Audiophile HTPC (1 Viewer)

[Scott L]

Sami- the best part about an HTPC is it can scale your DVDs to the native res of your FPTV using some pretty advanced algorithms. Download FFDSHOW, check Raw Video for codecs, Resize & aspect, choose either Lanczos or Spline (depending how fast your CPU is), and configure from there.

Once you get the hang of it try sharpening and denoising for a better "3D" effect and truer image.

Ok found a decent guide with screenshots: Link

Mouse over the Yoda pic to see what your HTPC may be capable of.

 

[Sami Kallio]

The problem is I want the HTPC to send only the signal of what's on the DVD. If it is anamorphic, with CRT and standalone only anamorphic pixels will be displayed. Can HTPC do this, cut out the extra pixels from that 720x480 when I play DVD's?

With Pan and Scan I was able to fill the whole 720x480 but I wouldn't want to do this, I want the picture that was put on the DVD. On some DVD's the stripes aren't black but medium gray. I was going to cut that part of the display with the projector settings but reliased it would also cut part of my computer screen. That wouldn't be good as the main purpose for this HTPC is to play racing games on the projector, and probably down the line use it as a jukebox with uncompressed music files.

 

[JohanD]

Just purchased a Chaintech AV-710 from newegg. It is down to $23! Going to give it a try.. will let you know how it goes.

 

[Jake Garian]

StephenL -

I have become quite taken by J River and am planning my HTPC build at this point. Thanks for the info on the Chaintech card. In your first post you gave the settings for ASIO4ALL and J River (back when reflashing was required). Now with the new Envy drivers do any of the settings change, especially the Audio Device setting in ASIO4ALL?

Thanks again,

Jake

 

[StephenL]

ASIO4ALL Control Panel > Audio Device: Envy Family Audio (WDM). I think I have everything else at default except Disable Input is checked. This reduces (but doesn't entirely eliminate) clicks or brief bursts of music when using the next track or previous track buttons while a song is playing. That's the only playback problem I've noticed with J River Media Center, ASIO and the Chaintech AV-710.

 

[Sami Kallio]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but anyone have an opinion about jitter? Looks like the bit-perfect transport doesn't matter if we don't get jitter free signal...

 

[Max Leung]

Jitter - I don't even know how to measure it! Isn't there a buffer on both ends of the digital audio connection that would eliminate jitter? Assuming the buffer is large enough if/when your DVD drive or PC momentarily loses the data stream that is...

 

[Sami Kallio]

The problem is that the stream is realtime.

 

[JohanD]

I had some jitter in mine..

I downloaded a utility called Reclock. It completely fixed the jitter for me.
http://ogo.nerim.net/reclockfilter


(edit: BTW I am using chaintech AV-710 with optical digital output to receiver)

 

[StephenL]

"This really only affects sound of the signal going directly to a DAC. If you're running into a computer, the computer is effectively going to be reclocking everything. Same applies also to CD-recoders, DAT tape decs and similar devices. Even modern DACs have typically a small buffer and reclocking circuitry, so the jitter is not so big problem nowadays that it used to be."
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html

"Jitter is way overplayed as an audio issue.As long as you are in thedigital domain, jitter is utterly irrelevant. It is only at themoment of conversion to/from the analog domain that jitter isrelevant. If you have a situation where the jitter isdemonstrably worse with an optical connection, the fault liesnot with the optical connection; it's in the D/A converteritself, and is the result of poor clock design in the D/Aconverter."
http://www.epanorama.net/links/audiodigital.html#spdif

 

[Jake Garian]

I'm resurrecting my old thread just so say thanks to StephenL. I've just finished ripping all 800+ of my CDs into J River Media Center via secure mode (it took me 9 months - I have two little ones at home!) and I have bit-perfect playback (verified with DTS encoded WAV files) via the Chaintech 710 and ASIO4ALL. I love it!

I had a problem with popping with an older version of ASIO4ALL, but the new version 2.6 fixed that and everything works great now - no artifacts at all.

Thanks StephenL for the info and helping me come up to speed on ASIO. If you still have some artifacts with your setup give the latest ASIO4ALL a try.

Jake

 

[Scott L]

Congrats! What format did you rip to?

 

[Jake Garian]

Thanks Scott - I used the Monkey's Audio (.ape) format. Matt from J River is the author of the .ape format and therefore it is tightly integrated into Media Center and works well. I would like more 3rd party support, but it's not a big issue to me - I'll just have MC transcode to a lossy format when downloading to a portable player.

I really like MC because it had everything I wanted all in one: a 'secure' mode ripper (comparable in quality to EAC), support for lossless compression, and ASIO playback. I am big on bit-perfect ripping and playback - I didn't want to loose any quality by using my PC as a media server. In direct comparisons to my DVD/CD player I have succeeded and I love having all my music in a system with such powerful organizing features.

Happy J River MC lossless user here!

Jake

 

[StephenL]

This year I made some changes to my audio setup. I decided to replace the desktop computer in the living room with a notebook computer. I bought an Apple iBook and an Airport Express Wi-Fi device with audio output. The iBook is the ultimate remote control for my music library because I can use it from my listening chair.

I used iTunes on the PC to convert my music library from WMA Lossless to Apple Lossless. My 90GB library is too large for the iBook, so the music files are stored on a PC in the bedroom (my music server).

My Airport Express with Airtunes is configured as a wireless access point for the iBook. The Airport Express is connected to my A/V receiver by optical cable and to a Linksys Ethernet router by Cat 5e cable. (Airport Express can be used as a router if all network clients are Wi-Fi capable.)

The Apple Lossless audio files are streamed from my music server via the Linksys router, then via Airport Express to my iBook where they are played with iTunes, then streamed back to the Airport Express and out via SPDIF optical cable to my A/V receiver. Output is bit-perfect, verified by DTS audio CD playback.

Some users have reported problems with music stopping and starting when using Airport Express, possibly due to Wi-Fi interference or other network problems. I've had no such trouble. The Airport Express analog audio output is susceptible to electrical noise; I suggest using the optical output.

Airport Express overview
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

Airtunes
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/airtunes.html

Airport Express review in Stereophile Magazine
http://stereophile.com/accessoryreviews/505apple/