Media PC Help - Getting HD out to LCD TV & General Questions!

[Ninja]

Hey all

Im setting up a home media centre PC at my house, gonna store everything on it and have it hooked up to my 40" Samsung LCD, (1080p)

What graphics card should I be chucking in it to get the best output? something with HDMI I guess, what's best?

So If i download a HD movie, 720p or 1080 I don't want any quality lost if i play it on the TV, whant it played at the proper res,

I guess once I have the video card in I can get a blueray drive and they will all play at best quality too?

Also can anyone recommend a good 5.1 output soundcard? Must have optical out as that is how I hook things up to my surround system

Any other advice you can give on what a media centre should do/features? dont need the TV through it as I Will have Sky HD,

I doubt this is possible but is there anything/setup available that would allow me to be watching a film on it downstairs on my tv, but also at the same time, access the library and watch something else on a tv upstairs? (sent wirelessly)

Thanks in advance

Ninja

[mmace]

personally, I would go for the ATI HD cards, different manufacturers have different outputs, some have DVI some have HDMI, some have VGA. Make sure you get DVI or HDMI (it's about £4 for a DVI to HDMI converter). These cards work well with Blu-ray and other Hi-def material providing you have the correct codecs installed (don't install any codec packs if you are using media center, it will mess up your system, only install ffdshow, powerDVD Ultra and haali media splitter - nothing else should be needed)

As for 5.1 output, just buy a motherboard with that built in (optical or coax - if your amp only has 1 optical input and 1 coax then use coax and Sky+HD can use the optical), your amp will do all the work so no fancy card is needed

you can buy media center extenders (when searching for them use the US and UK spelling of center!) like the XBox 360 (there's not many available in UK so 360 is best bet), that can access your PC's media center and play the stuff, including hi-def (if it's very high bitrate video then make sure the wi-fi is fast enough or you will get stuttering)

[Ninja]

Thanks for the info mate! had completely forgot I would have my 360 in my room so can use that to browse the main media pc, genius!

Will look into the cards,

what other good media players/frontends are there? ones will cool wall of movie navigation? Windows one looks pretty cack

[mmace]

have you looked at linuxmce?
there's a link I put to videos etc in the linux section on here
I've never used it myself

or there's myVideos plug in for Windows Media Center, other than that there's other crap ones like one in the Nero suite and a few others, but Media Center's your best bet, just fiddle with the codecs until every type of file you'll be playing works in Windows Media Player then you'll know it works in media center.

will have a look into alternative media centers on Windows later this morning

[mmace]

http://elisa.fluendo.com/ - never used it and don't know anyone who has, just found it, looks like Apple's Front Row but it's open source for multiple platforms, the features list looks very good. Don't know if it uses it's own filters/codecs or what's on your PC

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ - another open source one, I used this a couple of times but found it slow and buggy, but it was a couple of years ago.

[danhodkinson]

mmace do you have a link to that myVideos plugin i cant seem to find it anywhere

[mmace]

that's because I'm stupid, it's called MyMovies!
http://www.mymovies.dk/ (page isn't loading for me right now, there must be mirrors somewhere though

[Ninja]

Right so far I have installed XBMC for PC, with the AEON Skin, it looks sweet!

Is there any difference between HDMI & DVI? as my current graphics card (8300GT i think) has DVI and i have just got an adapter to change it to HDMI, am i loosing any quality?

dont get sound out though so will need to get a card with optical output

[mmace]

DVI is exactly the same as HDMI except it's shape and the fact that HDMI carries sound, there's is absolutely no quality lost at all

[mmace]

Right so far I have installed XBMC for PC, with the AEON Skin, it looks sweet!

Is there any difference between HDMI & DVI? as my current graphics card (8300GT i think) has DVI and i have just got an adapter to change it to HDMI, am i loosing any quality?

dont get sound out though so will need to get a card with optical outputread about this on BST (may have been your post), never looked into it

just read about XBMC and Aeon (http://www.aeonproject.com/), looks REALLY good
do you know what filters/codecs XBMC uses and how good it is with Hi-def stuff?

[Ninja]

Ive done a lot of reading this weekend on it,

It used FFmpeg Codec Pack (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/)

i used it to play a few WMV HD 1080p files and they played fine, gonna try some x264 mkv files tonight

and it looks so cool! gotta get a good remote control though, any thoughts?

They only problem I have found, and nothing to do with XBMC is that I have the PC linked up to the 40" 1080p LCD, but when I change the windows resolution to 1920 x 1080 then it chops a bit of the screen off all round and nothing fits, surely it should do if my tv supports the resolution? or can I keep the res lower in windows and just tell XBMC to run in 1080p? gonna have another play about leter

[mmace]

and it looks so cool! gotta get a good remote control though, any thoughts?I use a logitech harmony 555 to control everything in my house, plus I have an infra-red receiver for the PC so will give it a try tonight

[mmace]

well, I tried XBMC with AEON last night and it kept crashing (I suppose it is in alpha stage) but it was far too slow when I try launching HD videos so I've uninstalled it all

[Ninja]

Really? Hasnt crashed once for me! and is very fast, how bizarre

Did you use the full PC install of XBMC or the version u run of a USB stick?

[mmace]

full install, I couldn't get it to open on my TV either, just my monitor

shame really because it looked excellent and it uses codecs I do now (ffdshow)

will ask around on their forums, I may have done something wrong

[Nacimroc]

Tried XBMC and kept stopping for no apparent reason aswell. Also a real pain to get remote working on it!

Tried GB-PVR, Myth TV, microsoft MCE, etc etc but always end up comming back to Mediaportal with the XBMC skin installed. Plays everything, no matter what it is! Friendliest interface, skype, msn messenger, tv epg's etc.

Just my opinion.

[vallancen]

that's because I'm stupid, it's called MyMovies!
http://www.mymovies.dk/ (page isn't loading for me right now, there must be mirrors somewhere though

If you like this plugin you will probably also find myTV one also excellent. It links to www.thetvdb.com and pulls all series and episode info etc.

http://mytv.senseitweb.com/


Regards

Nick