn't one thing an HTPC can do with Blu-ray (other then ripping them to the hard drive which is a pain....) that is as good as a standalone. The picture quality is worse, forget full res audio unless you want to spend way too much and they simply don't work!

example of why HTPC's suck for Blu-ray, and stuff like this will happen ALL the time if you get one: I had a bunch of guests over this weekend to watch Watchmen. I downloaded all the Slysoft updates to make sure it would play and also tested it out before guests came over... (seriously, you have to test multiple times to make sure something will even play, how stupid is that?) No problems at all, great! Then halfway through the movie we decided to take a small break... bad idea, I guess 5 minute break means software will self destruct and break until you restart the computer and start over...

This was a random problem... but with Blu-ray, random sh!t happens all the time and it's not worth it at this point...

K-Spaz · 07-27-09, 10:25 AM

I can't remember the last time I had an issue playing a BR on my system, but then, I would NEVER go download updates before inviting guests. Why not just ask for something to break. If it works, don't fix it.

That said, I think the downside now is cost. HTPC when it didn't work well was a very viable solution cost wise cause the prices on standalones were perverse. Now that standalone prices are down out of the clouds, the cost of the drive and software for a pc about equals the price of the SA. Then you still need the computer and I think you need a pretty nice one at that.

I wouldnt' give mine up for love-ner-money, but they are no longer a wash as far as cost goes. If the benefits outweight the effort for you, then do it. If they don't then save money and get a player that just works when you put a disk in.

As an aside, standalones are by no means without troubles with playback. Just go to the BR Player forum and look around there. This isn't an exact science regardless of the hardware you have. DRM makes it all a nightmare at one time or another.

Jackal55 · 07-27-09, 10:53 AM

Get the stand alone player and save your sanity.

I haven't had many issues myself with PowerDVD 9 Ultra. Sound levels is my problem but then again, I'm only using the TV. I can't say how things will go once I get a receiver.

Playback issues have been weird. If I hit pause on the remote the volume auto mutes upon resuming play. If I try to change the volume level with the remote while a movie is playing it will stop the movie and go back the the PDVD screen. So I guess my issues are remote control related.

And then there's always the occasional pop up window. "Upgrade to AVG PRO!" Stuff like that. Right now, I have 2 ways to play BR movies: PlayStation 3 and a BR optical drive. But in the end, I think I'll end up with a stand alone player since that was the plan all along. The cost of the BR drive and the full version of the software to use it properly is going to be as much as a decent stand alone player. So weigh your options well.

realtight · 07-27-09, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by K-Spaz

I can't remember the last time I had an issue playing a BR on my system, but then, I would NEVER go download updates before inviting guests. Why not just ask for something to break. If it works, don't fix it.

As an aside, standalones are by no means without troubles with playback. Just go to the BR Player forum and look around there. This isn't an exact science regardless of the hardware you have. DRM makes it all a nightmare at one time or another.

As for updating Slysoft, I updated it the night before because there were issues getting it to play before, so how is this asking for trouble? As far as I know having Slysoft is the the only reason half of my Blu-rays play at all!

You must not watch a lot of Blu-rays or you are a very lucky/rare person to not have any issues with playback... I honestly don't believe you and most on here when they say this. Most of the time people on here are willing to put up with random malfunctions regarding Blu-ray or defend it. Fact is MOST people have issues with Blu-ray playback on PC's and most people don't have issues when using a standalone...

The fact is, Cybersuck, Total Rip-off Theater and the rest of the Blu-ray software are horrible and flat out don't work properly... I shouldn't have to buy the perfect hardware combination to get Blu-ray working perfectly. My system is more then powerful. Pushing pause shouldn't require restarting my computer...

jszei · 07-27-09, 11:12 AM

Unless you want the total package: blu-ray and/or SD DVD storage and playback, music storage and playback, picture storage and playback, home video storage and playback then don't bother. I emphasize storage because if you're going to load a dvd or cd every time you want to play it then don't bother with an HTPC. I believe it's main benefit is that you can keep all of your media on one device and play whatever you want at will.

