Home Theatre PC
Discussion
Does anyone here have a Home Theatre PC? What is your set up?
What is the best option for putting together a PC/Projector/Xbox360 set up on a budget (taking into account things like replacement bulbs)?
What is the best software to use?
Is it possible to set up the PC to automatically rip and store the main movie from a DVD when it's inserted into the drive?
What is the best option for putting together a PC/Projector/Xbox360 set up on a budget (taking into account things like replacement bulbs)?
What is the best software to use?
Is it possible to set up the PC to automatically rip and store the main movie from a DVD when it's inserted into the drive?
I have one for music, movies and BRay/HDDVD, and I'll tackle in order:-
What is your set up?
Antec 2480 case
Asus M3N78ME board with HDMI, VGA and optical outputs (hdmi for AV amp looped to proj, vga for monitor and optical for 2 channel sound)
AMD Phenomx4 2.6
4Gb RAM 1066 corsair
Western Dig 1TB Caviar Green drive
Sony BRay drive
LG DVDR
X360 HDDVD player on the rare occasions I use it.
Belkin wireless card
Xbox remote which is compatible the MCE and also wireless kboard and touchpad
Scythe Shuriken cooler and Sflex case fans (under 20db almost silent)
The VGA monitor is used for navigating the music or while ripping etc, while the 2ch sound is put optically into my hifi dac, while the 5.1 is pumped along with the pic to the AV amp. Leaving the av amp on "no processing" is also allows the playback of the HD soundtracks via PCM.
What is the best option for putting together a PC/Projector/Xbox360 set up on a budget (taking into account things like replacement bulbs)?
you can set your 360 up with MCE and use it like a slingbox via wireless card to stream content off the HTPC into another room. I'd get a Sanyo proj (I'm on my second and always been happy with bulb life, noise and picture)
What is the best software to use?
Running XP MCE and i use the media centre for ripping in and playing music, and powerdvd for the DVD and HD stuff (approx £100).
Is it possible to set up the PC to automatically rip and store the main movie from a DVD when it's inserted into the drive?
Yes, I use anydvd which can strip the film off and rip it to the drive. It can do dvd or bray/HDDVD. Its about £60.
Hope this helps!
What is your set up?
Antec 2480 case
Asus M3N78ME board with HDMI, VGA and optical outputs (hdmi for AV amp looped to proj, vga for monitor and optical for 2 channel sound)
AMD Phenomx4 2.6
4Gb RAM 1066 corsair
Western Dig 1TB Caviar Green drive
Sony BRay drive
LG DVDR
X360 HDDVD player on the rare occasions I use it.
Belkin wireless card
Xbox remote which is compatible the MCE and also wireless kboard and touchpad
Scythe Shuriken cooler and Sflex case fans (under 20db almost silent)
The VGA monitor is used for navigating the music or while ripping etc, while the 2ch sound is put optically into my hifi dac, while the 5.1 is pumped along with the pic to the AV amp. Leaving the av amp on "no processing" is also allows the playback of the HD soundtracks via PCM.
What is the best option for putting together a PC/Projector/Xbox360 set up on a budget (taking into account things like replacement bulbs)?
you can set your 360 up with MCE and use it like a slingbox via wireless card to stream content off the HTPC into another room. I'd get a Sanyo proj (I'm on my second and always been happy with bulb life, noise and picture)
What is the best software to use?
Running XP MCE and i use the media centre for ripping in and playing music, and powerdvd for the DVD and HD stuff (approx £100).
Is it possible to set up the PC to automatically rip and store the main movie from a DVD when it's inserted into the drive?
Yes, I use anydvd which can strip the film off and rip it to the drive. It can do dvd or bray/HDDVD. Its about £60.
Hope this helps!
I used to use DVDDecryptor and DVD2one, but it struggled with discs using the ACROS copyright protection system developed by Sony.
What I like about anydvd is that as soon as a DVD is released with new security measures on it, slysoft invariably have a new update for it straight away.
It also removes things like HDCP for BRay/HDDVD which was useful for me as only my projector is HDCP compliant.
What I like about anydvd is that as soon as a DVD is released with new security measures on it, slysoft invariably have a new update for it straight away.
It also removes things like HDCP for BRay/HDDVD which was useful for me as only my projector is HDCP compliant.
I run a basic dual core Intel CPU. Couple of gigs of ram. 500gig disc. Huappage Nova TV card. ATI 26something video card and a blueray drive.
Housed in an Antec Fusion V2 case, so it looks like a power amp.
Does all our TV/Music/DVD/Photos/BRay/Downloaded content quite nicely.
My only irritation is that Vista Media Centre cannot natively handle the BlueRay, I need to use powerdvd8.
Limitation on the sound. I use Coax or SPDIF to output sound to the amp, not HDMI (as the video card doesn't have HDMI proper, it has DVI).
This means I can't have the best sound. It currently doesn't matter as my old nakamichi can only handle 5.1, and there's not a lot wrong with 5.1 to be honest.
I believe more recent motherboards and graphics cards can transfer the sound to the graphics card and thump it out over HDMI to the amp, and then to the teev.
Housed in an Antec Fusion V2 case, so it looks like a power amp.
Does all our TV/Music/DVD/Photos/BRay/Downloaded content quite nicely.
My only irritation is that Vista Media Centre cannot natively handle the BlueRay, I need to use powerdvd8.
Limitation on the sound. I use Coax or SPDIF to output sound to the amp, not HDMI (as the video card doesn't have HDMI proper, it has DVI).
This means I can't have the best sound. It currently doesn't matter as my old nakamichi can only handle 5.1, and there's not a lot wrong with 5.1 to be honest.
I believe more recent motherboards and graphics cards can transfer the sound to the graphics card and thump it out over HDMI to the amp, and then to the teev.
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