[Divertimento]

Alright... Well... I have a few systems lying around and I was thinking about making a HTPC. The thing is, why?


I'm just curious because other than personal audio, divx playback and internet use, what other reasons do you have for using a HTPC?


And no, fun is not an answer. All electronics is fun


Divert


PS: know of any VGA -> Component converters for cheap?

 

[dbldare]

It's actually pretty simple really. Running your computer's DVD player and projecting it through an adequate television (or projector) will produce an amazing image!! It's much like using a top notch video processor though at about a third (even less in most cases) of the cost. You should really check out this link and that should clear some things up.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...threadid=31225



Let me know if you need any more help,

Mike

 

[Drew Eckhardt]

On a decent CRT projector 480p from a progressive player or iScan gives you a screen that's more black line than picture making it a less than viable option. Affordable scalers are out there, although they work their magic on analog inputs and don't do 48 or 72Hz to eliminate judder. There are $5K scalers which take SDI inputs, although those aren't affordable.


My HTPC plays DVDs at [email protected], does a reasonable job on other sources which aren't very important, and ran about $1K.

 

[andersbk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Divertimento Alright... Well... I have a few systems lying around and I was thinking about making a HTPC. The thing is, why? I'm just curious because other than personal audio, divx playback and internet use, what other reasons do you have for using a HTPC?

IMHO, a HTPC should be used as if it were a "consumer" device. That is, you really should build it to be best at DVD and audio playback. Why?

If you're driving a digital projector, then this is where the HTPC is better than any standalone player/scaler (again IMHO.) With the HTPC, you have complete control over the display resolution, and can therefore drive any digital projector with its native resolution. A real bonus.

Second, you have scalability. That is, when new codecs are introduced (audio or video), you just update your software. Nice.

Audio playback can be very satisfying too. (get a good audio card in there -- i.e., midiman, rme, etc.) Lots of discussions on this board regarding audio quality with a HTPC.

A music jukebox is a nice feature also -- random play all those 1200 or so CDs you just ripped

Quote:

And no, fun is not an answer. All electronics is fun

I have to say that fun is an an appropriate answer when it comes to HTPCs.


-anders.


PS. Third colorado post

PPS. Details about my new HTPC soon -- with pics of build process.

 

[Colmino]

I've made a post or two on this subject but the replies are hard to get in this forum. I'll keep this short and simple:


1) Let's say one has the option of utilizing DVI-D (eg, on a G150CL projector). How does one output this signal from a HTPC?


2) Playing DVDs. You want 48 or 96 Hz for film video, in order to maintain compliance with the standard film framerate of 24fps. But lots of DVDs have 30 (60?) fps video. This is a problem if your monitor (and hence the signal being piped out of the HTPC) is 48 or 96 Hz. The non-compliance creates sync issues. Dropped or doubled frames, for example. Is there DVD playback software that can recognize different framerates and change the HTPC's refresh rate to match? I have to assume that this obvious problem has been dealt with, or HTPCs wouldn't be as popular as they are.


3) Inputting (to the HTPC) from other sources (such as DirecTV, gaming consoles, etc.). The purpose here is to scale all of these sources to a resolution which exactly matches the panel of a given digital projector (or plasma TV), which I imagine is a common use for HTPCs. ALL of the capture cards I have heard of are only capable of pasting video directly to the desktop (or the video ram, or however it works), which is just not a very agreeable thing if one wants to manipulate the video after the fact. What is the solution here? Need some card that can accept NTSC (composite / Svideo / component) and other feeds and let one manipulate it the way they get to manipulate video from a DVD, prior to output.