Greetings all--
Just finished assembling my 1st HTPC & have been using
it for about a month. Overall one of best home entertain-
ment moves ever, but had a few kinks that someone might
be able to help with.
First, quick specifications:
- CPU/ Intel Core2 Duo 6420 Conroe 2.13 GHz
- Passive CPU Cooler/ Silverstone NT06-LITE
- MBoard/ Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
- Case/ Antec Veris Fusion Black 430
- Video Card/ Gigabyte GV-NX86T256H GF8600GT
- Sound/ HT OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1
- TV/ Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800
- LG Blu-Ray +HD DVD combo drive
- HD/ Hitachi Deskstar 1TB drive
- OS/ Windows MCE 2005
On the whole, the setup works great (e.g., no lockups or
crashes so far). But I have noticed a few issues...
1. I use CloneDVD to store movies (as a directory) on my
HD. Although I have both TheaterTek and PowerDVD
Ultra, I play DVD's using the MCE player b/c it's the only
one that integrates the Win MCE remote fully; any
suggestions?
2. Movie Playback & sound- the claro card lets you select
a number of sound ouputs over SPDI/F cable [Dolby,
DTS, etc.]. Unfortunately, this often ends up over-
processed w/ echoes in voices; is there a way in the
Claro driver to disable ALL processing, and just let my
receiver do the decoding? I can only get "acceptable"
results now by disabling all processing on my receiver.
3. Audio loudness & level- my DVD volume seems to be
way softer than, say, MP3's or just the Windows
desktop (when I close MCE altogether); is there some
setting where I could make this more uniform so I don't
have to make a HUGE adjustment when going from
playing DVD's to Music, etc.?
4. Video Card- passive cooling, idles ~74C under "normal"
conditions (just windows or playing movie). Jumps to
95C when playing a 3D game (e.g., UT3); this seems a
bit extreme to me, although, I've never had a passively
cooled video card (*well, since the VGA days anyway...)
BTW, the passive cooling on the CPU works great.
5. I use standalone PowerDVD Ultra (ie, Win MCE closed)
to play Blu-Ray titles, although I occasionally get a bit
of "skipping"; is there some driver/setting I can manip-
ulate to fix this?
Thanks for taking time to read this post & I appreciate any
input! :-)
Just finished assembling my 1st HTPC & have been using
it for about a month. Overall one of best home entertain-
ment moves ever, but had a few kinks that someone might
be able to help with.
First, quick specifications:
- CPU/ Intel Core2 Duo 6420 Conroe 2.13 GHz
- Passive CPU Cooler/ Silverstone NT06-LITE
- MBoard/ Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
- Case/ Antec Veris Fusion Black 430
- Video Card/ Gigabyte GV-NX86T256H GF8600GT
- Sound/ HT OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1
- TV/ Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800
- LG Blu-Ray +HD DVD combo drive
- HD/ Hitachi Deskstar 1TB drive
- OS/ Windows MCE 2005
On the whole, the setup works great (e.g., no lockups or
crashes so far). But I have noticed a few issues...
1. I use CloneDVD to store movies (as a directory) on my
HD. Although I have both TheaterTek and PowerDVD
Ultra, I play DVD's using the MCE player b/c it's the only
one that integrates the Win MCE remote fully; any
suggestions?
2. Movie Playback & sound- the claro card lets you select
a number of sound ouputs over SPDI/F cable [Dolby,
DTS, etc.]. Unfortunately, this often ends up over-
processed w/ echoes in voices; is there a way in the
Claro driver to disable ALL processing, and just let my
receiver do the decoding? I can only get "acceptable"
results now by disabling all processing on my receiver.
3. Audio loudness & level- my DVD volume seems to be
way softer than, say, MP3's or just the Windows
desktop (when I close MCE altogether); is there some
setting where I could make this more uniform so I don't
have to make a HUGE adjustment when going from
playing DVD's to Music, etc.?
4. Video Card- passive cooling, idles ~74C under "normal"
conditions (just windows or playing movie). Jumps to
95C when playing a 3D game (e.g., UT3); this seems a
bit extreme to me, although, I've never had a passively
cooled video card (*well, since the VGA days anyway...)
BTW, the passive cooling on the CPU works great.
5. I use standalone PowerDVD Ultra (ie, Win MCE closed)
to play Blu-Ray titles, although I occasionally get a bit
of "skipping"; is there some driver/setting I can manip-
ulate to fix this?
Thanks for taking time to read this post & I appreciate any
input! :-)
