[ekscden]

Considering hooking up my HTPC to a new projector to play movies instead of using my dedicated Blu-Ray player. I've made exact copies of my dvd's & blu rays onto the htpc, so the question is whether windows, the graphics card, etc. will introduce any reduction in quality versus the blu-ray player. I play the videos from within Windows 7 Media Center and the quality on my 46" lcd looks as good as the originals. I'd like to figure this out before I run the wires and spend for the equipment to split the signal etc. I'm using the sandy ridge i3 processor and its integrated graphics.

 

[CountryBumkin]

This question has been asked many times. The simple answer is that it can look exactly the same as your stand-alone BD player, or it can be better, or worse, depending on what you do in the software. The key is that with a computer (HTPC) you can control how the picture looks. With the stand-alone player the manufacuturer sets it up and you can't change it. The picture is digitally the same coming off the BD disk (or rip) the way it is rendered is what you can adjust.


I think the best feature of the HTPC is that you don't have to inset a physical disk into a player. You can store all your movies on the computer and just select the one you want via a menu.


BTW, most folks agree that Windows Media Center (7MC) has a "low end" player. If you like the picture you see now through 7MC, you're going to love the picture through MPC-HC http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/ or JRiver Media Center (my favorite). http://www.jriver.com/index.html

 

[assassin]

I disagree with the low end assessment. I would love to see some side by side comparisons of wmc with the others. I bet there is maybe a 5% at most subjective difference.

 

[Mrkazador]

All media players can look the same if using the same decoders and renderers. Just a matter of setting it up correctly.