[kr8zy]

Having got fed up with the boxee box, I'm planning on setting up a server running Plex and I wondered what CPU/GPU people would recommend for a Windows client HTPC for *best* picture quality. It would be used to play dvd and blu-ray rips (movies and tv shows). I'm in the UK (PAL dvds) if that makes any difference.


I understand that with Plex I can't use reclock. I've seen Renethx suggest AMD will get as close as possible to 23.976 for films (I'm assuming Plex supports 23.976). If I can tweak Intel/Nvidia to get as close to 23.976 such that there will be no judder in, say, 3 hours, will this not be good enough? Are there any other reasons to go for AMD/Intel/Nvidia?


I also understand Plex is forked from XBMC. Renethx's post here (post #6) seems to suggest that I would want Intel for the best scaling but AMD or Nvidia for the best deinterlacing. Help?


Thanks in advance

 

[pelenor]

I have a quad core AMD processor with an Nvidia 430 video card in my HTPC running windows 7 Ultimate. I have My Movies for my collection and have also installed Plex to stream my content to the Roku box and my Iphone. The "best" video presentation is all subjective. For quality, my set up streams my Blue Ray MKV rips just fine, i.e. look and sound great, to the Roku and to my Iphone 5.Not sure if it is 23.976 FPS but it still looks great. In all honesty, you can't go wrong with either set up but for HD content, you definitely want to have at the minimum a dual core CPU. I use Nvidia because it does 3d with my projector and I never could get used to the AMD/ATI Radeon driver situation, meaning I was never sure if the correct driver was updated. I just found Nvidia to be easier to work with and the picture quality is awesome. When you stream with Plex, it will downgrade the picture so there is no stutter. But I am able to stream 720p to my Roku. Hope this helps.