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Asus...helping the HTPC BD/HD DVD crowd

diogen said:
Regular DD/DTS or the lossless version of them?

The onboard Realtek 889A audio chipset does regular DD/DTS very nicely over optical digital out (onboard).
As I mentioned above it even does DTS Audio (i.e. bypasses kmixer in WinXP; Vista doesn't have kmixer).
Lossless bitstream DD/DTS seems to be HDMI only by design (regardless of motherboard/chipset).
Decoded analog out seems to be fine using latest PowerDVD.

Diogen.
Click to expand...

If it goes through the Realtek, it is regular DD or DTS. Those intel-based boards do 8ch LPCM because the SiL1392 tranceiver used for HDMI out is connected to the G33/G35 northbridge for video and to the HD-audio output on the southbridge ICH9(R) for audio.

F
 
I got an email back from Azuentech saying that their hdmi port addon for their new sound card is coming out in the first quarter of next year. That might fix things a bit. To have true HD and dts master out through an hdmi port will make huge difference in building a true htpc.
 
FTX said:
If it goes through the Realtek, it is regular DD or DTS.
Click to expand...
Digital, yes, that's what I said.
If the player is decoding the HD/BD sound track (and mixing in whatever else you are running - menus, PiP, etc.)
and outputting analog, it shouldn't be limited to regular DD/DTS...

Diogen.
 
diogen said:
HTPCs are capable of playing HD/BD for a while.
AMD 690G chipset is probably the best at the moment
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3072&p=17
but Intel is catching up fast.

I think Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H is the best implementation
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128056
It even has Realtek HD 889A sound and plays DTS Audio!

Read here what it can do as an HTPC board
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=924348

Diogen.
Click to expand...

Just an update on this. I finally got my parts last night and built this thing. (Yes, I even got the Antec HTPC silent case. WOW!) I must say, this is one impressive machine. I dropped an X2 4200+ in it with 2 gigs of DDR2 800 ram. Man it's nice. Handles HD DVD's with ease. If anyone's looking to build a CHEAP HTPC, I would have to say this is the way to go. Thanks again for the information. I'm truly pleased.
 
The GMA 3100 doesn't have DirectX 10. I haven't really seen a machine without DX10 play H.264 flawlessly smooth for the entire length of a movie. Inevitably, something spikes the CPU along the way and you get some jitter.

I think it will be a year or so before I'm willing to make the swtich to onboard graphics for HTPC. Need go through a couple more generations of update...
 
Well, after a few days of messing around with my new HTPC, and losing a hard drive in the process, I decided that the built in video was only "sufficient" for HD DVD playback. On Transformers the CPU spiked in several places causing it to stutter. This may be fine for some people but I demand flawless playback. As a result, I ended up snagging(which was EXTREMELY difficult to do might I add! :)) one of the new XFX 8800 GT cards. It's coming today so we'll see how well that does. My friend just got his 2 days ago and he said on games it's amazing for the price we paid. I've read that the VP2 processor in it will keep HD DVD and Blu-ray playback to under 20% cpu utilization. I can totally live with that. Anyway, this doubles the price of my HTPC, but, I'm still happy I did it.
 
SamuriHL said:
Well, after a few days of messing around with my new HTPC, and losing a hard drive in the process, I decided that the built in video was only "sufficient" for HD DVD playback. On Transformers the CPU spiked in several places causing it to stutter. This may be fine for some people but I demand flawless playback. As a result, I ended up snagging(which was EXTREMELY difficult to do might I add! :)) one of the new XFX 8800 GT cards. It's coming today so we'll see how well that does. My friend just got his 2 days ago and he said on games it's amazing for the price we paid. I've read that the VP2 processor in it will keep HD DVD and Blu-ray playback to under 20% cpu utilization. I can totally live with that. Anyway, this doubles the price of my HTPC, but, I'm still happy I did it.
Click to expand...

Nice cards this is the first that I have heard of PCI Express 2.0.
 
Unfortunately very few boards currently support PCI-e 2.0. My new board does not, however, I don't think it's going to make any difference to me. Especially for what I plan on mainly doing with that machine. It's built to be a silent HTPC and with this new chip design, the G92 processor is built on a .65nm process which uses much less power and far less heat. The fan on this particular card is near silent, and in my case I'm pretty sure it won't be heard. IMO, this is going to be the best HTPC I've ever built. The only downside to not using the built in video is that I had to get a DVI->HDMI adapter for the new card. No biggie, but, it was an added expense. When all is said and done, I still managed to build this machine for just over 600 bucks. Given what it's capable of, it's VERY much worth it IMO.
 
SamuriHL said:
Unfortunately very few boards currently support PCI-e 2.0. My new board does not, however, I don't think it's going to make any difference to me. Especially for what I plan on mainly doing with that machine. It's built to be a silent HTPC and with this new chip design, the G92 processor is built on a .65nm process which uses much less power and far less heat. The fan on this particular card is near silent, and in my case I'm pretty sure it won't be heard. IMO, this is going to be the best HTPC I've ever built. The only downside to not using the built in video is that I had to get a DVI->HDMI adapter for the new card. No biggie, but, it was an added expense. When all is said and done, I still managed to build this machine for just over 600 bucks. Given what it's capable of, it's VERY much worth it IMO.
Click to expand...