Wiz33 · 07-27-09, 11:18 AM

I have a BD player in my Work and Hiome PC, plus I just got an external BD for use with a Acer Aspire Revo Atom/Ion. I have watch quite a bit of BD on my PCs. Sure my collector of disc is not particularly large but I would say that I have watch at least 30-40 disc at varies times.

The only problem I have ever had is that once in a while, PowerDVD will require an update before playing a brand new disc and I would have to wait while it download and update. Usually if that happens, you're better off updating AnyDVD HD at the same time as that would probably be needed. Once that is done, I have not really have any problem with playback.

I just got the BD external to try with the Revo last Friday so I have not had a lot of time with it (it's setup at the office). I did watch Quantum of Solace on it and it did stutter a bit at one point. But the Revo I'm using is an Engineering sample provide for early reviewers (since the unit have not launch in the U.S. yet). It probably have outdated firmware and driver. Other than that one stutter, the rest of the movie played fine and looks great on the Samsung 40" at the office. As for load time, it does take longer on the Revo vs my PS3 but not too bad, I would see within 30 seconds.

Favelle · 07-27-09, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by realtight

example of why HTPC's suck for Blu-ray, and stuff like this will happen ALL the time if you get one: I had a bunch of guests over this weekend to watch Watchmen. I downloaded all the Slysoft updates to make sure it would play and also tested it out before guests came over... (seriously, you have to test multiple times to make sure something will even play, how stupid is that?) No problems at all, great! Then halfway through the movie we decided to take a small break... bad idea, I guess 5 minute break means software will self destruct and break until you restart the computer and start over...

This was a random problem... but with Blu-ray, random sh!t happens all the time and it's not worth it at this point...

Example of why standalones, or any disc player for that matter suck for playback: random skipping or stuttering. No matter what disc or what player, eventually you'll get a stutter. And with the sound cranked, in the middle of a movie, it can be quite jarring. And with guests over, you're just sitting there, waiting for the next skip, totally taken out of the movie experience....

No thanks. BD to MKV, hard drive playback, smooth as butter. Nothing else will do.

DrewLCD · 07-27-09, 11:44 AM

Thanks for the input. I would want to use it as a media server too - right now I am running XBMC on an old P4 desktop system. It is ancient but it does alright with SD DVDs, and I have full 5.1 through a TOSlink USB dongle.

Now I want to get Blu-Ray and the old system will never be able to handle it. So I could get a standalone player and leave the old system for DVDs, or do a big upgrade. I will skip the upgrade if I am going to end up wanting a stand alone player anyway.

rockytt · 07-27-09, 11:50 AM

I think it may come down to this:
If you've already got a functional HTPC and just want to add BD funtionality-fire away, as you've got little to lose and you're more aware than most what kind of time investment you're looking at.
If you're wondering whether to build a HTPC or just buy a standalone - get the standalone. Much less hassles/$$$/time. Neither solution is perfect, but ONLY go the HPTC route if you truly enjoy the process of tweaking + futzing with the system. To make it a simple plug and play operation (like a standalone) can be done, but only after spending a lot of time + $$$

jszei · 07-27-09, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrewLCD

Thanks for the input. I would want to use it as a media server too - right now I am running XBMC on an old P4 desktop system. It is ancient but it does alright with SD DVDs, and I have full 5.1 through a TOSlink USB dongle.

Now I want to get Blu-Ray and the old system will never be able to handle it. So I could get a standalone player and leave the old system for DVDs, or do a big upgrade. I will skip the upgrade if I am going to end up wanting a stand alone player anyway.

I would wait a while for Blu-ray if you've already got something in place that will do the rest. It is still too young for HTPC.

realtight · 07-27-09, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrewLCD

Thanks for the input. I would want to use it as a media server too - right now I am running XBMC on an old P4 desktop system. It is ancient but it does alright with SD DVDs, and I have full 5.1 through a TOSlink USB dongle.

Now I want to get Blu-Ray and the old system will never be able to handle it. So I could get a standalone player and leave the old system for DVDs, or do a big upgrade. I will skip the upgrade if I am going to end up wanting a stand alone player anyway.

