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Thread: Anyone built an HTPC machine lately?

  1. #1
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    Default Anyone built an HTPC machine lately?

    Wondering about components and problems with software!

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    I just built one with a P4, running vista prem. on it.. works great. love it.
    Click here to check out my racing sim...

    Originally posted by GQBalla
    tictactoe2004 you are scary

  3. #3
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    Ram? Vid card? Capture?? Audio?
    Don't let me hang dude! Brag about that puppy a bit!

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    3.4GHZ P4, 1GB ram, 7800GT 256 Video, 750GB HDD (1 x 250, 1 x 500). Windows Vista Prem. Cheaper capture card that I had laying around, Onboard sound.. Put it in a Memex HTPC case.. Bought a Microsoft Media Center wireless keyboard... I stream all my dvd's, avi's, mpeg's, mp3's, live tv, radio and whatever else I want to another PC in the house as well as 2 x Xbox360's. I run the HTPC at 1920x1080P on a 71 inch Samsung DLP. Downloaded some full HD movies, they look like a million bux. My only concern is the TV tuner picture quality.. it's ass compared to going straight in the TV. Vista runs good on the PC as a media center, but I wouldnt run it normally on a PC of those specs if your planning on using it for a normal PC. I love it.. its wicked.
    Click here to check out my racing sim...

    Originally posted by GQBalla
    tictactoe2004 you are scary

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    The part I'm interested in is streaming from the HDD to the 1080p tv...How's the audio for this? Are you getting 5.1
    Thru a receiver?
    Have you tried the H264 encodes?

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    Yes, all dvd movies are in the video_ts format, played through optical out on the onboard soundcard to my amp. I don't know about that partical codec, but for my movies I do get 5.1
    Click here to check out my racing sim...

    Originally posted by GQBalla
    tictactoe2004 you are scary

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    What Main board are u using?

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    just built one building a new one.

    i'm gettin the asus "somminn sommin" w/ HDMI mother board...fuckin amazing board mmade for htpcs..

    hdmi, dvi, componenet, s-video out

    spidif in out

    x1250

    all builton

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    one thing to note is that nvidia doenst have decent drivers for vista yet, u cant do overscan compensation with nvidia cards + vista....so if u think u want vista, go with an ATI card. u dont need a mainboard dedicated to being an HTPC, as u can get DVI->HDMI converters readily, and almost all motherboards have high def sound (spdif coax) output...thats all u really need to get a high def htpc setup going

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    fuck ATI they suck nowadays. The Geforce 8500 and 8600 do full hardware decoding of H.264. Drops CPU usage from 90%+ to about 25%, and the cards are cheap. They have almost no worthwhile gaming performance but if you want to watch H.265 HD-DVDs or Blu Rays, that is the card you basically need for an HTPC.
    Overscan support in Vista will come soon enough. In the mean time, just run XP.

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    im not a huge fan of media center anyways, its really only useful if u use it as a Tivo, other than that its kinda useless...doesnt run as smoothly as jus using keyboard+mouse and something like bsplayer or even windows media player to play vids...for some reason media center is always a bit sluggy compared to anything else...both vista and winxp versions

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