Wow I spent that much just on my CPU and Mobo alone. I spent about a grand but that was with all new stuff besides one ODD. If all goes well that will cost me another 700.00 just for the HD/BD drives.
 
I haven't added a HD DVD/BD drive yet. That'll be another 300 bucks just for a reader that does both. They're not in stock and I can live without it for now anyway so that'll wait for the moment. But yea, I did quite well considering I got a new case, mobo, cpu, 2 gigs of memory, and the video card for just over 600 bucks.
 
SamuriHL said:
On Transformers the CPU spiked in several places causing it to stutter.
Click to expand...
How did you play it?
From the hard drive AACS-free? Using what player?

It worked for me with a 6000+ X2 and PDVD 3104.
I also know it works with a 5000+ X2 Brisbane.

Diogen.
 
diogen said:
How did you play it?
From the hard drive AACS-free? Using what player?

It worked for me with a 6000+ X2 and PDVD 3104.
I also know it works with a 5000+ X2 Brisbane.

Diogen.
Click to expand...

I was keeping the price down so I got a much cheaper CPU. It's only a 4200+ X2. I'm using PDVD 3104 direct off the HD DVD using the Xbox 360's HD DVD drive. It wasn't HORRIBLE by any means, but, if I tried chapter skipping at all it'd take about 5-10 seconds to "catch up" and it left an effect that was highly annoying. I'm sure it'd be fine for a lot of people, but, for me I demand perfection from my HTPC solutions. A dedicated GPU is certainly not a bad thing to have. :D Especially considering that this particular GPU will allow me to play UT3 with my friend. So, it's not all bad. I'm actually extremely happy with the machine. MPEG2->Divx conversion is mind blowingly fast on that thing compared to my Athlon XP 2500+ machine that it replaced. I need to rip a couple images to the hard drive and see how those play back, but, after tonight it won't matter how I choose to play them as the machine will be plenty fast enough.
 
One final update on my new HTPC. I added the 8800 GT card and I have to say it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The picture quality is beyond incredible. CPU utilization never goes above 50% on this machine and I'm pushing it pretty hard. It looks much better than the 360...way way more details are present. I'm just truly blown away. This HTPC is the best machine I've ever built. I couldn't be happier with it.
 
Nice article. That Low End I system is more or less what I built, but, after reading that it would seem the issues I had with playback are because I chose a lower cost CPU. That's ok, I'm ecstatic with what I have now. It's an amazing machine.
 
SamuriHL said:
One final update on my new HTPC. I added the 8800 GT card and I have to say it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The picture quality is beyond incredible. CPU utilization never goes above 50% on this machine and I'm pushing it pretty hard.
Click to expand...

Just wondering if you have your Nvidia PureVideo function on your video card working. I just purchaced a 8600 GT a few weeks ago from recommendations by members of this forum. After installation I found the the PureVideo function does not work out of the box. I had to download a PureVideo driver from Nvidia from their website under a 30 day free trial. After installing the drivers , the PureVideo fuction was enabled. I could tell because before I had 45-80% CPU usage when playing HD DVD and Current Blu Ray discs from my HD . After installing the PureVideo drivers my CPU usage went down to 10-25% when playing the same discs. I also found that after the 30 day trial you are asked to pay for the PureVideo function if you want to continue using it. They have 3 packages to choose from, but you only need the least expensive one which sells for $19.95. The more expensive ones have options for DTS & Dolby Digital audio software. We already get this audio from PowerDVD.
BTW. I think you may have recommended the 8600 video card to me in another post here a few weeks ago.
 
Nova935 said:
Just wondering if you have your Nvidia PureVideo function on your video card working. I just purchaced a 8600 GT a few weeks ago from recommendations by members of this forum. After installation I found the the PureVideo function does not work out of the box. I had to download a PureVideo driver from Nvidia from their website under a 30 day free trial. After installing the drivers , the PureVideo fuction was enabled. I could tell because before I had 45-80% CPU usage when playing HD DVD and Current Blu Ray discs from my HD . After installing the PureVideo drivers my CPU usage went down to 10-25% when playing the same discs. I also found that after the 30 day trial you are asked to pay for the PureVideo function if you want to continue using it. They have 3 packages to choose from, but you only need the least expensive one which sells for $19.95. The more expensive ones have options for DTS & Dolby Digital audio software. We already get this audio from PowerDVD.
Click to expand...

Fascinating. I may have to try out the PureVideo thing. PowerDVD claims it's using PureVideo but I've not installed anything. Thanks for the tip. Sucks that we have to pay for it. Unless it's the same version that I bought before. I'll have to check.

BTW. I think you may have recommended the 8600 video card to me in another post here a few weeks ago.
Click to expand...

I don't think it was me. I wouldn't have recommended an nvidia card for video before the 8800 GT. But, now that I have one I would most definitely recommend any Nvidia card that has the VP2 video processor.
 
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