HTPC's are great for just about everything else besides Blu-ray playback/hdtv-dvr'ing and since you already have that I wouldn't mess with it. Save yourself the headacheS and get the standalone.

Maybe things will change with win7 media center... but the way things are now, I doubt it.

whiteboy714 · 07-27-09, 12:27 PM

Wow I thought a bd-rom drive was just like a dvd drive. Didnt realize you needed all this software just to hopefully get them to play.

hirent · 07-27-09, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Now I want to get Blu-Ray and the old system will never be able to handle it.

Not True.
I have two P4 systems with AGP HD2400 cards and they play Blu-Rays and HD-DVDs just fine.
It may be possible for you too if you have a decent config. in your current setup.
What do you have currently? CPU? AGP or PCIE? Ram?
If you want to do a trial setup, you can get a cheap HD video card and see how you like it. This way you don't spend the big bucks.

DrewLCD · 07-27-09, 01:06 PM

It is a Dell P4 2.2Ghz, I think it got it around 2002. It has AGP. It has 2GB RAM. It struggles even with upscaling SD to 720P so I assume real HD would be out of the question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirent

Not True.
I have two P4 systems with AGP HD2400 cards and they play Blu-Rays and HD-DVDs just fine.
It may be possible for you too if you have a decent config. in your current setup.
What do you have currently? CPU? AGP or PCIE? Ram?
If you want to do a trial setup, you can get a cheap HD video card and see how you like it. This way you don't spend the big bucks.

umeng2002 · 07-27-09, 01:17 PM

I was going to build a HTPC out of spare parts, but I needed about $200 in new parts still, so I just ended up getting a Panasonic BD60

stanglx · 07-27-09, 01:24 PM

No way it will play HD content that is 1080p with HD audio (TrueHD, DTS-MA, FLAC, etc.) with out GPU power which you dont have.. that CPU is probably as powerful as a dual core atom and the atom is Shite with out a good GPU.. And are you sure a dual core and not just a single core with Hyper-threading? 2002 Dual cores where in servers... the desktop didnt get its first dual core till 2004/2005 with the Pentium D

If its just to play bluray movies then yes its a waste... If your going to use it as a HTPC then its awesome.. Browsing, Streaming media from a server (NO DISCS), I love having a party and having all my playlists on hand (though IPOD you can do the same).. I would admit its more of a hobby but something you do get pleasure out of when you have en extensive DVD/Bluray/Music collection.. Its not for the non-technical/geek at heart..

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrewLCD

It is a Dell P4 2.2Ghz, I think it got it around 2002. It has AGP. It has 2GB RAM. It struggles even with upscaling SD to 720P so I assume real HD would be out of the question.

hirent · 07-27-09, 01:24 PM

Quote:

It is a Dell P4 2.2Ghz, I think it got it around 2002. It has AGP. It has 2GB RAM. It struggles even with upscaling SD to 720P so I assume real HD would be out of the question.

Maybe not.
I assume that your current system does not have a HD capable video card. Hence your CPU will struggle with that.
Now, here's what you need to know. A HD capable card will offload all HD decoding tasks from the CPU to the Graphics Hardware. For this purpose there is nothing better than ATI's lineup of HD graphics.

I have these:
[1] P4 2.4 GHz HT, 2GB ram, Visiontek AGP HD2400 OC, Win Vista.
[2] P4 3.0 GHz HT, 2GB ram, Visiontek AGP HD2400, Win Vista

These systems are hooked up to a 720p (1360x768) LCD TV and Dual 20" 1680x1050 LCD monitors. I don't have a 1080p TV to test 1080p playback but 1680x1050 comes close to 1920x1080.
These HD2400 cards offload the HD processing and CPU utilization falls below 30% (or even lower) with no stuttering.

Now I agree with everyone here when they say; A stand-alone is better and cheaper than a HD HTPC.
However, since you already have a HTPC, you can experiment with HD playback if you so wish.

Note: Win XP does not support DXVA officially (people have managed to get it working, I never could).
I would suggest downloading the Windows 7 RC for free and trying it out. I installed the RC on my System [1] and it loaded the drivers for the card automatically. I took it further by installing Visiontek's Vista drivers in Win 7 and it worked. ATI's CCC works without a hitch with the AGP HD2400 in Win7.

