HTPC - Need Advice (1 Viewer)

[Todd L.]

Hello all,

I have finally decided to put in my home theater. Now I have decided to go with a HTPC to drive my theater for now. Here is what I built. Please let me know how I did.

Dell 8100 Series P4 1.3 GHz Processor
384 MB PC 600 RDRAM
120 GB 7200 RPM WD Hard Drive
16X Samsung DVD-Rom
40x12X48X CDRW
WinXP Pro
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
Radeon 9000 Atlantis Pro 128 MB
WINTV PVR 350

I also just purchased a Sanyo PLV-Z1 projector, and will connect the HTPC to my Pioneer VSX-D850S receiver.

A few questions. My projector won't be here until Tuesday the 15th of July. I am currently using WINDVD 4 but am not happy with picture quality on my monitor. It seems to stutter every once in a while. What is the recommended DVD player software for HTPC? Should I use Powerstrip or DScaler? I'm not very familiar with either of these programs so any info would help. My dedicated theater is in the process of being built and will be approx. 12' x 22'. Any recomendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Todd

 

[Scott L]

www.avsforum.com would be ideal in this situation as there are more detailed HTPC discussions/experts there. If some of the experts on this subject on the HTF would like to chime in please do!

 

[Todd L.]

Thanks Scott,

I was looking over there as well. Almost too much information available. I have got quite good at searching though. Thanks again.

 

[greg jones]

I would recommend looking into Zoomplayer . It's a wonderful and powerful software player that allows you to pick and choose your decoders for video and audio, as some players are better at video, while another is better at audio. Combine this with Powerstrip for 1:1 pixel mapping and add into the mix ffdshow for added video processing, and you have one hellava dvd player.

I would definitely do a search on the AVS Forum for the programs above. Zoomplayer seems at first to be difficult to set up, but with Blight's recent release, it's much easier to get the profiles set up the way you want them. FWIW, I would first try using the Sonic Cinemaster 1.5 video decoder with WinDVD's audio decoder along with ffdshow. Go to this thread to learn about how to set up ffdshow properly and this thread is THE thread to look at for setting up Zoomplayer with ffdshow.

Personally, I would try to stay away from reclock if you can. Unless you have a monster computer and don't mind the potential for a good amount of studdering if you don't, I'd stay with the ZP/ffdshow combo. You'll get a great deal of PQ improvement with this combo over a standard software dvd player program.

 

[Jonathan Burk]

If you just want to play back DVD's, your system should be fine. Maybe if you have some more specific questions, we could answer them for you.

The video quality on WinDVD is fine; some people like Sonic's Cineplayer, but it has a disturbing banding on red areas (chroma bug issue) that I hate. You can use Zoom Player as a front end.

Powerstrip will allow you to match the output of your HTPC with your projector, pixel for pixel. Consider it a must.

Again, there are some great threads and FAQ's on AVS, but if it's too overwhelming, post your question here and maybe we can answer it.