If you wish to experiment, I will help as much as I can. You will have to spend about $50 or so.

IAM4UK · 07-27-09, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by realtight

There isn't one thing an HTPC can do with Blu-ray (other then ripping them to the hard drive which is a pain....) that is as good as a standalone. The picture quality is worse, forget full res audio unless you want to spend way too much and they simply don't work!

example of why HTPC's suck for Blu-ray, and stuff like this will happen ALL the time if you get one: I had a bunch of guests over this weekend to watch Watchmen. I downloaded all the Slysoft updates to make sure it would play and also tested it out before guests came over... (seriously, you have to test multiple times to make sure something will even play, how stupid is that?)

Sorry your experience has been bad, but everything you said would be false if applied to my experience.
-- Ripping to HDD is simple, and playing from there is simpler still (double-click an icon named for the movie, in my setup).
-- Picture quality is phenomenal. (nVidia 9600GT feeding Samsung DLP, calibrated)
-- Full uncompressed audio works flawlessly via analog outs to my receiver. My receiver does not do processing for DTS-MA nor Dolby TrueHD, so having the computer do that is a blessing that saved me a receiver upgrade.
-- I have guests over for movie nights multiple times per month, and have yet to experience a glitch.

When I upgraded to bD, it cost about 200 bucks for the Pioneer drive, versus about 3x as much for a mid-range standalone at that time. I can enthusiastically recommend bD on HTPC, in spite of the software struggles that have been part of its short history, but only if one has other uses in mind for the HTPC (DVR, DVD library, pics, music, etc.)

cybrsage · 07-27-09, 02:53 PM

ATI's 2xxx and 3xxx series do not have 8 channel PCM. They only have 2.

But if you are feeding them directly into a TV, that is all you need.

herr_howard · 07-27-09, 03:06 PM

My experience only, here...

My $500 gets me:
- Blu-Ray playback
- Regular DVD playback
- Netflix streaming
- Over the Air ATSC digital TV (viewing and recording)
- Web streaming (Hulu, You Tube, etc.)

All in one handy box. I still might use it for music recording (not MP3 ripping, recording keyboard/guitar/etc.) and other spoken recording (fledgling children's book reader, here).

I've gotten it to a point that it's almost wife- and kid-friendly at this point. A few more tweaks and it'll be right as rain, and then I can say goodbye to some of my exorbitant cable bills.

m0tion · 07-27-09, 03:32 PM

herr_howard:

What does your software stack look like?

stanglx · 07-27-09, 03:39 PM

If only Showtime and HBO had on-demand over the Net - Cable would go Bye bye..

Quote:

Originally Posted by herr_howard

My experience only, here...

My $500 gets me:
- Blu-Ray playback
- Regular DVD playback
- Netflix streaming
- Over the Air ATSC digital TV (viewing and recording)
- Web streaming (Hulu, You Tube, etc.)

All in one handy box. I still might use it for music recording (not MP3 ripping, recording keyboard/guitar/etc.) and other spoken recording (fledgling children's book reader, here).

I've gotten it to a point that it's almost wife- and kid-friendly at this point. A few more tweaks and it'll be right as rain, and then I can say goodbye to some of my exorbitant cable bills.

mslide · 07-27-09, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrewLCD

Has anyone ended up buying a stand alone player after setting up an HTPC?

Not me. I've had nothing but good experiences with my htpc and blu-rays. However, I made one big sacrifice right off the bat. I didn't even bother with the feature of playing a blu-ray directly from the disc. That just eliminates a bunch of headaches for me. Ripping everything before I play it gives me the freedom to use any movie player I want (I rip to mkv files). No menus or previews to sit though. The audio is not an issue either since I convert it to flac and don't loose any quality. I also don't have to worry about whether the movie will actually play when I want to. If I can rip it, it's going to work.

I also made the same sacrifice for DVDs. Things just run more smoothly that way. My wife is well trained about that as well. She has no problem playing a movie without me there, but she knows that if she buys a movie that either I have to be there to play it from the disc or she has to wait until I rip it.

If I wanted my wife to be able to play a Blu-Ray directly from the disc, then I'd most likely get a stand-alone. Others may have great experiences when playing back from the disc on an htpc, but I've just gotten a few too many "the tv is broken" phone calls to even bother trying anymore. Not to mention I don't like the official software blu-ray players that are out there right now. Maybe when the slysoft player comes out, I'll give it another shot.

icyfire22 · 07-27-09, 03:41 PM

Well, just to sorta summarize the above posts:

If you want to play bluray disks please do yourself a big huge favor, just get a standalone player. Sure, you can make a working HTPC but believe me, it is the biggest hassle in the world. First you have to deal with ****** drivers, then ****** software, and then various random issues that are guaranteed to pop up out of nowhere. All the people above who claim that they have a good HTPC set up probably spent months to get it that way and even still, probably have issues now and then. If you are interested in ripping and storing blurays, then of course, you will have to get into the HTPC business. But for playback only, get a standalone.

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DrewLCD Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: New York Posts: 38	HTPC as Blu-Ray player - what are the downsides? I'm looking at skipping the standalone Blu-Ray player and going straight to a more versatile HTPC setup (ZOTAC IONITX or E5200/9300 setup). What is the downside of a HTPC for Blu-Ray playback? I assume the startup is slower. Is there a compromise with the menus or extras? Has anyone ended up buying a stand alone player after setting up an HTPC?

07-27-09, 09:13 AM	#4 \| Link
IAM4UK Interloper Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Albuquerque NM Posts: 4,774	I integrated bD into my existing HTPC a couple of years ago. I get lossless audio via analog outs to my receiver, and it sounds phenomenal. The image quality via an nVidia adapter is also great. It was much cheaper to thus upgrade my HTPC than to buy a standalone player that would have comparable performance. The main downside to HTPC use for bD is that certain studios keep changing their mastering "standards" to try to render your playback impossible. Fox is worst at this. They really don't want us to be able to play bD on a computer, because they are convinced we must want to do so for nefarious reasons. __________________ A.L.a.E.o.t.U.S. Knowledge isn't Truth; it's just mindless agreement.

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rockytt AVS Special Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 1,493	HTPC = hobby = time If all you want to is play BD movies - get the standalone player. MUCH simpler/easier-you just plug it in and go. IMHO, you need other more compelling reasons to go the HPTC route-the BD playback should be ONE of the features, not THE feature.

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rockytt AVS Special Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 1,493	I think it may come down to this: If you've already got a functional HTPC and just want to add BD funtionality-fire away, as you've got little to lose and you're more aware than most what kind of time investment you're looking at. If you're wondering whether to build a HTPC or just buy a standalone - get the standalone. Much less hassles/$$$/time. Neither solution is perfect, but ONLY go the HPTC route if you truly enjoy the process of tweaking + futzing with the system. To make it a simple plug and play operation (like a standalone) can be done, but only after spending a lot of time + $$$

07-27-09, 02:53 PM	#25 \| Link
cybrsage AVS Special Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 3,293	ATI's 2xxx and 3xxx series do not have 8 channel PCM. They only have 2. But if you are feeding them directly into a TV, that is all you need. __________________ ASUS P5Q-EM G45 Mobo ATI 5670 HDMI Intel E7200 CPU 4GB RAM Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit TMT 3 and 7MC for playback HDMI to Denon 3808CI to Panasonic TH-42PZ700U - 60 Hz Paradigm 6.1 Speaker Setup

07-27-09, 09:01 AM	#2 \| Link
zryder Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Burnsville MN Posts: 308	I had a BRD drive in my HTPC for a while, and ended up with a console player.. there are a few advantages and a few downsides to using a HTPC as a blu-ray player. It depends on your reciever and how picky you are, to be honest. I was always bothered by the fact that I could not get unmolested audio off the disk and into my AVR. Now there are ways to get it, but you sure do have to pay out the nose for it, and I just didnt feel the need to spend another $200 on a sound card. But.. If you have a good video card, and If you have a xonar sound card, I belive you can have smiliar if not better preformance. I never felt like i was waiting for load times.. But, you will never find a HTPC for anywhere close to even double the cost of a console player. You had better be building a HTPC for other reasons, and BRD is a benefit, or you will drive yourself nuts.

07-27-09, 09:05 AM	#3 \| Link
ArtosDracon Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 433	To be completley honest, at this point the only real downsides are software and audio, there is minimal blu-ray player integration with VMC or 7MC if that's the way you're looking to go, if you're looking to set up Media Portal, then it can be integrated decently, to the best of my knowledge, and there are currently three options if you're ok with lossy audio and one option if you want semi-lossless audio. WinDVD, PowerDVD and TMT are the only softwares for playing bluray at the moment and TMT is currently the only one, when combined with an ASUS Xonar HDAV card(either the slim, standard or deluxe) that can offer semi-lossless audio. I say semi-lossless because as best I can tell no one has been able to 100% confirm that it will pass through 192/24 directly as read from the disk without down-converting then up-converting. IMHO unless you have stellar ears and high end audio equipment, you'll never know the difference between lossless and lossy audio. You can still send 8 channel audio over HDMI in PCM form with any compatible chipset(the 9300 is among them and a good option at that) and software, though from what I've read TMT is quite good, and a good option even if not using a HDAV card for bitstreaming(assumedly lossless) audio.

07-27-09, 10:08 AM	#7 \| Link
realtight Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 188	HTPC for Blu-ray = dog crap! Buy the standalone, save the headaches... There isn't one thing an HTPC can do with Blu-ray (other then ripping them to the hard drive which is a pain....) that is as good as a standalone. The picture quality is worse, forget full res audio unless you want to spend way too much and they simply don't work! example of why HTPC's suck for Blu-ray, and stuff like this will happen ALL the time if you get one: I had a bunch of guests over this weekend to watch Watchmen. I downloaded all the Slysoft updates to make sure it would play and also tested it out before guests came over... (seriously, you have to test multiple times to make sure something will even play, how stupid is that?) No problems at all, great! Then halfway through the movie we decided to take a small break... bad idea, I guess 5 minute break means software will self destruct and break until you restart the computer and start over... This was a random problem... but with Blu-ray, random sh!t happens all the time and it's not worth it at this point...

07-27-09, 10:25 AM	#8 \| Link
K-Spaz AVS Special Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Central Pennsylvania Posts: 1,018	I can't remember the last time I had an issue playing a BR on my system, but then, I would NEVER go download updates before inviting guests. Why not just ask for something to break. If it works, don't fix it. That said, I think the downside now is cost. HTPC when it didn't work well was a very viable solution cost wise cause the prices on standalones were perverse. Now that standalone prices are down out of the clouds, the cost of the drive and software for a pc about equals the price of the SA. Then you still need the computer and I think you need a pretty nice one at that. I wouldnt' give mine up for love-ner-money, but they are no longer a wash as far as cost goes. If the benefits outweight the effort for you, then do it. If they don't then save money and get a player that just works when you put a disk in. As an aside, standalones are by no means without troubles with playback. Just go to the BR Player forum and look around there. This isn't an exact science regardless of the hardware you have. DRM makes it all a nightmare at one time or another.

07-27-09, 10:53 AM	#9 \| Link
Jackal55 Senior Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 207	Get the stand alone player and save your sanity. I haven't had many issues myself with PowerDVD 9 Ultra. Sound levels is my problem but then again, I'm only using the TV. I can't say how things will go once I get a receiver. Playback issues have been weird. If I hit pause on the remote the volume auto mutes upon resuming play. If I try to change the volume level with the remote while a movie is playing it will stop the movie and go back the the PDVD screen. So I guess my issues are remote control related. And then there's always the occasional pop up window. "Upgrade to AVG PRO!" Stuff like that. Right now, I have 2 ways to play BR movies: PlayStation 3 and a BR optical drive. But in the end, I think I'll end up with a stand alone player since that was the plan all along. The cost of the BR drive and the full version of the software to use it properly is going to be as much as a decent stand alone player. So weigh your options well.

07-27-09, 11:12 AM	#11 \| Link
jszei Techie Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Chicago area Posts: 145	Unless you want the total package: blu-ray and/or SD DVD storage and playback, music storage and playback, picture storage and playback, home video storage and playback then don't bother. I emphasize storage because if you're going to load a dvd or cd every time you want to play it then don't bother with an HTPC. I believe it's main benefit is that you can keep all of your media on one device and play whatever you want at will.

07-27-09, 11:18 AM	#12 \| Link
Wiz33 Senior Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 447	I have a BD player in my Work and Hiome PC, plus I just got an external BD for use with a Acer Aspire Revo Atom/Ion. I have watch quite a bit of BD on my PCs. Sure my collector of disc is not particularly large but I would say that I have watch at least 30-40 disc at varies times. The only problem I have ever had is that once in a while, PowerDVD will require an update before playing a brand new disc and I would have to wait while it download and update. Usually if that happens, you're better off updating AnyDVD HD at the same time as that would probably be needed. Once that is done, I have not really have any problem with playback. I just got the BD external to try with the Revo last Friday so I have not had a lot of time with it (it's setup at the office). I did watch Quantum of Solace on it and it did stutter a bit at one point. But the Revo I'm using is an Engineering sample provide for early reviewers (since the unit have not launch in the U.S. yet). It probably have outdated firmware and driver. Other than that one stutter, the rest of the movie played fine and looks great on the Samsung 40" at the office. As for load time, it does take longer on the Revo vs my PS3 but not too bad, I would see within 30 seconds.

07-27-09, 11:44 AM	#14 \| Link
DrewLCD Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: New York Posts: 38	Thanks for the input. I would want to use it as a media server too - right now I am running XBMC on an old P4 desktop system. It is ancient but it does alright with SD DVDs, and I have full 5.1 through a TOSlink USB dongle. Now I want to get Blu-Ray and the old system will never be able to handle it. So I could get a standalone player and leave the old system for DVDs, or do a big upgrade. I will skip the upgrade if I am going to end up wanting a stand alone player anyway.

07-27-09, 12:27 PM	#18 \| Link
whiteboy714 AVS Special Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 1,228	Wow I thought a bd-rom drive was just like a dvd drive. Didnt realize you needed all this software just to hopefully get them to play.

07-27-09, 01:17 PM	#21 \| Link
umeng2002 Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 34	I was going to build a HTPC out of spare parts, but I needed about $200 in new parts still, so I just ended up getting a Panasonic BD60

07-27-09, 03:06 PM	#26 \| Link
herr_howard Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Leesburg, VA Posts: 174	My experience only, here... My $500 gets me: - Blu-Ray playback - Regular DVD playback - Netflix streaming - Over the Air ATSC digital TV (viewing and recording) - Web streaming (Hulu, You Tube, etc.) All in one handy box. I still might use it for music recording (not MP3 ripping, recording keyboard/guitar/etc.) and other spoken recording (fledgling children's book reader, here). I've gotten it to a point that it's almost wife- and kid-friendly at this point. A few more tweaks and it'll be right as rain, and then I can say goodbye to some of my exorbitant cable bills.

07-27-09, 03:32 PM	#27 \| Link
m0tion Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Columbia, SC Posts: 300	herr_howard: What does your software stack look like? __________________ The Four Chairs DIY Home Theater

07-27-09, 03:41 PM	#30 \| Link	<a href='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?n=a591f81a' target='_blank'><img src='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adview.php?what=zone:36&n=a591f81a' border='0' alt=''></a>
icyfire22 Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 43	Well, just to sorta summarize the above posts: If you want to play bluray disks please do yourself a big huge favor, just get a standalone player. Sure, you can make a working HTPC but believe me, it is the biggest hassle in the world. First you have to deal with **** drivers, then **** software, and then various random issues that are guaranteed to pop up out of nowhere. All the people above who claim that they have a good HTPC set up probably spent months to get it that way and even still, probably have issues now and then. If you are interested in ripping and storing blurays, then of course, you will have to get into the HTPC business. But for playback only, get a standalone.